| Share page | Visit Us On FB |
|
SIR JAMES THE ROSE.
Pinkerton first published this piece in his Scottish Tragic Ballads, p. 61. In a note, it is said to have been taken " from a modern edition in one sheet, 12mo. after the old copy." Motherwell gives another version " as it occurs in early stall prints," (Minstrelsy, p. 321,) and suspects a few conjectural emendations in Pinker-ton's text. The passage from v. 51 to v. 59 is apparently defective, and has, probably, been tampered with; but Pinkerton's copy is on the whole much better than Motherwell's, or than Whitelaw's, (Scottish Ballads, 39,) which professes to be given chiefly from oral recitations.
Michael Bruce's Sir James the Rose will be found in another part of this collection. In Caw's Museum (p. 290) is a ballad in the worst possible taste, styled Elfrida and Sir James of Perth, which seems to be a mere disfiguration of Bruce's.
0 heaed ye o' Sir James the Eose, The young heir o' Buleighan ?
For he has kill'd a gallant squire, "Whase friends are out to tak him. |
||