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of virtuous distress in humble life, such as might suit it. While attempting to effect this in my closet, I called to my little sister, now Lady Hardwicke, who was the only person near me—'I have been writing a ballad, my dear: I am oppressing my heroine with many misfortunes. I have already sent her Jamie to sea—and broken her father's arm— and made her mother fall sick—and given her Auld Robin Gray for her lover; but I wish to load her with a fifth sorrow within the four lines, poor thing! Help me to one.'—'Steal the cow, sister Anne,' said the little Elizabeth. The cow was immediately lifted by me, and the song completed. At our fire-side, and amongst our neighbours, "Auld Robin Gray" was always called for. I was pleased in secret with the approbation it met with; but such was my dread of being suspected of writing any thing, perceiving the shyness it created in those who could write nothing, that I carefully kept my own secret.
"Happening to sing it one day at Dalkeith House, with more feeling, perhaps, than belonged to a common ballad, our friend, Lady Frances Scott, smiled, and, fixing her eyes on me, said, 'You wrote this song yourself.' The blush that followed confirmed my guilt. Perhaps I blushed the more (being then very young) from the recollection of the coarse words from which I borrowed the tune, and was afraid of the raillery which might have taken place, if it had been discovered I had ever heard such. Be that as it may, from one honest man I had an excellent hint. The Laird of Dalziel, after hearing it, broke out into the angry exclamation of 'O, the villain! O the auld rascal! I ken wha stealt the poor lassie's coo—it was Auld Robin Gray himsell.' I thought it a bright idea, and treasured it up for a future occasion.
"'Meantime, little as this matter seems to have been worthy of dispute, it afterwards became a party question between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. 'Robin Gray' was either a very ancient ballad, composed, perhaps, by David Rizzio, and a great curiosity, or a very modern matter, and no curiosity at all. I was persecuted to avow whether I had written it or not—where I had got it. Old Sophy kept my counsel, and I kept my own, in spite of the gratification of seeing a reward of twenty guineas offered in the newspapers to the person who should ascertain the point past a doubt, and the still more flattering circumstance of a visit from Mr. Jerningham, secretary to the Antiquarian Society, who endeavoured to entrap the truth from me in a manner I took amiss. Had he asked me the question obligingly, I should have told him the fact distinctly and confidentially. The annoyance, however, of this important ambassador from the Antiquaries, was amply repaid to me by the noble exhibition of the 'Ballet of Auld Robin Gray's Courtship,' as performed by dancing dogs under my window. It proved its popularity from the highest to the lowest, and gave me pleasure, while I hugged myself in my obscurity.
"'Such was the history of the First Part of it. As to the Second, it was written many years after, in compliment to my dear old mother, who said, 'Anny, I wish you would tell me how that unlucky business of Jennie and Jamie ended.' To meet her wishes as far as I could, the Second Part was written. It is not so pleasing as the first; the early loves and distresses of youth go more to the heart than the contritions, confessions, and legacies of old age. My dread, however, of being named as an Authoress still remaining, though I sung it to my mother, I gave her no copy of it; but her affection for me impressed it on a memory which retained scarcely any thing else. I wrote another version of the Second Part, as coming from Jenny's own lips, which some people may like better, from its being in the same measure.
"'I must also mention the Laird of Dalziel's advice, who, in a tête-à-tête, afterwards said, 'My dear, the next time you sing that song, try to change the words a wee bit, and, instead of singing, 'To make the crown a pound, my Jamie gaed to sea', say, to make it twenty merks; for a Scottish pund is but twenty pence, and Jamie was na such a gowk as to leave Jenny and gang to sea to lessen his gear. It is that line (whispered he) that tells me that sang was written by some bonnie lassie that didna ken the value of the Scots money quite so well as an auld writer