REVIEWS THE BALLADS OF SCOTLAND. 295 



acid, and if the sulphide be converted into oxide, by means of potassa 



and oxide of bismuth, there would then be no difficulty in applying the 



copper test. Its presence in organic matter containing arsenic would 



of course prevent the application of Reinsch's process, but would in no 



way interfere with the other. 



H. 0. 



2%e Ballads of Scotland. Edited by William Edmonstoune Aytoun, 

 D.C.L. Edinburgh : Wm. Blackwood & Sons. 1858. 



The author of the '' Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers," has here 

 devoted himself to a task alike honorable and ambitious ; for it is 

 none other than to arrest the fleeting echos of tradition, and sift out 

 from the labours of previous collectors and editors a standard and 

 enduring text of the ballad literature of his native land. And no 

 national minstrelsy is more worthy of such devotion. The songs of 

 the Cid, and the metrical romances of Spain's Moorish era, have long 

 been set forth in a recognized and standard text. Grermany has her 

 " Volkslieder der Deutschen ;" Denmark her " Danske Viser ;" 

 Sweden her "Svenska Fornsanger." Nor is Scotland without her 

 Song and Ballad Literature : from the " Miscellany " and " Ever- 

 green" of Allan E.amsay, to the "Minstrelsy" of Scott, the 

 "Ballads" and "Songs" of Chambers, and all the varied contribu- 

 tions of Eitson, Herd, Jamieson, Laing, Motherwell, and a host of 

 minor workers in the same popular field of research. Not only is 

 this the case, but so popular have been those ballads in earlier times, 

 that — as we have English and Scottish versions of Border songs 

 and ballads adapted to the prejudices and sympathies of rival na- 

 tionalities, as where, in " The Flowers of the Forest," 



" The English by guile for ance wan the day," — 



so also we have traditional variations of the more popular ballads, 

 adapted to special sympathies, localities, and personal characters, in 

 the JSorth, the Lothians, Ayrshire, and the Border dales. To say 

 that one version is truer or more correct than another is now impos- 

 sible. Each indeed has a local truth of its own ; and it is only when, 

 in the patch-work process of editorial collation, a jumble is made of 

 all the diverse local variations of a favoiarite ballad, — and that, too, 



