From _The Border Minstrelsy_. This ballad is inserted, not for its
merit, still less for its authenticity, but for the problem of its
puzzling history. Scott certainly got it from the mother of the Ettrick
Shepherd, in 1801. The Shepherd’s father had been a grown-up man in
1745, and his mother was also of a great age, and unlikely to be able to
learn a new-forged ballad by heart. The Shepherd himself (then a most
unsophisticated person) said, in a letter of June 30, 1801, that he was
“surprized to hear this song is suspected by some to be a modern forgery;
the contrary will be best proved by most of the old people, here about,
having a great part of it by heart.” The two last lines of verse seven
were, confessedly, added by Hogg, to fill a _lacuna_. They are
especially modern in style. Now thus to fill up sham _lacunæ_ in sham
ballads of his own, with lines manifestly modern, was a favourite trick
of Surtees of Mainsforth. He used the device in “Barthram’s Dirge,”
which entirely took in Sir Walter, and was guilty of many other
_supercheries_, especially of the “Fray of Suport Mill.” Could the
unlettered Shepherd, fond of hoaxes as he was, have invented this
stratagem, sixteen years before he joined the _Blackwood_ set? And is it
conceivable that his old mother, entering into the joke, would commit her
son’s fraudulent verses to memory, and recite them to Sir Walter as
genuine tradition? She said to Scott, that the ballad “never was printed
i’ the world, for my brothers and me learned it and many mae frae auld
Andrew Moore, and he learned it frae auld Baby Mettlin” (Maitland?) “wha
was housekeeper to the first laird o’ Tushilaw.” (On Ettrick, near
Thirlestane. She doubtless meant the first of the Andersons of
Tushielaw, who succeeded the old lairds, the Scotts.) “She was said to
hae been another or a guid ane, and there are many queer stories about
hersel’, but O, she had been a grand singer o’ auld songs an’ ballads.”
(Hogg’s _Domestic Manners of Sir Walter Scott_, p. 61, 1834.)
“Maitland upon auld beird gray” is mentioned by Gawain Douglas, in his
_Palice of Honour_, which the Shepherd can hardly have read, and Scott
identified this Maitland with the ancestor of Lethington; his date was
1250–1296. On the whole, even the astute Shepherd, in his early days of
authorship, could hardly have laid a plot so insidious, and the question
of the authenticity and origin of the ballad (obvious interpolations
apart) remains a mystery. Who could have forged it? It is, as an
exercise in imitation, far beyond _Hardyknute_, and at least on a level
with _Sir Roland_. The possibility of such forgeries is now very slight
indeed, but vitiates early collections.
If we suspect Leyden, who alone had the necessary knowledge of
antiquities, we are still met by the improbability of old Mrs. Hogg being
engaged in the hoax. Moreover, Leyden was probably too keen an antiquary
to take part in one of the deceptions which Ritson wished to punish so
severely. Mr. Child expresses his strong and natural suspicions of the
authenticity of the ballad, and Hogg is, certainly, a dubious source. He
took in Jeffrey with the song of “Donald Macgillavray,” and instantly
boasted of his triumph. He could not have kept his secret, after the
death of Scott. These considerations must not be neglected, however
suspicious “Auld, Maitland” may appear.