536 
takes a retrospective view of the causes 
which led to the civil war ; compares the 
violent but able tyranny of Henry VIII. 
in England, with the artful though timid 
policy of James I.,-and with the preci- 
pitate bigotry of Charles I. in Scotland ; 
and rapidly traces the progress of the 
contest of prejudice between king and 
people, from the first solemn league and 
covenant to the renewal of hostilities 
after the treaty of Rippon. The next 
ballad, “ on the lattle of Philiphaugh,” 
gives him occasion to continue his re- 
cital through the brilliant campaign of 
Montrose, whose career of victory was 
arrested by the surprise and rout of his 
army at this place, the site of which is 
correctly. and elegantly described. A 
sort of rude elegy on the Gallant Grahams 
is prefaced by an account of the subse- 
quent defeats of the royalists, and of the 
death of Montrose; and lastly, the 
battle of Loudon-hill, and the battle of 
Bothwell-bridge, the first describing a 
successful effort, and the latter the 
total discomfiture of the Cameronians, 
serve as avehicle for the history of the 
persecution by which Charles IT. after 
his restoration, again excited the flames 
of fanaticism. 
* The second class, consisting of ro- 
mantic ballads, contains only ten pieces, 
of which, though all deserve to be res- 
cued from oblivion, no more than two 
appear to us to possess much merit, viz. 
Young Benjie and the twa Corbies ; and of 
the latter of these we cannot help doubt- 
ing the antiquity. The editor tells us. 
that he received it from a friend, * as 
written down, from tradition, by a lady.” 
“Ttis a singular circumstance, (conti- 
nues he) that it should coincide, so very 
nearly, with the ancient dirge called 
the three ravens, published by Mr. Ritson ; 
and that at the same time there should 
exist such a difference as to make the 
one appear rather a counterpart than 
copy of the other.” Now it appears to 
us that, so far as the two pieces resemble 
éach‘other at all, the coincidence is so 
strong as to warrant our belief that the 
one is a copy, or perhaps a recollection 
of the other. The last stanza of Mr. 
Scott’s copy, which is much more sub- 
lime than Mr. Ritson’s, has so little to do 
with hawks, or lemans, or hounds, or ravens, 
that it may have been supplied from any 
other romantic ballad ; and the preced- 
ing stanza, in which a hungry raven 
descants on the white neck-bone, the 
bonny blue eyes, and the volden locks of a 
‘ -POETRY. 
murdered knight, is very far removed 
from the simplicity of Mr. Ritson’s dirge, 
which is unquestionably ancient. The 
third stanza is, indeed, a counterpart to 
the fifth and sixth couplet of what we 
suppose to be the original ; but it strikes 
us only as an injudicious alteration. 
The poetical strength of the present 
volume lies in its modern pieces, in imi- 
tation of the ancient ballad ; on these, 
therefore, we shall bring forward a few 
remarks. For the poet of a polished 
age to imitate the rude minstrel of a bar- 
barous one, is a task equally degracing 
and difficult—their faults he will not, 
their beauties he cannot, counterfeit. It 
is, perhaps, only by starting forth in the 
nakedness of the savage, that his unfet- 
tered strength and wild agility can be 
emulated; but shall the civilized man 
so transgress his accustomed decurums ? 
What, then, can or ought a modern 
ballad, founded on an old tradition, to 
be? Vainly did we search for a solution 
of this question in “ the Mermaid” of 
Mr. Leyden, which is disgraced by 
tawdry affectation purely modern; and 
in the following line, ** ‘The moon-beams 
crisp the curlimg surge,” by nonsense, 
as far as we know, purely original. The 
flowery nothingness of Miss Seward’s 
“ Rich auld Willie’s Farewell,” satisfied 
us as little, notwithstanding its liberal 
sprinkling of Scottish words. . Mr. 
Lewis’s sir Agilthorn we found pos- 
sessed of much poetical and sentimental 
beauty, but deficient in costume, in some- 
thing that might give “a local habita- 
tion,” and a date, to the personages of 
the tale The story has likewise the im- 
portant failing of being much more trite 
in fiction than in real life. «* Ellandonan 
Castle,” a tale founded on authentic 
history, and told with nature and spirit, 
threw some light on the object of our 
search ; but it was in “ Cadyow Castle,” 
the work, as we suppose, of our poetical 
editor himself, that we fqund the com- 
plete answer to our ehquiries. The sub- 
ject of this ballad, (the murder of the 
Regent Murray, by Hamilton of Both- 
wellhaugh) a striking and well known 
fact, of a date sufficiently modern to be 
heard with interest, affords an excellent 
ground-work for the decorations of the 
bard. The language is nervous and 
spirited—it is pure English, and equally 
free from obsolete vulgarism and mo- 
dern nicety.. The sentiments preserve 
the same judicious medium between the 
coarseness of past ages and refinements 
