Colonel Elliot "believes that Sir Walter wrote the whole from beginning
to end, and that it is, in fact, a clever and extremely beautiful
paraphrase of Satchells' rhymes." {130a}
This thorough scepticism is not a novelty, as Colonel Elliot quotes me
I had written years ago, "In Kinmont Willie, Scott has been suspected
of making the whole ballad." I did not, as the Colonel says, "mention
the names of the sceptics or the grounds of their suspicions." "The
sceptics," or one of them, was myself: I had "suspected" on much the
same grounds as Colonel Elliot's own, and I shall give my reasons for
adopting a more conservative opinion. One reason is merely subjective.
As a man, by long familiarity with ancient works of art, Greek gems,
for example, acquires a sense of their authenticity, or the reverse, so
he does in the case of ballads--or thinks he does--but of course this
result of experience is no ground of argument: experts are often
gulled. The ballad varies in many points from Satchells', which
Colonel Elliot explains thus: "I think that the cause for the
narrative at times diverging from that recorded by the rhymes (of
Satchells), is due, partly to artistic considerations, partly to the
author having wished to bring it more or less into conformity with
history.
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