"'Alight thee, from thy milk-white steed,
And deliver it unto me;
Six maids have I drowned where the billows sound,
And the seventh one thou shalt be.
'But first pull off thy kirtle fine,
And deliver it unto me;
Thy kirtle of green is too rich I ween
To rot in the salt, salt sea.
'Pull off, pull off thy bonny green plaid,
That floats in the breeze so free,
It is woven fine with the silver twine,
And comely it is to see.'
'If I must pull off my bonny silk plaid,
Oh turn thy back to me,
And gaze on the sun which has just begun
To peer owre the salt, salt sea.'
He turned his back on the fair damselle,
And looked upon the beam,--
She grasped him tight with her arms so white
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-vitae 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:
"Jock lifted and fought, gat in mony a scrape,
But it was all the same thing to that rattling chiel,
He wad aye spoil the horn, or else mak' a spoon,
The crown o' the causey, a kirk or a mill.
He rade into Embro' wi' gowd in his pouch,
To look at the ferlies and houses sae grand;
The Castle and Holyrood, the lang walk o' Leith,
Great joy for his coming soon Loudon Jock fand.
'Twas first hae this gill, and then aye anither,
Syne bottles o' sma' yill, and baups for his kite;
And then cam' the feyther o't, sister and brither,
And Jock stoited awa' at the heel o' the night.
Jock met wi' a hizzy upon the high brig,
That looks o'er the yard as he stoited away;
Jock aye lo'ed a blink o' a bonnie girl's eye,
And she speer'd at the reiver his fortune to spae.
But Jock cam' to questions, and being a fallow
Stout, buirdly and sonsy, he soon pleased her taste,
And awa' went the twasome, haup-jaup in their daffin',
Thro' wynds and blind alleys no time for to waste."
Ancient ballad indeed! the minstrel who would venture to chant such a
ditty in the Cowgate, would be cheaply let off with a month's solitary
imprisonment on a diet of bread and water.
We pass with pleasure from this medley of balderdash and drivel to the
more sober tome of Mr Collier, because we know that whatever he gives us
will at least have the merit of being genuine. Out of the thousand
black-letter broadsides which constitute the Roxburghe collection, the
editor has selected upwards of fifty, and thus states the object of
their publication:--"The main purpose of the ensuing collection is to
show, in their most genuine state, the character and quality of
productions written expressly for the amusement of the lower orders, in
the reign of Elizabeth, James, and Charles. Our volume consists of such
ordinary materials as formed the stock of the English ballad-singer,
during a period not far short of a century. Many traces will be found in
them of the modes in which they were rendered acceptable to the crowd,
when sung in our most frequented thoroughfares." We need hardly say that
the volume is got up with great care; and it will doubtless be an
acceptable addition to the libraries of our literary epicures:
nevertheless, we are free to confess that we were somewhat disappointed
with its contents. We did not, it is true, expect to find, in this
quarto, any new historical, or even romantic ballads of the first or
highest class. The literature of Elizabeth and James is remarkably
sterile in productions of this nature; and the few which are
intrinsically excellent have long since become familiar and have lost
the gloss of novelty. But the didactic ballad and the canzonet were then
extensively practised, and, with the fugitive poetry of Peele, Marlowe,
Greene, and Lodge in our recollection, we had hoped to recover some
valuable specimens of their more obscure contemporaries. In the
voluminous records of the Elizabethan era, we find mention of many poets
who enjoyed a reasonable celebrity at the time, but whose works, devoid
of buoyancy, have since settled into oblivion. We find the names of some
of these persons, such as Thomas Churchyard, who is spoken of in "The
Return from Parnassus," attached to poems in Mr Collier's collection;
but we are compelled on perusal to acknowledge that there is much
justice in the critical decrees of time, and that very little which is
at all worthy of preservation has been silently permitted to perish. In
an aesthetical point of view, therefore, we cannot expect to derive much
advantage from this reprint of the Roxburghe broadsides. But the
antiquary, who has a natural taste for the cast-off raiment of the
world, will doubtless fasten upon the volume; and the critical
commentator may glean from it some scraps of obsolete information. To
them accordingly we leave it, and pass into the glades of Sherwood.
We wonder whether "Robin Hood, that archer good," is as great a
favourite in the nursery now as he was in our younger days? We are
afraid not. Our Robin was a mysterious sort of personage, something
between an outlaw and an earl,--a kind of Judge Lynch, who distributed
arbitrary justice beneath the shade of an enormous oak-tree, and who was
perpetually confiscating the moveables of abbots for the exclusive
benefit of the poor. Maid Marian we could never distinctly realise.
