Camden Road, N., Feb. 13,1900.

Mr. Keene's evidence may, perhaps, settle the question. But, if
Dickens wrote the Introduction, that might be confused in Mr.
Burnett's memory with the Notes, from internal evidence the work of
Thackeray. If not, then in the Notes we find a new aspect of the
inexhaustible humour of Dickens. It is certain, at all events, that
neither Dickens nor Thackeray was the author of the 'Loving Ballad.'

P.S.--The preface to the ballad says Battle Bridge.



XI. THE QUEEN'S MARIE



Little did my mother think
That day she cradled me
What land I was to travel in,
Or what death I should die.

Writing to Mrs. Dunlop on January 25, 1790, Burns quoted these
lines, 'in an old Scottish ballad, which, notwithstanding its rude
simplicity, speaks feelingly to the heart.' Mr. Carlyle is said,
when young, to have written them on a pane of glass in a window,
with a diamond, adding, characteristically, 'Oh foolish Thee!' In
1802, in the first edition of 'The Border Minstrelsy,' Scott cited
only three stanzas from the same ballad, not including Burns's
verse, but giving