had
compared the condition of Minna to that of Jeanie Gray, in the words of
Lady Anne, in a sequel which she had published to the original ballad:--

"Nae langer she wept, her tears were a' spent;
Despair it was come, and she thought it content;
She thought it content, but her cheek it grew pale,
And she droop'd like a snowdrop broke down by the hail!"

At length, in her seventy-third year, and upwards of half a century
after the period of its composition, the author voluntarily made avowal
of the authorship of the ballad and its sequel. She wrote to Sir Walter
Scott, with whom she was acquainted, requesting him to inform his
_personal friend_, the author of "Waverley," that she was indeed the
author. She enclosed a copy to Sir Walter, written in her own hand; and,
with her consent, in the course of the following year, he printed "Auld
Robin Gray" as a contribution to the Bannatyne Club.

The second part has not acquired such decided popularity, and it has not
often been published with it in former Collections. Of the fact of its
inequality, the accomplished author was fully aware: she wrote it
simply to gratify the desire of her venerable mother, who often wished
to know how "the unlucky business of Jeanie and Jamie ended." The
Countess, it may be remarked, was much gratified by the popularity of
the ballad; and though she seems, out of respect to her daughter's
feelings, to have retained the secret, she could not resist the frequent
repetition of it to her friends.

In the character of Lady Anne Barnard, the defective point was a certain
want of decision, which not only led to her declining many distinguished
and advantageous offers for her hand, but tended, in some measure, to
deprive her of posthumous fame. Illustrative of the latter fact, it has
been recorded that, having entrusted to Sir Walter Scott a volume of
lyrics, composed by herself and by others of the noble house of Lindsay,
with permission to give it to the world, she withdrew her consent after
the compositions had been printed in a quarto volume, and were just on
the eve of being published. The copies of the work, which was entitled
"Lays of the Lindsays," appear to have been destroyed. One lyric only
has been recovered, beginning, "Why tarries my love?" It is printed as
the composition of Lady Anne Barnard, in a note appended to the latest
edition of Johnson's "Musical Museum," by Mr C. K. Sharpe, who
transcribed it from the _Scots