Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847

There any brainis be.'

'Thou art a bragging piece of clay,
Sae fyrst wise prove thy threat;'
Loud geckit Trummall as he cried,
'I'll mak' thee haggish meat!!'"

Yes, reader—you may well stare! but such is absolutely the rubbish which has been shot from the Chiswick Press. Next—hear it, ye powers of impudence!—Allan Cunningham's beautiful ballad of Lady Anne, makes its appearance as "Lady Nell." We need scarcely add that in such hands the virgin degenerates into a drab. The other remodelments are trash. The "Merchant's Garland" is a new version by Sheldon of a street ditty called the "Factor's Garland," of which we happen to have a copy in a collection of penny histories. It is as much an ancient ballad as the Murder of William Weare—is dear at the ransom of a brass farthing—and commences thus:

Behold, here's a ditty that's new, and no jest,
Concerning a young gentleman in the East,
Who, by his great gaming came to poverty,
And afterwards went many voyages to sea.

Being well educated, and one of great wit,
Three merchants of London, they all thought it fit,
To make him their captain, and factor also,
And for them to Turkey a voyage he did go."

This is sorry enough doggrel, as every one who has the capacity of reckoning feet upon his fingers must allow; but Sheldon fairly trumps it. In a fit of enthusiasm, he has enlisted the name of a friend in the service, and that gentleman must doubtless feel infinitely obliged for the honour of such immortalisation.

"Syr Carnegie's gane owre the sea,
And's plowing thro' the main,
And now must make a lang voyage,
The red gold for to gain.

Now woe befall the cogging die,
And weary the painted beuks,
A Christian curse go with all naigs,
And eke all hounds and cocks.

Three merchants of great London town,
To save the youth were bent,
And they sent him as factor to Turkish ground,
For the gaming has hym shent."

Poets of the Isle of Muck, did ye ever listen to such a strain? Now let us take a look at the works of the ancients. The first in point of order is the "Laidley Worm of Spindleston Heugh," touching which Mr Sheldon gives us the following information. "This ballad was made by the old mountain bard, Duncan Fraser of Cheviot, who lived a.d. 1320, and, was first printed some years ago, from an ancient MS., by Robert Lambe, vicar of Norham." We do not know what exact time maybe meant by the phrase "some years ago," but the fact is that the "Laidley Worm,"—which is neither more nor less than a very poor version of the old Scots Ballad, "Kempion"—was, according to Sir Walter Scott, "either entirely composed, or rewritten, by the Rev. Mr Lamb of Norham," and had been so often published, that it was not thought worth while to insert it in the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. For the same reason, and for its inferior quality, it was kept out of Mr S. C. Hall's "Book of British Ballads." Intrinsically it is so bad, that Mr Sheldon himself might have written it in a moment of extraordinary inspiration; indeed the following three verses, are in every way worthy of his pen;—

"He sprinkled her with three drops o' the well,
In her palace where she stood;
When she grovelled down upon her belly,
A foul and loathsome toad.

And on the lands, near Ida's towers,
A loathsome toad she crawls,
And venom spits on every thing,
Which cometh to the walls.

The virgins all of Bamborough town,
Will swear that they have seen
This spiteful toad of monstrous size,
Whilst walking in the green."

We are now coolly asked to believe that this stuff was written in the fourteenth century, and reprinted, seven years ago, from an ancient manuscript. But we must not be surprised at any thing from a gentleman who seems impressed with the idea that the Chronicles of Roger Hoveden are written in the English language.

We next come to a ballad entitled "The Outlandish Knight," whereof Mr Sheldon gives us the following history. "This ballad I have copied from a broadsheet, in the possession of a gentleman of Newcastle; it has also been published in 'Richardson's Table Book.' The verses with inverted commas, I added at the suggestion of a friend, as it was thought that the Knight was not rendered sufficiently odious, without this new trait of his dishonour."

So far well; but Mr Sheldon ought, at the same time, to have had the candour to tell us the source from which he pilfered those verses. His belief in the ignorance and gullibility of the public must indeed be unbounded, if he expected to pass off without discovery a vamped version of "May Collean." That fine ballad is to be found in the collections of Herd, Sharpe, Motherwell, and Chambers; and seldom, indeed, have we met with a case of more palpable cribbage, as the following specimen will demonstrate:—

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-vitæ 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.