GILL MORICE.
This plaintive ballad ought to have been called Child Maurice, and not Gil Maurice. In its present dress, it has gained immortal honour from Mr. Home’s taking from it the ground-work of his fine tragedy of Douglas. But I am of opinion that the present ballad is a modern composition; perhaps not much above the age of the middle of the last century; at least I should be glad to see or hear of a copy of the present words prior to 1650. That it was taken from an old ballad, called “Child Maurice,” now lost, I am inclined to believe; but the present one may be classed with “Hardyknute,” “Kenneth,” “Duncan, the Laird of Woodhouselie,” “Lord Livingston,” “Binnorie,” “The Death of Monteith,” and many other modern productions, which have been swallowed by many readers as ancient fragments of old poems. This beautiful plaintive tune was composed by Mr. M’Gibbon, the selector of a collection of Scots tunes. R. B.
In addition to the observations on Gil Morice, I add, that of the songs which Captain Riddel mentions, “Kenneth” and “Duncan” are juvenile compositions of Mr. M’Kenzie, “The Man of Feeling.”—M’Kenzie’s father showed them in MS. to Dr. Blacklock, as the productions of his son, from which the Doctor rightly prognosticated that the young poet would make, in his more advanced years, a respectable figure in the world of letters.
This I had from Blacklock.