sy of the Scottish Border"
(Vols. I. and II. in 1802; Vol. III. in 1803), a collection of ballads
historical, legendary, and romantic, with an abundant apparatus in the
way of notes and introductions, illustrating the history, antiquities,
manners, traditions, and superstitions of the Borderers. Forty-three of
the ballads in the "Minstrelsy" had never been printed before; and of the
remainder the editor gave superior versions, choosing with sureness of
taste the best among variant readings, and with a more intimate knowledge
of local ways and language than any previous ballad-fancier had
commanded. He handled his texts more faithfully than Percy, rarely
substituting lines of his own. "From among a hundred corruptions," says
Lockhart, "he seized, with instinctive tact, the primitive diction and
imagery, and produced strains in which the unbroken energy of
half-civilised ages, their stern and deep passions, their daring
adventures and cruel tragedies, and even their rude wild humour are
reflected with almost the brightness of a Homeric mirror."

In the second volume of the "Minstrelsy" were included what Scott calls
his "first serious attempts in verse," viz., "Glenfinlas" and "The Eve of
St. John," which had been already printed in Lewis' "Tales of Wonder."
Both pieces are purely romantic, with a strong tincture of the
supernatural; but the first--Scott himself draws the distinction--is a
"legendary poem," and the second alone a proper "ballad."
"Glenfinlas," [25] founded on a Gaelic legend, tells how a Highland
chieftain while hunting in Perthshire, near the scene of "The Lady of the
Lake," is lured from his bothie at night and torn to pieces by evil
spirits. There is no attempt here to preserve the language of popular
poetry; stanzas abound in a diction of which the following is a fair
example:

"Long have I sought sweet Mary's heart,
And dropp'd the tear and heaved the sigh:
But vain the lover's wily art
Beneath a sister's watchful eye."

"The Eve of St. John" employs common ballad stuff, the visit of a
murdered lover's ghost to his lady's bedside--

"At the lone midnight hour, when bad spirits have power"--

but the poet, as usual, anchors his weird nightmares firmly to real names
and times and places, Dryburgh Abbey, the black rood of Melrose, the
Eildon-tree, the bold Buccleuch, and the Battle of Ancram Moor (1545).
The exact scene of the tragedy is Smailholme Tower, the ruined keep on
the crag