?
This is a point which critics of Auld Maitland studiously ignore, yet
it is the essential point. How did the Shepherd know about the three
young Maitlands, whose existence, in legend, is only revealed to us
through a manuscript unpublished in 1802? Colonel Elliot does not
evade the point. "We may be sure," he says, that Leyden, before 1802,
knew Hogg, and Hogg might have obtained from him sufficient information
to enable him to compose the ballad. {47a} But it was from Laidlaw,
not from Leyden, that Scott, after receiving his first copy at
Blackhouse, in spring 1802, obtained Hogg's address. {47b} There is no
hint that before spring 1802 Leyden ever saw Hogg. Had he known him,
and his ballad-lore, he would have brought him and Scott together. In
1801-02, Leyden was very busy in Edinburgh helping Scott to edit Sir
Tristram, copying Arthour, seeking for an East India appointment, and
going into society. Scott's letters prove all this. {47c}
That Hogg, in 1802, was very capable of writing a ballad, I admit; also
that, through Blind Harry's Wallace, he may have known all about
"sowies," and "portculize," and springwalls, or springald's, or
springalls, mediaeval balistas for throwing heavy stones and darts.
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