The rather bere the meke and lowe; Lagh not mych for that ys wast, For folys ben by laghing 'knowe.' And loke thou wake not to longe, For, were thy complexion neuyr so strong, Of late walkyng oftyn debate, On nyztys for to syt and drynke Yf thou wylt rule thyn astate, Betyme go to bed and wynke. 65 But then fare with hur esely, And cherysch hur for hur gode dede, 110 For thyng ouerdon vnskylfully, Makys wrath to grow where ys no nede. 70 76 Nor, sone, be not jelows, j the pray, Ver. 95, schalt. V. 106, plesantyl. V. 113, praynt. V. 80 118, The MS. reads wreth the not, but the word not is inserted by a different, though very ancient, hand, which has corrected the poem in other places; and is certainly redundant and improper. Ver. 45, for swete. V. 55, sagne. V. 64, fulle. V. 68, none. V. 71, trewe. THIS beautiful and most touching fragment | an old woman who weeded in his garden." was originally published in the " Border Min- Her memory, however, was defective, and she strelsy;" we know far too little concerning it to satisfy the interest it excites. According to Sir Walter Scott, it was "taken down by Mr. Surtees (the historian of Durham county) from the recitation of Anne Douglas, was enabled to preserve only snatches of the Ver. 135, The latter half of this line seems repeated by reciter be correct, was shot to death by nine mistake. V. 138, be. V. 140, to despyse thee. *The author, from this and other admonitions, is supposed to have been a parson. Ver. 180, The latter part of this stanza seems to be wanting. V. 187, brynd. brothers, whose sister he had seduced, but was afterwards buried, at her request, near their usual piece of meeting, which may account for his being laid, not in holy ground, but beside the burn. The name of Barthram, or Bertram, would argue a Northumbrian origin; and there is, or was, a Headless Cross, among many so named, near Elsdon in Northumberland. But the mention of the Nine-Stane Burn, and Nine-Stane Rig, seems to refer to those places in the vicinity of Hermitage Castle (the scene of the Ballad of Lord Soulis), which is countenanced by the mentioning our Lady's Chapel. Perhaps the hero may have been an Englishman, and the lady a native of Scotland, which renders the catastrophe even more probable. The style of the ballad is rather Scottish than Northumbrian. They certainly did bury in former days near the Nine-Stane Burn; for the Editor remembers finding a small monumental cross, with initials, lying among the heather. It was so small that, with the assistance of another gentleman, he easily placed it upright." Upon one passage "A friar shall sing for Barthram's soul, While the headless cross shall bide" Mr. Surtees observes, that in the return made by the Commissioners on the Dissolution of Newminster Abbey, there is an item of a chauntry for one priest to sing daily ad crucem lapideam. Probably many of these crosses had the like expiatory solemnities for persons slain there. The ballad is, no doubt, founded upon some actual occurrence; for the incident it relates must have been common enough in the old days of Border warfare-when to national animosity was frequently added the stimulus of personal wrong. Of the hapless Barthram, however, and the lady who "tore her ling long yellow hair," and "Plaited a garland for his breast, And a garland for his hair,” we know nothing, even from tradition. But the composition carries with it a conviction that its foundation was in truth. The picture is at once so striking, so touching, and so impressive, as to leave no doubt that Barthram was left "Who will not regret," exclaims Sir Walter Scott, "that compositions of such interest and antiquity should be now irrecoverable? But it is the nature of popular poetry, as of popular applause, perpetually to shift with the objects of the time; and it is the frail chance of recovering some old manuscript, which can alone gratify our curiosity regarding the earlier efforts of the Border Muse. Some of her later strains, composed during the sixteenth century, have survived even to the present day; but the recollection of them has, of late years, become like that of a 'tale which was told."" As to the mode in which some of these "old and antique songs" have been preserved, we have a few striking notes in the "Border Minstrelsy."-"Whether they were originally the composition of minstrels professing the joint arts of poetry and music, or whether they were the occasional effusions of some self-taught bard, is a question into which I do not mean to inquire. But it is certain that, till a very late period, the pipers, of whom there was one attached to each Border town of note, and whose office was often hereditary, were the great depositaries of oral, and particularly of poetical tradition. About spring time, and after harvest, it was the custom of these musicians to make a progress through a particular district of the country. And they bore him to the Lady Chapel, A lady came to that lonely bower, And threw her robes aside; The music and the tale repaid their lodging, | They made a bier of the broken bough, It was from the latter source that Sir Walter chiefly drew the materials for his work ;-they were, he states, "collected during his early youth;" and among the notes to the latest edition of the "Minstrelsy" is the following:-"There is in the library at Abbotsford a collection of ballads, partly printed broadsides, partly in MS., in six small volumes, which, from the handwriting, must have been formed by Sir Walter Scott while he was attending the earlier classes of Edinburgh College." Buchan's collection was gathered directly as they fell from the lips of old people. We rejoice to learn that his rugged, but primitive and interesting volumes, are about to be reprinted "by subscription"-they have been long out of print. THEY shot him dead at the Nine-Stane Rig, She bathed him in the Lady-Well, 5 10 His wounds so deep and sair; They rowed him in a lily-sheet, And bare him to his earth; mass, As they pass'd the Chapel Garth. They buried him at the mirk midnight, When the dew fell cold and still, 20 They dug his grave but a bare foot deep, 25 flower, The moss and the lady fern. A Gray Friar staid upon the grave, And sang till the morning tide; 30 |