Sir Walter Scott and the Border Minstrelsy | Page 9

Scott's literary sins. His
interpolations, elsewhere mere stopgaps, are mainly to be found in
Kinmont Willie and Jamie Telfer. His duty was to say, in his preface to
each ballad, "The editor has interpolated stanza" so and so; if he made
up the last verses of Kinmont Willie from the conclusion of a version
of Archie o' Ca'field, he should have said so; as he does acknowledge

two stopgap interpolations by Hogg in Auld Maitland. But as to the
conclusion of Kinmont Willie, he did, we shall see, make confession.
Professor Kittredge, who edited Child's last part (X.), says in his
excellent abridged edition of Child (1905), "It was no doubt the feeling
that the popular ballad is a fluid and unstable thing that has prompted
so many editors--among them Sir Walter Scott, whom it is impossible
to assail, however much the scholarly conscience may disapprove--to
deal freely with the versions that came into their hands."
Twenty-five years after the appearance of The Border Minstrelsy, in
1827, appeared Motherwell's Minstrelsy, Ancient and Modern.
Motherwell was in favour of scientific methods of editing. Given two
copies of a ballad, he says, "perhaps they may not have a single stanza
which is mutual property, except certain commonplaces which seem an
integral portion of the original mechanism of all our ancient ballads . . .
" By selecting the most beautiful and striking passages from each copy,
and making those cohere, an editor, he says, may produce a more
perfect and ornate version than any that exists in tradition. Of the
originals "the individuality entirely disappears."
Motherwell disapproved of this method, which, as a rule, is Scott's, and,
scientifically, the method is not defensible. Thus, having three ballads
of rescues, in similar circumstances, with a river to ford, Scott
confessedly places that incident where he thinks it most "poetically
appropriate"; and in all probability, by a single touch, he gives poetry in
place of rough humour. Of all this Motherwell disapproved. (See
Kinmont Willie, infra.)
Aytoun, in The Ballads of Scotland, thought Motherwell hypercritical;
and also, in his practice inconsistent with his preaching. Aytoun
observed, "with much regret and not a little indignation" (1859), "that
later editors insinuated a doubt as to the fidelity of Sir Walter's
rendering. My firm belief, resting on documentary evidence, is that
Scott was most scrupulous in adhering to the very letter of his
transcripts, whenever copies of ballads, previously taken down, were
submitted to him." As an example, Aytoun, using a now lost MS. copy
of about 1689-1702, of The Outlaw Murray, says "Sir Walter has given
it throughout just as he received it." Yet Scott's copy, mainly from a
lost Cockburn MS., contains a humorous passage on Buccleuch which
Child half suspects to be by Sir Walter himself. {15a} It is impossible

for me to know whether Child's hesitating conjecture is right or wrong.
Certainly we shall see, when Scott had but one MS. copy, as of Auld
Maitland, his editing left little or nothing to be desired.
But now Scott is assailed, both where he deserves, and where, in my
opinion, he does not deserve censure.
Scott did no more than his confessed following of Percy's method
implies, to his original text of the Ballad of Otterburne. This I shall
prove from his original text, published by Child from the Abbotsford
MSS., and by a letter from the collector of the ballad, the Ettrick
Shepherd.
The facts, in this instance, apparently are utterly unknown to
Lieutenant-Colonel the Hon. Fitzwilliam Elliot, in his Further Essays
on Border Ballads (1910), pp. 1-45.
Again, I am absolutely certain, and can demonstrate, that Scott did not
(as Colonel Elliot believes) detect Hogg in forging Auld Maitland, join
with him in this fraud, and palm the ballad off on the public. Nothing of
the kind occurred. Scott did not lie in this matter, both to the world and
to his intimate friends, in private letters.
Once more, without better evidence than we possess, I do not believe
that, in Jamie Telfer, Scott transferred the glory from the Elliots to the
Scotts, and the shame from Buccleuch to Elliot of Stobs. The
discussion leads us into very curious matter. But here, with our present
materials, neither absolute proof nor disproof is possible.
Finally, as to Kinmont Willie, I merely give such reasons as I can find
for thinking that Scott HAD "mangled" fragments of an old ballad
before him, and did not merely paraphrase the narrative of Walter Scott
of Satchells, in his doggerel True History of the Name of Scott (1688).
The positions of Colonel Elliot are in each case the reverse of mine. In
the instance of Auld Maitland (where Scott's conduct would be
unpardonable if Colonel Elliot's view were correct), I have absolute
proof that he is entirely mistaken. For