"
Sir Walter knew perfectly well that he was not "playing the game" in
a truly scientific spirit. He explains his ideas in his "Essay on
Popular Poetry" as late as 1830. He mentions Joseph Ritson's
"extreme attachment to the severity of truth," and his attacks on
Bishop Percy's purely literary treatment of the materials of his
Reliques of Ancient Poetry (1765).
As Scott says, "by Percy words were altered, phrases improved, and
whole verses were inserted or omitted at pleasure." Percy
"accommodated" the ballads "with such emendations as might recommend
them to the modern taste." Ritson cried "forgery," but Percy, says
Scott, had to win a hearing from his age, and confessed (in general
terms) to his additions and decorations.
Scott then speaks reprovingly of Pinkerton's wholesale fabrication of
ENTIRE BALLADS (1783), a crime acknowledged later by the culprit
(1786). Scott applauds Ritson's accuracy, but regrets his preference
of the worst to the better readings, as if their inferiority was a
security for their being genuine.
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