these glens knew of no other entertainment in the long winter nights
than in repeating and listening to these feats of their ancestors,
which I believe to be handed down inviolate from father to son, for
many generations, although no doubt, had a copy been taken of them at
the end of every fifty years, there must have been some difference,
which the repeaters would have insensibly fallen into merely by the
change of terms in that period. I believe that it is thus that many
very ancient songs have been modernised, which yet to a connoisseur
will bear visible marks of antiquity. The Maitlen, for instance,
exclusive of its mode of description, is all composed of words, which
would mostly every one spell and pronounce in the very same dialect
that was spoken some centuries ago.

Pardon, my dear Sir, the freedom I have taken in addressing you--it
is my nature; and I could not resist the impulse of writing to you
any longer. Let me hear from you as soon as this comes to your hand,
and tell me when you will be in Ettrick Forest, and suffer me to
subscribe myself, Sir, your most humble and affectionate servant,

JAMES HOGG.


In Scott's printed text of the ballad, two interpolations, of two
lines each, are acknowledged in notes. They occur in stanzas vii.,
xlvi., and are attributed to Hogg. In fact, Hogg sent one of them
(vii.) to Laidlaw in his manuscript. The other he sent to Scott on
30th June 1802.

Colonel Elliot, in the spirit of the Higher Criticism (chimaera
bombinans in vacuo), writes, {31a} "Few will doubt that the