ELIZABETH HALKETT.

[1677.]
CONOLLY.

ORN in 1677, the authoress of the celebrated ballad of "Hardyknute" was the second daughter of Sir Charles Halkett of Pitferrane. At the age of nineteen she married Sir Henry Wardlaw of Pitreavie in Fife, to whom she bore four daughters and a son.

She at first attempted to pass off the ballad of "Hardyknute" as a genuine fragment of an ancient poem, and caused her brother-in-law, Sir John Bruce of Kinross, to communicate the manuscript to Lord Binning, himself a poet, as a copy of a manuscript found in an old vault of Dunfermline.

The poem of "Hardyknute" was first published in 1719, and it was afterwards admitted by Ramsay into the "Evergreen," and for many years was received as an old ballad supposed proof may be successfully turned against the new theory.] The real authorship of "Hardyknute" was first disclosed by Bishop Percy in his "Reliques," published in 1755, and has since been established beyond a doubt [but there is no evidence beyond what has been mentioned that she wrote "Sir Patrick Spens," or any other of our so-called old Scotch ballads].

Drawn by J. Thurston. Engraved by W. Finden.
LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGUE.
From an enamel Miniature by Zink in the possession of Charles Colville Esq^r.