Sometimes she appeared to us as a soft flaxen-haired beauty, not unlike
a lay-figure, once the property of Mr Giannetti, which we loved in our
youth, and to whose memory we still are constant. Green as emerald was
the garb she wore, and the sun loved to shine upon her as she glided
from the shadow of the trysting-tree. But then this fairy personage did
not tally well with the other figures of the group. We could not
conceive her associating familiarly with the gaunt but good-natured
Scathelock, and Mutch the miller's son. Summer, too, must pass away from
Sherwood as it does from every sublunary scene. The leaves fall--the
birds are mute--the grass has withered down--and there is snow lying two
feet deep in the forest,--and then, wo is me for poor Marian, shivering
in her slight silken kirtle in the midst of a faded bower! So that we
were sometimes compelled per-force to change our fancy, metamorphose
Marian into a formidable Girzy, and provide her with a suit of
linsey-woolsey against the weather, and a pair of pattens big enough to
have frightened all the fallow-deer of the forest with their clatter.
Ivanhoe, however, has played the deuce with our ideal creations, and
Robin Hood is now fixed to us for ever in the guise of the yeoman
Locksley. We do not like him half so well as we did before. He has, in
some degree, compromised his character as an outlaw, by entering into an
arrangement with him of the Lion-heart, and he now shoots deer under
cover of the kingly license. The old warfare between Little John and the
Sheriff of Nottingham is over, and the amicable diacylon conceals the
last vestige of their feud. Allan-a-Dale has become a gentleman, and
Friar Tuck laid down the quarter-staff, if he has not taken up the
breviary.
But if any one wants to know bold Robin as he really was, let him
straightway possess himself of those two delightful volumes for which we
are indebted to Mr Gutch. We have here not only the consecutive series
of ballads known as "The Lytell Geste of Robin Hode," but every ballad,
tale, and song, relating to the famous outlaw; and the whole are
beautifully illustrated. Mr Gutch thoroughly understands the duty of an
editor, and has applied himself heart and soul to the task: in
consequence, he has given us by far the best collection of English
ballads which for years has issued from the press.
We have said that the English ballads, as a whole, are decidedly
inferior to the Scottish. They are neither, in their individual kinds,
so stirring, so earnest, so plaintive, nor so imaginative, and Chevy
Chase is a tame concern when weighed against the Battle of Otterbourne.
But many of them are of great merit, and amongst the very best are those
which relate to Robin Hood, and the three stout bowmen of the North,
Adam Bell, Clym of the Clough, and William of Cloudeslee. Robin has a
fair right to be considered the yeoman hero of England, and the
representative of what must have been a tolerably large class of persons
throughout the wars of the Roses. In his history, we can trace a kind of
tacit protest against absolute despotism and feudal oppression. He is
the daring freeman of the soil, who will not live under arbitrary law,
and who, in consequence, ends by setting all laws whatever at defiance.
He is not a thief, but a free-booter, and is entitled to receive from
posterity whatever credit may be attachable to such a character. His is,
in many respects, a parallel case to that of Rob Roy Macgregor, though
there is far more of deep tragedy as well as of patriotism, interwoven
with the history of the Highland outlaw. Robin asserts no tangible
principles beyond active opposition to the church, and determined
hostility to the game-laws. For the first of these tenets Baines would
have fallen down and worshipped him: for the second, John Bright would
have clothed his whole company gratuitously in drab. He is fond of
fighting, and ready to take up the cudgels with any chance customer;
but, somehow or other, he has invariably the worst of the encounter.
Tinker, beggar-man, tanner, shepherd, and curtail friar, in succession,
bring him to his knees, and his life would have been many times a
forfeit, but for the timely assistance of his horn, which brought Little
John and the rest to the rescue. Guy of Gisborne was, we believe, the
only champion whom he slew unaided, and even in that meeting he was
placed in sore jeopardy.
"Robin was reachless on a root,
And stumbled at that tide,
And Guy was quick and nimble withall,
And hit him upon the side.
Oh dear Ladye! said Robin Hood,
That art both mother and may,
I think it was never man's destiny
To dye before his day.
Robin thought on our Ladye dear,
And soon leapt up againe,
And straight he came with a backward stroke
And he Sir Guy hath slaine."
But there is a fine jovial rollocking spirit about the outlawed hero of
Sherwood, which endears Robin to the popular heart of England: and we
firmly believe that Shakspeare, when he went out poaching of a moonlight
night, was more actuated by poetical precept and impulse than by any
sensual covetise for the venison of old Sir Thomas Lucy.
