296 The Ballad of Kinmont Willie. 



its genuineness ; and such recent authorities as Professor Child, 

 Mr William Macmath, and Mr Andrew Lang have accepted it as 

 substantially old. If Scott had the gift claimed for him by 

 Colonel EUiot, it is strange that his acknowledged compositions 

 in the ballad form so unmistakably betray the touch of the modem 

 writer. "The Eve of St. John," " Cadyow Castle," and the 

 fragment about " Red Harlaw " in " The Antiquary " have great 

 poetical merit, but no one who has studied ballad literature could 

 mistake them for ancient popular lays. "Kinmont Willie," on 

 the other hand, appears to be quite in the traditional vein. " It 

 has," writes my friend Mr Macmath, "the undoubted ring of an 

 old ballad, patched up and added to by a modern hand." That 

 " Kinmont Willie " has additions by Scott I do nof doubt. The 

 question of vital importance, however, is not whether the ballad 

 contains lines by the great modern minstrel, but whether it 

 contains lines which could not have been written by him. Mr 

 Andrew Lang says he would "stake a large sum" that Scott 

 never wrote the fifteenth stanza of the ballad — 



" He has call'd him forty Marchmen bauld, 

 I trow they were of his ain name. 

 Except Sir Gilbert Elliot, called 



The Laird of Stobs, I mean the same." 



I should be inclined to add that Scott was incapable of 

 producing such lines as the following : — 



" The first o' men that we met wi', 



Whae sould it be but fause Salkelde?" 



" Had there not been peace between our lands. 

 Upon the other side thu hadst gaed ! ' ' 



Are not these in all probability some of the "rude strains " of 

 an eaijy "Kinmont Willie?" 



In the account of the advance to Carlisle given in the 

 ballad there is a curious historical mistake which cannot be due 

 to Scott. We are told that "Fause Salkelde" was slain by 

 Dickie of Dryhope, a real person — 



" Why trespass ye on the English side ? 



Row-footed out-laws, stand!" quo' he — 

 The never a word had Dickie to say, 



Sae he thrust the lance through his fause bodie." 



