NOTES ON SIR PATRICK SPENS. To send us out at this time of the year, By a Scottish act of Parliament, it was enacted, that no ship should be freighted out of the kingdom, with any staple goods, betwixt the feast of St Simon's day and Jude and Can- } dlemas.-James III. Parliament 2d, chap. 15. Such was the terror entertained for navigating the North Seas in winter, When a bout flew out of our goodly ship.-P. 10, v. 5. I believe a modern seaman would say, a plank had started; which must have been a frequent incident during the infancy of ship-building. Mr Finlay, however, thinks it rather means that a bolt gave way. The remedy applied seems to be that mentioned in Cook's Voyages, when, upon some occasion, to stop a leak, which could not be got at in the inside, a quilted sail was brought under the vessel, which, being drawn into the leak by the suction, prevented the entry of more water, Chaucer says, "There n'is na new guise that it na'as old." O forty miles off Aberdeen.-P. 12. v. 3. This concluding verse differs in the three copies of the ballad, which I have collated. The printed edition bears, "Have owre, have owre to Aberdour;" And one of the MSS. reads, "At the back of auld St Johnstone Dykes." But, in a voyage from Norway, a shipwreck on the north coast seems as probable as either in the Frith of Forth, or Tay; and the ballad states the disaster to have taken place out of sight of land. AULD MAITLAND. NEVER BEFORE PUBLISHED. THIS ballad, notwithstanding its present appearance, has a claim to very high antiquity. It has been preserved by tradition; and is, perhaps, the most authentic instance of a long and very old poem, exclusively thus preserved. It is only known to a few old people upon the sequestered banks of the Ettrick; and is published, as written' down from the recitation of the mother of Mr James Hogg, who sings, or rather chaunts it, with great animation. She learned the ballad from a blind man, who died at the advanced age of ninety, and is said to have been possessed of much traditionary knowledge. Although the language of this poem is much modernized, yet many words, which the reciters have retained without understanding them, still preserve traces of its an *This old woman is still alive, and at present resides at Craig of Douglas, in Selkirkshire. 1805.-She is now deceased. 1820. tiquity. Such are the words springals (corruptedly pronounced springwalls,) sowies, portcullize, and many other appropriate terms of war and chivalry, which could never have been introduced by a modern ballad-maker. The incidents are striking and well managed; and they are in strict conformity with the manners of the age in which they are placed. The editor has, therefore, been induced to illustrate them, at considerable length, by parallel passages from Froissart, and other historians of the period to which the events refer. The date of the ballad cannot be ascertained with any degree of accuracy. Sir Richard Maitland, the hero of the poem, seems to have been in possession of his estate about 1250; so that, as he survived the commencement of the wars betwixt England and Scotland, in 1296, his prowess against the English, in defence of his castle of Lauder or Thirlestane, must have been exerted during his extreme old age. He seems to have been distinguished for devotion as well as valour; for, A.D. 1249, Dominus Ricardus de Mautlant gave to the Abbey of Dryburgh, "Terras suas de Haubentside, in territorio suo de Thirle66 stane, pro salute animæ suæ, et sponsæ suæ, antecessorum suorum et successorum suorum, in perpetuum.”* He * There exists also an indenture, or bond, entered into by Patrick, Abbot of Kelsau, and his convent, referring to an engagement betwixt them and Sir Richard Maitland, and Sir William, his eldest son, concerning the lands of Hedderwicke, and the pasturages of Thirlestane and Blythe. This Patrick was Abbot of Kelso betwixt 1258 and 1260. also gave to the same convent, " Omnes terras, quas Wal"terus de Giling tenuit in feodo suo de Thirlestane, et "pastura incommuni de Thirlestane, ad quadraginta oves, "sexaginta vaccas, et ad viginti equos."-Cartulary of Dryburgh Abbey, in the Advocates' Library. From the following ballad, and from the family traditions referred to in the Maitland MSS., Auld Maitland appears to have had three sons; but we learn, from the latter authority, that only one survived him, who was thence surnamed Burd alane, which signifies either unequalled, or solitary. A Consolation, addressed to Sir Richard Maitland of Lethington, a poet and scholar who flourished about the middle of the sixteenth century, and who gives name to the Maitland MSS., draws the following parallel betwixt his domestic misfortunes and those of the first Sir Richard, his great ancestor : Sic destanie and derfe devoring deid Oft his own hous in hazard put of auld; For fortounes feid or force wald never fauld; But stormis withstand with stomak stout and stoik. Renowned Richert of your race record, |