[A composite volume : containing The ballads and songs of Ayrshire ...

HARDYKNUTE.
the ballad may be ancient." Mi* Hepburn and the ladies mentioned
I
I
may have seen Lady Wardlaw writing copies of Hardyknute, but it
is very questionable if they saw her in the act of composing the
\
verses. The presence of people is not usually favourable to the
cogitations of the muse. On the other hand, we have the positive
assurance of the author of " Orpheus Caledonius," that he had frequently
heard fragments of the ballad in his youth. There is, indeed,
/ an air of antiquity in the very conception of it, and a degree of unin-
< telligibloness about the story, which could scarcely fall to be devised
\ by a modern writer. Lady Wardlaw is not known to have produced
j
any other poem, ballad, or song of any merit—and we hold the
i authorship at all times questionable, where an individual has produced
one good thing and no more. Lady Wardlaw, at the same
time, cannot be denied the merit of having retouched and enlarged
the fragment, which she has done in admirable keeping with the
spirit of the original.
The set of the ballad we have given, is a literal copy from the
original folio edition, " printed by James Watson, Printer to the
King's most Excellent Majesty, mdccxix"—^the edition referred
to in the note of Dr Percy. It seems to be very rare—and is an
excellent specimen of the art of typography in Scotland at the time.
The copy—rescued from the rapacious hands of a snuff-dealer—came
accidentally into our possession. There are Hvelve additional verses
in the ballad in the Reliques— a fact which Dr Percy does not
seem to have been aware of, in referring to the " three last," beginning
with " loud and shrill," &c., as those produced by Lady Wardlaw
in proof of the ballad being modern. We have chosen to abide
by the fragment as it stands in the folio edition. It is, perhaps,
worthy of remark, that the spelling is much more modern than it is
in the Reliques, or in any subsequent collection. A single verse will
show this :
" Robin of Rothsay, bend thy bow.
Thy arrows schute sae leil,
Mony a comely countenance
They half turn 'd to deidly pale.
Brade Thomas tak ze but zour lance,
Ze neid nae weapons niair,
Gif ze ficht weit as ze did anes
'Gainst Westmorland's fers heir."
What object there was in thus affecting the antique in subsequent
editions does not appear.
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