REVIEWS— ROMANTIC SCOTTISH BALLADS. 475 



Sir Charlea Halket of Pitfirran, Baronet, who was raised to that honour by Charlea 

 II., and took an active part, as a member of the Convention of 1689, in setting the 

 crown upon William and Mary. Her eldest sister, Janet, marrying Sir Peter 

 Wedderburn of Gosford, was the progenitress of the subsequent Halkets, baronets, 

 of Pitfirran, her son being Sir Peter Halket, colonel of the 44th regiment of foot, 

 who died in General Braddock's unfortunate conflict at Monongahela in 1*755. A 

 younger sister married Sir John Hope Bruce of Kinross, baronet, who died, one of 

 the oldest lieutenant-generals in the British service, in 1766. Elizabeth, the au- 

 thoress of Hardyknute, born on the 15th of April 167*7, became, in June 1696, the 

 wife of Sir Henry Wardlaw of Pitreavie (third baronet of the title), to whom she 

 bore a son, subsequently fourth baronet, and three daughters. 



Having thus afforded to the assailant of the antiquity of the Ro- 

 mantic Scottish Ballads ample space for setting forth the main issues 

 involved in the question, let us see vrhat his arguments are worth. 



Elizabeth, Lady Wardlavs^ of Pitreavie, the 'authoress of SardyJcnute, 

 and novr the supposed creator of our whole Scottish Romantic Ballad 

 literature, died at the mature age of fifty, in 1727, the year of the 

 second George's accession to his father's throne ; and from the 

 acknowledged want of freedom and manifest betrayal of the " prentice 

 hand" of a beginner in the Sardyhnute, — which, after being repeat- 

 edly talked of and quoted, at length made its first appearance in print, 

 in 1719, — we must assign the production of this and all subsequent 

 ballads of Lady Wardlaw to, say, the last fifteen years of her life ; or, 

 more conveniently, to the reign of George I. 



The style of that period, and the literature then in vogue are well- 

 knovFn ; and so accordingly the critic, quoting a line of Sir Patrick 

 Spence, says : ** No old poet would use fae7n as an equivalent for the 

 sea ; but it was just such a phrase as a poet of the era of Pope would 

 love to use in that sense." Consider then what are the circumstances 

 of the production or recovery of those Romantic Ballads ? From the 

 era of Montgomery's " Cherry and the Slae," published in 1597, to 

 the appearance of Watson's Collection of Scottish Poetry, between 

 1706 and 1711, whatever favour the genuine old national songs and 

 ballads retained vnth the people, the printing-press entirely ignored 

 them. They had been superseded by "Ane Compendious Booke of 

 Godly and Spiritual Songs, collected out of sundrie parts of Scripture, 

 with sundrie of other ballotis changed out of prophane sangs for avoid- 

 ing of sin and harlotrie," &c., and before Lord Hailes, in 1765 once 

 more introduced this curious production to Scottish readers, Ralph 

 Erskine had written his once popular " Gospel Sonnets, or Spiritual 



