footnotes" (on these interpolations) "were inserted with the purpose
of leading the public to think that Hogg made no other
interpolations; but I am afraid I must go further than this and say
that, since they were inserted on the editor's responsibility, the
intention must have been to make it appear as if no other
interpolations by any other hand had been inserted."

But no other interpolations by another hand WERE inserted! Some
verbal emendations were made by Scott, but he never put in a stanza
or two lines of his own.

Colonel Elliot provides us with six pages of the Higher Criticism.
He knows how to distinguish between verses by Hogg, and verses by
Scott! {32a} But, save when Scott puts one line, a ballad formula,
where Hogg has another line, Scott makes no interpolations, and the
ballad formula he probably took, with other things of no more
importance, from Mrs. Hogg's recitation. Oh, Higher Criticism!

I now print the ballad as Hogg sent it to Laidlaw, between August
1801 and March 1802, in all probability.

[Back of Hogg's MS.: Mr. William Laidlaw, Blackhouse.]




OLD MAITLAND
A VERY ANTIENT SONG

There lived a king in southern land