XVII.
HARDYKNUTE.
A Scottish Fragment.
As this fine morsel of heroic poetry hath generally past for ancient, it is here thrown to the end of our earliest pieces; that such as doubt of its age, may the better compare it with other pieces of genuine antiquity. For after all, there is more than reason to suspect, that it owes most of its beauties (if not its whole existence) to the pen of a lady, within the present century. The following particulars may be depended on. Mrs. Wardlaw, whose maiden name was Halket (aunt to the late Sir Peter Halket, of Pitferran, in Scotland, who was killed in America, along with general Bradock, in 1755), pretended she had found this poem, written on shreds of paper, employed for what is called the bottoms of clues. A suspicion arose that it was her own composition. Some able judges asserted it to be modern. The lady did in a manner acknowledge it to be so. Being desired to shew an additional stanza, as a proof of this, she produced the 2 last beginning with "There's nae light," &c. which were not in the copy that was first printed. The late Lord President Forbes, and Sir Gilbert Elliot of Minto (late Lord Justice Clerk for Scotland) who had believed it ancient, contributed to the expence of publishing the first edition, in folio, 1719.—This account was transmitted from Scotland by Sir David Dalrymple, the late Lord Hailes, who yet was of opinion, that part of the ballad may be ancient; but retouched and much enlarged by the lady abovementioned. Indeed he had been informed, that the late William Thomson, the Scottish musician, who published the Orpheus Caledonius, 1733, 2 vols. 8vo. declared he had heard fragments of it repeated in his infancy, before Mrs. Wardlaw's copy was heard of.
The poem is here printed from the original edition, as it was prepared for the press with the additional improvements.
In an elegant publication, intitled, Scottish Tragic Ballads, printed by and for J. Nichols, 1781, 8vo. may be seen a continuation of the Ballad of Hardyknute, by the addition of a Second Part, which hath since been acknowledged to be his own composition, by the ingenious Editor [John Pinkerton]—To whom the late Sir D. Dalrymple communicated (subsequent to the account drawn up above) extracts of a letter from Sir John Bruce, of Kinross, to Lord Binning, which plainly proves the pretended discoverer of the fragment of Hardyknute to have been Sir John Bruce himself. His words are, "To perform my promise, I send you a true copy of the Manuscript I found some weeks ago in a vault at Dumferline. It is written on vellum in a fair Gothic character, but so much defaced by time, as you'll find that the tenth part is not legible." He then gives the whole fragment as it was first published in 1719, save one or two stanzas, marking several passages as having perished by being illegible in the old MS. Hence it appears, that Sir John was the author of Hardyknute, but afterwards used Mrs. Wardlaw to be the midwife of his poetry, and suppressed the story of the vault; as is well observed by the Editor of the Tragic Ballads, and of Maitland's Scot. Poets, vol. i. p. cxxvii.
To this gentleman we are indebted for the use of the copy, whence the second edition was afterwards printed, as the same was prepared for the press by John Clerk, M.D. of Edinburgh, an intimate companion of Lord President Forbes.
The title of the first edition was, "Hardyknute, a Fragment. Edinburgh, printed for James Watson, &c. 1719," folio, 12 pages.
Stanzas not in the first edition are, Nos. 17, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23, 34, 35, 36, 37, 41, 42.