Many ingenious persons--nay many excellent poets, have in modern times
attempted to imitate the ancient Scottish ballad, but in no single case
has there been a perfect fac-simile produced. The reason of the failure
is obvious. An ingenious person, who is not a poet, could not for the
dear life of him construct a ditty which, in order to resemble its
original, must embody a strain of music, and a burst of heroic or of
plaintive passion. It is not, however, by any means so difficult to
imitate the diction: of which we have a notable example in the ballad of
"Childe Ether," which is included in several of the collections. "Childe
Alcohol," perhaps, would have been the better name, if all the
circumstances which we have heard relating to its composition be true;
nevertheless it is undeniable that our facetious friends who are
chargeable with this literary sin, have succeeded in producing a very
passable imitation, and that their phraseology at least is faultless. A
poet, again, neither can nor ought to imitate, and when he is writing in
earnest the attempt is absolutely hopeless. For every poet has his own
style, and his own unmistakeable manner of thought and of expression,
which he cannot cast off at will. If he imitates, he ceases for the time
to be a poet, degenerates into a rhymster, and his flowers upon close
inspection will be found to have been fabricated from muslin.
Very blind indeed must be the man who could mistake "Sir James the Rose"
for an ancient Scottish ballad. Michael Bruce, the author, was more than
an ingenious person: he was also a poet, and had he lived a little
longer, and at a period when simplicity in composition was rated at its
true value, he would in all probability have executed something better.
But he wanted power, and that pathos which is indispensable for the
composition of a perfect ballad. Even Scott, when he attempted too close
an imitation, failed. The glorious fragment which we have already
quoted, "The Eve of Saint John," "Lochinvar," and others, are not to be
considered in the light of imitations, but as pure outbursts of his own
high chivalrous and romantic imagination. But the third part of "Thomas
the Rhymer" is an adaptation to, or continuation of the ancient
fragment, with which, however, in no respect can it possibly compare.
Indeed the old ballad stands almost isolated in poetry, for its wild
imaginative strain.
"She's mounted on her milk-white steed,
She's ta'en true Thomas up behind;
And aye, whene'er her bridle rung,
The steed flew swifter than the wind.
O they rade on, and further on;
The steed gaed swifter than the wind,
Until they reached a desart wide,
And every land was left behind.
"Light down, light down, now, true Thomas,
And lean your head upon my knee,
Abide and rest a little space,
And I will show you ferlies three.
"O see ye not yon narrow road,
So thick beset with thorns and briers?
That is the path of righteousness
Tho' after it but few inquires.
"And see ye not that braid, braid road,
That lies across the lily leven?
That is the path of wickedness,
Tho' some call it the road to heaven.
"And see ye not that bonny road
That winds about the fernie brae?
That is the road to fair Elf land,
Where thou and I this night maun gae.
"But, Thomas, ye maun hold your tongue,
Whatever ye may hear or see;
For if ye speak word in Elfin land
Ye'll ne'er get back to your ain countrie."
O they rade on and farther on,
And they waded through rivers aboon the knee,
And they saw neither the sun nor moon,
But they heard the roaring of the sea.
It was mirk mirk night, and there was nae stern-light,
And they waded through red blude to the knee,
For a' the blude that's shed on earth
Rins through the springs o' that countrie."
The late ingenious Mr Cromek was not, so far as we know, physically
blind, but most assuredly there hung a heavy cloud over his mental
light, since he could not discern the burning stamp of original genius
in the fragments which were communicated to him by Allan Cunningham, and
which he published under the title of "Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway
Song." Poor Allan Cunningham has passed away from amongst us, not
unknown indeed, nor unhonoured, but without having received that full
meed of praise and fame which was justly his due. For Allan, though a
most industrious man, was far too careless of his poetic reputation, and
never could be prevailed on to collect together those scattered snatches
of song, which he had sown with too liberal a hand in detached and
distant places. But the service which he would not render to himself,
has been performed by filial piety; and we now congratulate the public
on their possessing, in a cheap and elegant form, the works of the most
tender and pathetic of the Scottish Minstrels who have arisen since the
death of Burns. If this little book does not become a favourite, and if
it does not speedily make its way, not only into every library, but into
every farm-steading of Scotland--if the poems of Allan Cunningham do
not become as familiar to the lips, and as dear to the hearts, of our
shepherds and our peasantry, as those of his great predecessor--then we
shall be constrained to believe that the age is indeed an iron one, that
the heart of our beloved country has at last grown cold, and its
impulses less fervid than of yore. It is now nearly thirty years ago--a
long, long time to us--since Cromek's collection of Remains was noticed
in this Magazine. Cunningham was then in the flush and zenith of his
genius, with years, as we had fondly hoped, of fame before him, and all
the early difficulties which beset the path of a youthful poet overcome.
