worthiness of Border Ballads as Exemplified by 'Jamie Telfer
i' the Fair Dodhead' and other Ballads_; by Lieut.-Col. the Hon.
Fitzwilliam Elliott. Reviewed in _Edinburgh Review_, No. 418, p. 306
(October, 1906).]

[Footnote 51: See the examples given in the preceding note. Most of
the changes there spoken of were made without annotation.]

[Footnote 52: This extraordinary young man was poet and scholar on his
own account by 1800, though he was four years younger than Scott. His
erudition in many fields was remarkable, and he was as enthusiastic as
Scott himself about Scotch poetry, and was the chief assistant in
gathering ballads for the _Minstrelsy_. He also collected the material
for the essay on Fairies in the second volume, which was especially
praised by the reviewer in the _Edinburgh Review_ (January, 1803).
Leyden's chief fame was derived from his wonderfully varied activities
in India, from 1803 to his early death in 1811. Any reader of
Lockhart's _Life of Scott_ or of Scott's delightful little memoir,
published first in the _Edinburgh Annual Register_ for 1811, and
included in the _Miscellaneous Prose Works_, must feel that the
uncouth young genius is a familiar acquaintance.]

[Footnote 53: The Ettrick Shepherd, who, after reading the first two
volumes of the _Minstrelsy_, sought an acquaintance with Scott, and
offered assistance which was gladly made use of in the preparation of
the third volume. Scott in his turn provided much of the material for
Hogg's _Jacobite Relics_, published in 1819. The following note on one
of the songs in that work adds to the reader's doubts concerning the
accuracy of Scott's texts: "I have not altered a word from the
manuscript, which is in the handwriting of an amanuensis of Mr.
Scott's, the most incorrect transcriber, perhaps, that ever tried the
business." (_Jacobite Relics_, Vol. I, p. 282. Note on song lxiii.)]

[Footnote 54: Henderson's edition of the _Minstrelsy_, Vol. I, p.
284.]

[Footnote 55: _Quarterly_, May, 1810.]

[Footnote 56: _Lockhart_, Vol. III, p. 514.]

[Footnote 57: Still more striking evidence that Scott lacked an
infallible sense of the difference between genuine and spurious ballad
material is afforded by his comments on Peter Buchan's collection,
which is now considered particularly untrustworthy. He thought that
with two or three exceptions the pieces in the book were genuin