314 REVIEWS — THE BALLADS OP SCOTLAND. 



incline to the belief that, if Jane Elliot had any hand in it, it was 

 merely that of a transcriber from tradition, retouching a genuine 

 ancient lyric orally preserved through successive generations, and 

 giving it permanent currency in the fine form now ftxmiliar to all. 

 It is curious, nevertheless, how many of our best modern Scottish 

 songs and ballads are due to Scotland's daughters. To Lady Nairne 

 we owe that exquisitely tender song, " The Land of the Leal," and 

 the humourous and piquant "Laird o' Cockpen" and "John Tod;" 

 while Lady Anne Barnard — one of the Lindsays, — gave ns " Auld 

 E<obin Gray ;" and Lady Grisel Baillie, daughter of the first Earl 

 of Marchmont, wrote " Were nae my heart light I wad die." A 

 melancholy interest has been added to the genuine mixture of hu- 

 mour and pathos in this fine song, from the application by Burns of 

 one of its verses to his own condition, when, neglected by his 

 country, his sun was setting ere it was noon. Besides these, such 

 names as Miss Jenny G-raham, Miss Blamire, Mrs. Grant, of Car- 

 ron, Miss Cranston, — afterwards the wife of Professor Dugald 

 Stewart, — with others of lesser note, occur among the writers of 

 some of the best Scottish songs or ballads ; not to mention Burns' s 

 Jean Glover, the authoress of " Ower the muir amang the heather;" 

 and, according to the poet : a thief, and something worse ! Mrs. 

 Catharine Cockburn, — already referred to as the authoress of the later 

 version of " The Elowers of the Eorest," — furnished other contribu- 

 tions to Scottish song, among which is the clever Jacobite version 

 of " Clout the Caldron :" 



Hae ye ony laws to mend ? 

 Or hae ye ony grievance ? 



The Scottish poetesses, indeed, excel in humorous pieces, though 

 also — as some of the above-named productions prove, — no less suc- 

 cessful in the more congenial vein of tenderest pathos. 



The following fragment of a ballad, relating to one of the old 

 Elodden traditions, has already been printed in the " Memorials of 

 Edinburgh," with a note stating its discovery in an interleaved copy 

 of " Dalrymple's E-emarks on the History of Scotland." "We well 

 remember, on showing the original to the late Charles Kirkpatrick 

 Sharpe, his pouncing on the " shrowd " of the third stanza as an 

 anachronism, betraying a modern hand, — at least in its latest trans- 

 •criber. Imperfect and disconnected as it is, it seems worth preser- 



