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Communications and Replies
'FURTHER ESSAYS ON BORDER BALLADS' (S.H.R. viii.
1 08). Mr. Lang writes, with reference to 'Auld Maitland,' that certain
letters entirely clear Sir Walter Scott ' from the charge of having been art
and part with Hogg in palming off a modern imitation on the world, while
representing it to Ellis and Ritson as a genuine antique. Such conduct
would have been highly dishonourable.' This sentence is ambiguous ; it
may mean that to pass off an imitation on the world and that was my
charge is dishonourable, to which the reply is Sir Walter did not think
so. It may mean that to include friends in such a deception is dishonourable
that to deceive a friend is more objectionable than to confide in him
and force him to choose between betraying and screening you. Unless
Scott can be claimed as favouring this view, Mr. Lang's argument falls to
the ground. Again, too much value may be attached to letters as evidence ;
thus, hasty judges might have pronounced some of Scott's letters to be
clear proof that he was not the author of *
Waverley.' Are we not too
serious ? Is there not something humorous in everything relating to this
1
genuine antique '
?
As to '
Otterburn,' Mr. Lang says he has shown * how Scott edited it,
what he excised, and what he took from '
other copies. This does not
weaken my argument that the ballad is not genuine, and it strengthens
my contention that it was not obtained in the manner related in the
'
Minstrelsy. Sir George Douglas rightly says
the " "
aged persons who
" lived at the head of Ettrick Forest," and stored ballads in their retentive
memories, have had their day '
For his views on ' Kinmont Willie '
and '
' faute de mieux '
tions
* on ballad lore '
(S.H.R. vii. 419).
Jamie Telfer,' Mr. Lang relies
an expression implying a knowledge of weak founda-
I know of none relating specially to either ballad
' on logic,'
so also do I, it though has somewhere been referred to as
'
' '
that wonderful one-boss shay and on literary criticism.' I am glad to
remember that Mr. Lang has referred to my literary criticism of 'Jamie
Telfer '
in terms of high approbation (S.H.R. iv. 87).
FITZWILLIAM ELLIOT.
My little book, Sir Walter Scott and the Border Minstrelsy, contains all
that I have to say in
reply
to Colonel FitzWilliam Elliot's letter. My
proof of Scott's entire innocence of forging Auld Maitland and of telling
falsehoods about that ballad reposes on facts, which I give, and on ascer-
tained dates.
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