He was then urged to a diligent cultivation of the glorious talent he
possessed, and to a further development of the seeds of poetry which lay
within his own bosom, and in the spirit of his native land. And surely
had Allan acted thus, and confined himself to the range of literature
within which he had few equals and no superior, he would ere now have
gained a lofty and imperishable name. But a mistaken ambition diverted
him to other tasks. He left the field of song to wander through the
forest of romance, and we fear that he lost himself amidst its mazes.
It is upon the present collection of his poems and songs that
Cunningham's fame must rest; and small as is the bulk of the volume, we
yet do not hesitate to say that it would be difficult to point out
another containing more lyrics of exquisite beauty, with fewer palpable
blemishes. Cunningham's poetical style is both rare and remarkable. With
a singular simplicity of diction, he combines imagery of the highest
kind, and a pathos which at once finds its way to the heart of every
reader. To many of our friends the following ballad may be familiar; but
as a new generation who know less of Allan has arisen since the days of
Cromek, we may be excused for transferring once more to our pages a gem
of such purity and lustre.
"She's gane to dwall in heaven, my lassie,
She's gane to dwall in heaven;
'Ye're owre pure,' quo' the voice o' God,
'For dwalling out o' heaven!'
O what'll she do in heaven, my lassie?
O what'll she do in heaven?
She'll mix her ain thoughts wi' angel's sangs,
An' make them mair meet for heaven.
She was beloved by a', my lassie,
She was beloved by a';
But an angel fell in love wi' her,
An' took her frae us a'.
Lowly there thou lies, my lassie,
Lowly there thou lies;
A bonnier form ne'er went to the yird
Nor frae it will arise!
Fu' soon I'll follow thee, my lassie,
Fu' soon I'll follow thee;
Thou left me nought to covet ahin',
But took gudeness sel' wi' thee.
I look'd in thy death-cold face, my lassie,
I look'd in thy death-cold face;
Thou seem'd a lily new cut i' the bud,
An' fading in its place.
I look'd on thy death-shut eye, my lassie,
I look'd on thy death-shut eye;
And a lovelier light, in the brow of heaven,
Fell Time shall ne'er destroy.
Thy lips were ruddy and calm, my lassie,
Thy lips were ruddy and calm;
But gane was the holy breath o' heaven
That sang the evening psalm.
There's naught but dust now mine, lassie,
There's naught but dust now mine;
My soul's wi' thee i' the cauld grave,
An' why should I stay behin'!"
We really must find fault with Mr Peter Cunningham for calling this, and
others of his father's choicest productions, "imitations of the old
ballad." They are no more imitations than the finest poems of Burns, or
Hogg, or Motherwell. They are, it is true, written in the Scots dialect,
and they share, along with the old traditional strains, the charm of a
sweet simplicity; but every one of them came direct from the heart of
our beloved Allan, and are, in their way, as truly original compositions
as any burst that ever yet was uttered by inspired poet under the canopy
of heaven. Poor old Cromek, who knew as little about the Scottish
ballads as Mr Sheldon, believed them to be ancient, and, we dare say,
died in that belief. But every man here, who knew or cared about the
matter, saw at once that such poems as "The Lord's Marie," or "Bonnie
Lady Anne," were neither ancient nor imitated; and accordingly, by the
common consent of his brethren, Allan Cunningham was at once enrolled on
the list of the sweet singers of Scotland--and long and distant be the
day when his name shall be forgotten on the flowery braes of Nithsdale,
or the pleasant holms of Dalswinton, which in life he loved so well.
The last work which we have to notice is the collected edition of
Motherwell's Poems, which has just issued from the Glasgow Press, under
the auspices of Mr James M'Conechy. William Motherwell must always stand
very high in the list of the minor Scottish poets, and one lyric of his,
"Jeanie Morrison," is as pathetic as any in the language. But of him so
much has already been said in former numbers of MAGA, that we may
dispense with present criticism: and we shall merely draw the attention
of the lovers of the supernatural to a more terrific temptation of Saint
Anthony than ever was painted by Teniers. Motherwell was a noted
ghost-seer, and few could beat him in the magic circle. Witness
"Elfinland Wud," which is enough to frighten, not a nursery of children,
but a score of bearded callants out of their wits, if they heard it
chanted, on an eerie night, in the dim forests of Glenmore.