Among them fast he threw;
Till mony of the Englishmen
About the wall he slew.
Full fifteen days that braid host lay,
Sieging auld Maitland keen,
Syne they hae left him, hail and fair,
Within his strength of stane.’
Scott valued this ballad and his other lyrical acquisitions highly. In a letter to Mr Laidlaw, dated 21st January 1803, he remarks as follows: ‘Auld Maitland, laced and embroidered with antique notes and illustrations, makes a most superb figure. I have got, through the intervention of Lady Dalkeith, a copy of Mr Beattie of Meikledale’s Tamlane. It contains some highly poetical stanzas descriptive of fairy-land, which, after some hesitation, I have adopted, though they have a very refined and modern cast. I do not suspect Mr Beattie of writing ballads himself; but pray, will you inquire whether, within the memory of man, there has been any poetical clergyman or schoolmaster whom one could suppose capable of giving a coat of modern varnish to this old ballad. What say you to this, for example?
“We sleep on rose-buds soft and sweet,
We revel in the stream,