GIL MORICE. THE ballad of Gil Morice, as given in Percy's "Reliques," is so widely known, and has been so much praised, that to impugn its accuracy as an ancient composition may seem almost heretical. Nevertheless, the learned Bishop has himself admitted that several of the stanzas may be "ingenious interpolations;" that they are so, no one versant in the structure of the old Scottish ballad-poetry can doubt. Such verses as the following betray their illegitimacy : "His hair was like the threeds of gold Drawne frae Minerva's loome: His brow was like the mountain snae The boy was clad in robes of greene, He gart the vallies ring." Bishop Percy (whose extreme care and candour in editing deserve as much recognition as his skill) states that, in 1755, VOL. I. K the ballad of Gil Morice had passed through two editions in Scotland, and that, prefixed to both, there was an advertisement, setting forth, that the preservation of this poem was owing "to a lady, who favoured the printers with a copy, as it was carefully collected from the mouths of old women and nurses;" and "any reader that can render it more correct or complete" is desired to oblige the public with such improvements. The "improvements" are the verses which Percy suspects to be interpolations; and he farther expresses his opinion that the ballad "has received very considerable modern improvements; for, in the editor's ancient manuscript collection, is a very old imperfect copy of the same ballad, wherein, though the leading features of the story are the same, yet the colouring here is so much improved and heightened, and so many additional strokes are thrown in, that it is evident the whole has undergone a revisal." Through the courtesy of the Bishop, Mr Jamieson obtained a transcript of the old imperfect copy referred to; and, by publishing it in his "Popular Ballads and Songs," he has proved beyond all doubt, that, previous to the publication in 1755, the ballad had been entirely recast, or rather rewritten, in a style suited to the prevalent taste of the age. In the old copy (which is so imperfect and fragmentary that it could not be restored by any process which an editor is entitled to use) Lord Barnard-a name, by the way, quite foreign to Scotland-appears as "John Steward,” while the hero is denominated "Childe Maurice." The introductory dialogue with the foot-page is omitted, as is also the concluding recriminatory dispute between the Baron and his lady. Changes such as these could not be the effect of mere tradition: they must have been made deliberately; and though, doubtless, the artist, whoever he was, has painted a clever picture upon the old canvass, he has not succeeded in giving the semblance of antiquity to the patches which were purely his own. Take, for example, the dialogue with the page, as given in the "Reliques." Who that is acquainted with the language of Scotland, as used in minstrelsy, can admit the authenticity of such lines as these? "How can ye strive against the stream, For I sall be obey'd." "If ye refuse my heigh command "Sen ye by me will nae be warn'd, The Baron he is a man of might, How sma' ye hae to vaunt." No wonder that such barefaced impostures should have roused the wrath of irritable old Ritson! The well-known lines descriptive of the progress of the page, "And when he came to broken brigg, He bent his bow and swam," &c., are undoubtedly ancient, but they do not belong to this ballad. They have been unceremoniously borrowed from 'Lady Maisry," which has a place in the present collection. The conclusion is even worse. In the whole range of counterfeits, I know nothing so bad as the following: "Obraid me not, my Lord Barnard ! Wi' that saim speir O pierce my heart! Since nothing but Gill Morice head Thy jelous rage could quell, It would, however, appear that the ballad, as printed in 1755, became very popular (no doubt owing to the success of Home's tragedy of "Douglas," which was brought out on the Edinburgh stage in 1756), and that it passed into recitation. But it did not remain unaltered; and its reappearance, after the lapse of years, in a modified form, is another striking instance of the changes which are wrought on oral poetry during the process of tradition. Mr Motherwell, whose "Minstrelsy" was published in 1827, gives a version of Gil Morice, taken from the recitation of a woman, then seventy years of age, who had committed it to memory in her youth. In that version many of the modernisms have disappeared altogether, and others are so altered that they might almost pass for snatches of an ancient ballad. The decorated copy was doubtless considered genuine by many for whose behoof such ballads as 66 Duncan," Kenneth," and "The Childe of Elle," were composed; but the ear of the commonalty was too well trained to the measure, cadence, and diction of the old Scottish poetry, to be deceived. They took the ballad as printed, but, in the process of recitation, they rejected much that was evidently spurious, and altered more. 99 66 Mr Motherwell has also given a version, under the title of "Child Noryce," taken down from recitation in 1825, for which he claims high antiquity, and avowedly considers it as the true rendering, through tradition, of the original ballad. Such may be the case; and certainly it comes nearer the original in the possession of Bishop Percy, and published by Jamieson, than any other extant. But still the variations, not only in wording, but in form, are so great, that I hesitate to adopt it; more especially, because I am convinced that the printed copy of 1755 must, owing to the extreme popularity of "Douglas," have superseded any older version. Moreover, its diction stamps it as belonging to the lower class of ballads, whereas that given by Jamieson, however imperfect, manifestly belongs to the higher order. Having said thus much, I am necessarily bound to explain the method I have followed in reconstructing this ballad. I have taken as a foundation the popular version recovered by Mr Motherwell, from which, as I have already said, many of the artificialities have disappeared. I have weeded from it every stanza which I consider to have been fabricated in the copy of 1755, replacing them, when that was possible, by stanzas from the imperfect old version printed by Mr Jamieson; and I have cancelled the larcenous verses transferred from "Lady Maisry." The ballad, thus divested of its gauds, is at all events simple and unexaggerated. IL MORICE was an Earlie's son, GIL was an wide, His name it waxed wide; It was na for his parentage, But it was for a lady gay, "Where shall I get a bonnie boy "O Willie, my man, my errand gang, And ye will take this gay mantel, It's a' gowd but the hem, Bid her come speak to Gil Morice, Bring naebody but her lane. |