I do not think that they need end in failure except for one reason. The poet or poetaster cannot, now, except by flat lying and laborious forgery of old papers, produce any documentary evidence to prove the authenticity of his attempt at imitation. Without documentary evidence of antiquity, no critic can approach the imitation except in a spirit of determined scepticism. He knows, certainly, that the ballad is modern, and, knowing that, he easily finds proofs of modernism even where they do not really exist. I am convinced that to imitate a ballad that would, except for the lack of documentary evidence, beguile the expert, is perfectly feasible. I even venture to offer examples of my own manufacture at the close of this volume. I can find nothing suspicious in them, except the deliberate insertion of formulæ which occur in genuine ballads. Such wiederholungen are not reasons for rejection, in my opinion; but they are suspect with people who do not understand that they are a natural and necessary feature of archaic poetry, and this fact Mr. Kittredge does understand.
Mr. Kittredge speaks of Sir Walter’s unique success with Kinmont Willie; but is Sir Walter successful? Some of his stanzas I, for one, can hardly accept, even as emended traditional verses.
Mr. Kittredge writes—“Sir Walter’s success, however, in a special kind of balladry for which he was better adapted by nature and habit of mind than for any other, would only emphasise the universal failure. And it must not be forgotten that Kinmont Willie, if it be Scott’s work, is not made out of whole cloth; it is a working over of one of the best traditional ballads known (Jock o’ the Side), with the intention of fitting it to an historical exploit of Buccleuch. Further, the subject itself was of such a nature that it might well have been celebrated in a ballad,—indeed, one is tempted to say, it must have been so celebrated.”
Not a doubt of that!
“And, finally, Sir Walter Scott felt towards ‘the Kinmont’ and ‘the bold Buccleuch’ precisely as the moss-trooping author of such a ballad would have felt. For once, then, the miraculous happened. . . . ” [146a] Or did not happen, for the exception is “solitary though doubtful,” and “under vehement suspicion.” But Mr. Kittredge must remember that no known Scottish ballad “is made out of whole cloth.” All have, in various degrees, the successive modifications wrought by centuries of oral tradition, itself, in some cases, modifying a much modified printed “stall-copy” or “broadside.”
Take Jock o’ the Side. The oldest version is in the Percy MS. [147a] As Mr. Henderson says, “it contains many evident corruptions,”
“Jock on his lively bay, Wat’s on his white horse behind.”
There is an example of what the original author could not have written!
We do not know how good Jock was when he left his poet’s hands; and Scott has not touched him up. We cannot estimate the original excellence of any traditional poem by the state in which we find it,
Corrupt by every beggar-man,
And soiled by all ignoble use.