This I
shall prove from his original text, published by Child from the
Abbotsford MSS., and by a letter from the collector of the ballad,
the Ettrick Shepherd.
The facts, in this instance, apparently are utterly unknown to
Lieutenant-Colonel the Hon. Fitzwilliam Elliot, in his Further Essays
on Border Ballads (1910), pp. 1-45.
Again, I am absolutely certain, and can demonstrate, that Scott did
not (as Colonel Elliot believes) detect Hogg in forging Auld
Maitland, join with him in this fraud, and palm the ballad off on the
public. Nothing of the kind occurred. Scott did not lie in this
matter, both to the world and to his intimate friends, in private
letters.
Once more, without better evidence than we possess, I do not believe
that, in Jamie Telfer, Scott transferred the glory from the Elliots
to the Scotts, and the shame from Buccleuch to Elliot of Stobs. The
discussion leads us into very curious matter. But here, with our
present materials, neither absolute proof nor disproof is possible.
Finally, as to Kinmont Willie, I merely give such reasons as I can
find for thinking that Scott HAD "mangled" fragments of an old ballad
before him, and did not merely paraphrase the narrative of Walter
Scott of Satchells, in his doggerel True History of the Name of Scott
(1688).
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