My word I mean to keep:'
Syne with the first stroke e'er he strake,
He garred his body bleed.
Passages and phrases of one poem appear in another from various causes—plagiarism and imitation; and in traditionary lore, it is easy to understand how a number of phrases might be in general use, as part of a common stock. But the parallel passages above noted are confined to a particular group of ballads—they are not to such an extent beauties as to have been produced by either plagiarism or imitation; it is submitted that they thus appear by an overwhelmingly superior likelihood as the result of a common authorship in the various pieces.
Having so traced a probable common authorship, and that modern, from Hardyknute to Sir Patrick Spence, and from these two to the revised and improved edition of Gil Morrice, I was tempted to inquire if there be not others of the Scottish ballads liable to similar suspicion as to the antiquity of their origin? May not the conjectured author of these three have written several of the remainder of that group of compositions, so remarkable as they likewise are for their high literary qualities? Now, there is in Percy a number of Scottish ballads equally noteworthy for their beauty, and for the way in which they came to the hands of the editor. There is Edward, Edward, 'from a manuscript copy transmitted from Scotland;' the Jew's Daughter, 'from a manuscript copy sent from Scotland;' Gilderoy, 'from a written copy that appears to have received some modern corrections;' likewise, Young Waters, 'from a copy printed not long since at Glasgow, in one sheet octavo,' for the publication of which the world was 'indebted to Lady Jean Home, sister to the Earl of Home;' and Edom o' Gordon, which had been put by Sir David Dalrymple to Foulis's press in 1755, 'as it was preserved in the memory of a lady that is now dead'—Percy, however, having in this case improved the ballad by the addition of a few stanzas from a fragment in his folio manuscript. Regarding the Bonny Earl of Murray, the editor tells us nothing beyond calling it 'a Scottish song.' Of not one of these seven ballads, as published by Percy, has it ever been pretended that any ancient manuscript exists, or that there is any proof of their having had a being before the eighteenth century, beyond the rude and dissimilar prototypes (shall we call them?) which, in two instances, are found in the folio manuscript of Percy. No person was cited at first as having been accustomed to recite or sing them; and they have not been found familiar to the common people since. Their style is elegant, and free from coarsenesses, while yet exhibiting a large measure of the ballad simplicity. In all literary grace, they are as superior to the generality of the homely traditionary ballads of the rustic population, as the romances of Scott are superior to a set of chap-books. Indeed, it might not be very unreasonable to say that these ballads have done more to create a popularity for Percy's Reliques than all the other contents of the book. There is a community of character throughout all these poems, both as to forms of expression and style of thought and feeling—jealousy in husbands of high rank, maternal tenderness, tragic despair, are prominent in them, though not in them all. In several, there is the same kind of obscure and confused reference to known events in Scottish history, which editors have thought they saw in Sir Patrick Spence.
Let us take a cursory glance at these poems.
Young Waters is a tale of royal jealousy. It is here given entire.
About Yule, when the wind blew cool,
And the round tables began,
A! there is come to our king's court