Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847

by Various

So far well; but Mr Sheldon ought, at the same time, to have had the candour to tell us the source from which he pilfered those verses. His belief in the ignorance and gullibility of the public must indeed be unbounded, if he expected to pass off without discovery a vamped version of "May Collean." That fine ballad is to be found in the collections of Herd, Sharpe, Motherwell, and Chambers; and seldom, indeed, have we met with a case of more palpable cribbage, as the following specimen will demonstrate:—

MAY COLLEAN.		OUTLANDISH KNIGHT.
"'Loup off your steed,' says fause Sir John,		"'Alight thee, from thy milk-white steed,
'Your bridal bed you see—		And deliver it unto me;
Here have I drowned eight ladies fair,		Six maids have I drowned where the billows sound,
The ninth one you shall be.		And the seventh one thou shalt be.
'Cast off,' says he, 'thy jewels fine,		'But first pull off thy kirtle fine,
Sae costly and sae brave;		And deliver it unto me;
They are ower gude, and ower costly,		Thy kirtle of green is too rich I ween
To throw in the sea-wave.		To rot in the salt, salt sea.
'Cast off, cast off, your Holland smock,		'Pull off, pull off thy bonny green plaid,
And lay it on this stone;		That floats in the breeze so free,
It is ower fine and ower costly,		It is woven fine with the silver twine,
To rot in the saut sea-foam.'		And comely it is to see.'
'Oh! Turn ye then about, Sir John,		'If I must pull off my bonny silk plaid,
And look to the leaf of the tree,—		Oh turn thy back to me,
It is not comely for a man		And gaze on the sun which has just begun
A naked woman to see.'		To peer owre the salt, salt sea.'
He turned himself straight round about,		He turned his back on the fair damselle,
To look to the leaf o' the tree;		And looked upon the beam,—
She has twined her arms about his waist,		She grasped him tight with her arms so white
And thrown him into the sea."		And plunged him in the stream."

This, it must be acknowledged, is, to use the mildest phrase, an instance of remarkable coincidence.

Notwithstanding the glibness of his preface, and the scraps of antique information which he is constantly parading, Mr Sheldon absolutely knows less about ballad poetry than any writer who has yet approached the subject. As an editor, he was in duty bound to have looked over former collections, and to have ascertained the originality of the wares which he now proffers for our acceptance. He does not seem, however, to have read through any one compilation of the Scottish ballads, and is perpetually betraying his ignorance. For example, he gives us a ballad called "The Laird of Roslin's daughter," and speaks thus of it in his preface:-"This is a fragment of an apparently ancient ballad, related to me by a lady of Berwick-on-Tweed, who used to sing it in her childhood. I have given all that she was able to furnish me with. The same lady assures me that she never remembers having seen it in print, and that she had learnt it from her nurse, together with the ballad of Sir Patrick Spens, and several Irish legends, since forgotten."

This is a beautiful instance of the discovery of a mare's nest! Mr Sheldon's fragment is merely an imperfect version of "Captain Wedderburn's Courtship"—one of the raciest and wittiest of the Scottish ballads, which has been printed over and over again, and is familiar to almost every child in the country. It is given at full length by Robert Chambers, in his collection, with this note appended to it:—"This very ingenious and amusing poem, which has been long popular all over Scotland, first appeared in the 'New British Songster,' a collection published at Falkirk in 1785. The present copy is taken directly from Jamieson's 'Popular Ballads,' with the advantage of being collated with one taken from recitation by Mr Kinloch." Such are the consequences of relying upon the traditions of "eldern women!"

We, have, moreover, a version of "Johnny Faa," of which ballad Mr Sheldon seems to consider himself the sole discoverer—at least he does not say one word of its notable existence elsewhere. And we are the more disposed to give him credit for this ignorance, as he hazards an opinion that "the incidents recorded in this ballad must have occurred in the reign of James the Fifth of Scotland, or possibly in that of his father James the Fourth, the King of the Commons;" whereas the story is an historical one, and took place in the times of the Covenant. Be that as it may, Sheldon's version is certainly the worst that we have seen; and the new stanzas which he has introduced are utterly loathsome and vulgar. Only think of the beautiful Lady Cassilis who eloped with a belted knight, being reduced to the level of a hedge-tramper, and interchanging caresses with a caird!

"The Countess went down to the ha'
To hae a crack at them, fairly, O;
'And och,' she cried, 'I wad follow thee
To the end o' the world or nearly, O.'

He kist the Countess' lips sae red,
And her jimp white waist he cuddled, O;
She smoothed his beard wi' her lovely hand,
And a' for her Gipsy laddie, O."

Really we do not think that we ever read any thing in print so intensely abominable as this.

We have no intention of wading through much more of Sheldon's lucubrations—nor is it necessary, as, after a close examination, we cannot discover one single ancient ballad which is new to us in the whole collection. One or two, as we have already shown, are old friends in filthy garments, whose acquaintance we accordingly repudiate. Two or three, such as "Sir John le Sprynge," are mere reprints, and the remainder may be shortly characterised as unmitigated trash. It is rather too much that ditties still redolent of ardent spirits, and distinctly traceable in their authorship to a drunken horse-couper in Hawick, should be presented to the public as genuine Border ballads. For example, we are favoured with an effusion called "Loudon Jock's Courtship," which Mr Sheldon avers to be "a very old ballad, now for the first time published," and states that he took it down "from the recital of an old drover, called A. Pringle, who attended Kelso market." We do not for a moment doubt that this valuable lay was actually pronounced by the baked lips of Sandy, over half-a-mutchkin of aqua-vitæ in a toll-house; but we decline to register it as ancient upon the authority of such a Pisistratus. On the contrary, the beast who composed it was manifestly free of the Vennel, acquainted with every nauseous close in the old town of Edinburgh, and frequently found at full length upon the Bridge, in a state of brutal intoxication. The localities are quite unequivocal, and mark the date of its composition. The "brig," unfortunately for Mr Sheldon, is by no means an ancient structure. No doubt the ditty is graphic in its way, and full-flavoured enough to turn the stomach of a Gilmerton carter, as the following specimen will testify: