Then Colonel Elliot cites, as the worst -
XV.
Then fifteen barks, all gaily good,
Met them upon a day,
Which they did lade with as much spoil
As they could take away.
XVIII.
Until we came unto that town
Which some call Billop-Grace;
There were Auld Maitland's sons, a' three,
Learning at school, alas!
Now, if I venture to differ from Colonel Elliot here, I may plead that
I am practised in the art of ballad-faking, and can produce high
testimonials of skill! To me stanzas xv., xviii. seem to differ much
from viii.-xi., but not in such a way as Hogg would have differed, had
he made them. Hogg's error would have lain, as Scott's did, in being,
as Scott said of Mrs. Hemans, TOO POETICAL.
Neither Hogg nor Scott, I think, was crafty enough to imitate the
prosaic drawl of the printed broadside ballad, or the feeble
interpolations with which the "gangrel scrape-gut," or bankelsanger,
supplied gaps in his memory. The modern complete ballad-faker WOULD
introduce such abject verses, but Scott and Hogg desired to decorate,
not to debase, ballads with which they intermeddled, and we track them
by their modern romantic touch when they interpolate.
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