+The Text+ is from the Percy Folio, given _literatim_, with two
rearrangements of the lines (in stt. 4 and 22) and a few obvious
corrections, as suggested by Hales, and Furnivall, and Child. The Folio
version was printed by Jamieson in his _Popular Ballads and Songs_.
The Scotch version, _Gil Morrice_, was printed by Percy in the
_Reliques_ in preference to the version of his Folio. He notes that the
ballad 'has lately run through two editions in Scotland: the second was
printed at Glasgow in 1755.' Thanks to an advertisement prefixed to
these Scottish editions, sixteen additional verses were obtained and
added by Percy, who thought that they were 'perhaps after all only an
ingenious interpolation.' _Gil Morrice_ introduces 'Lord Barnard' in
place of 'John Steward,' adopted, perhaps, from _Little Musgrave and
Lady Barnard_. Motherwell's versions were variously called _Child
Noryce_, _Bob Norice_, _Gill Morice_, _Chield Morice_. Certainly the
Folio ballad is unsurpassed for its vigorous, objective style, and
forcible, vivid pictures.
+The Story+ of this ballad gave rise to Home's _Douglas_, a tragedy,
produced in the Concert Hall, Canongate, Edinburgh, 1756 (on which
occasion the heroine's name was given as 'Lady Barnard'), and
transferred to Covent Garden Theatre, in London, in 1757, the heroine's
name being altered to 'Lady Randolph.'
Perhaps in the same year in which the play was produced in London, the
poet Gray wrote from Cambridge:-- 'I have got the old Scotch ballad on
which _Douglas_ was founded; it is divine, and as long as from hence to
Aston. Aristotle's best rules are observed in it in a manner which shows
the author never had heard of Aristotle. It begins in the fifth act of
the play. You may read it two-thirds through without guessing what it is
about; and yet, when you come to the end, it is impossible not to
understand the whole story.'