, where Scott probably introduced the
Elliot tune (if it be ancient) -
O wha dare meddle wi' me?
Satchells next, through a hundred and forty lines, describes
Buccleuch's correspondence with Scrope, his counsels with his clansmen,
and gives all their names and estates, with remarks on their
relationships. He thinks himself a historian and a genealogist. The
stuff is partly in prose lines, partly in rhymed couplets of various
lengths. There are two or three more or less ballad-like stanzas at
the beginning, but they are too bad for any author but Satchells.
Scott's ballad "cuts" all that, omits even what Satchells gives--
mentions of Harden, and goes on (xv.) -
He has called him forty marchmen bauld,
I trow they were of his own name.
Except Sir Gilbert Elliot called
The Laird of Stubs, I mean the same.
Now I would stake a large sum that Sir Walter never wrote that "stall-
copy" stanza! Colonel Elliot replies that I have said the ballad-faker
should avoid being too poetical. The ballad-faker SHOULD shun being
too poetical, as he would shun kippered sturgeon; but Scott did not
know this, nor did Hogg.
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