REVIEWS — THE BALLADS OF SCOTLAND. 311 



" The brim Battil of the Harlaw," even thougli it should prolong 

 the period during -which the forger of antiques may ply his in- 

 genious frauds. Amid all the richness of Scottish traditionary 

 song, extending from the thirteenth to the eighteenth century, it 

 has frequently surprised us that so little survives of the genuine 

 minstrelsy begot by the tragic incidents of Flodden's fatal field. 

 It is not, indeed, the custom of any nation to celebrate its defeats 

 in song; but we have good evidence that the tragic romance, whicb 

 gathers around the close of the remarkable reign of James IV., was 

 not all reserved for the the appreciation of "the last Minstrel." 

 Professor Aytoun gives us Johnson's spirited version of the survi- 

 ving fragment of " The Souters of Selkirli," believed to embody 

 the popular anathema on Lord Hume's pusillanimity, or treachery, 

 to which the Scottish defeat was ascribed on the Northern Border : 



Up "wi' the souters o' Selkirk, 



And down wi' the fazavt Lord Hume ! 

 But up wi' ilka braw callant 



That sews the single-soled shoon ; 

 And up wi' the lads o' the Forest, 



That ne'er to the Southron wad yield ; 

 But deil seoup o' Hume and his menzie, 



That stude sae abiegh ou the field ! 



Then we have "The Flowers of the Forest," with its ancient tune and 

 fragmentary lines, and the simple, affecting image surviving in its 

 stray couplet : 



" I ride single on my saddle, 

 For the flowers of the forest are a' wede away." 



Sir "Walter Scott tells us, in the notes appended to it in his " Mins- 

 trelsy :" — " The following well-known and beautiful stanzas were 

 composed many years ago, by a lady of family in Eoxburghshire. 

 The manner of the ancient Minstrels is so happily imitated, that it 

 required the most positive evidence to convince the Editor that the 

 song was of modern date." The lady was Miss Jane Elliot, the 

 daughter of Sir Gilbert Elliot, of Minto, who died in 1766, Lord 

 Justice-Clerk of Scotland. Bat did Miss Jane Elliot really write 

 this beautiful song, so admirably re-producing the spirit and feeling 

 of the old Minstrels, and so little in unison with the verse of the 

 eighteenth century, about the middle of which she is affirmed to 

 have produced it ? We confess we have long had our doubts. Mr. 



