south from Duns, in Berwickshire: some of the ruins of it may be seen to this day. The Gordons were anciently seated in the same county. The two villages of East and West Gordon lie about ten miles from the castle of the Rodes: the fact, however, on which the ballad is founded, happened in the north of Scotland. It contains but too just a picture of the violences practised in the feudal times all over Europe.

From the different titles of this ballad, it should seem that the old strolling bards or minstrels (who gained a livelihood by reciting these poems) made no scruple of changing the names of the personages they introduced, to humour their hearers. For instance, if a Gordon's conduct was blameworthy in the opinion of that age, the obsequious minstrel would, when among Gordons, change the name to Car, whose clan or sept lay farther west, and vice versa. In the third volume the reader will find a similar instance. See the song of Gil Morris, the hero of which had different names given him, perhaps from the same cause.

It may be proper to mention, that in the folio MS., instead of the" Castle of the Rodes," it is the "Castle of the Brittons-borrow," and also "Diactoars," or "Dratours-borrow," for it is very obscurely written, and "Capt. Adam Carre" is called the "Lord of Westerton-town." Uniformity required that the additional stanzas supplied from that copy should be clothed in the Scottish orthography and idiom: this has therefore been attempted, though perhaps imperfectly.

THE CHILD OF ELLE.

N yonder hill a castle stands,

With walls and towers bedight,
And yonder lives the Child of Elle,
A young and comely knight.

The Child of Elle to his garden went,
And stood at his garden pale,
When lo he beheld fair Emmeline's page,
Come tripping down the dale.

The Child of Elle he hied him thence,

I wis he stood not still,

And soon he met fair Emmeline's page

Come climbing up the hill.

"Now Christ thee save, thou little foot-page, Now Christ thee save and see!

Oh tell me how does thy lady gay,
And what may thy tidings be?"

"My Lady she is all woe-begone,

And the tears they fall from her eye; And aye she laments the deadly feud Between her house and thine.

And here she sends thee a silken scarf,
Bedewed with many a tear,

And bids thee sometimes think on her,
Who loved thee so dear.

And here she sends thee a ring of gold,
The last boon thou mayst have,
And bids thee wear it for her sake,
When she is laid in grave.

For, ah! her gentle heart is broke,

And in grave soon must she be,

Since her father hath chose her a new, new love, And forbids her to think of thee.

Her father hath brought her a carlish knight,

Sir John of the north country,

And within three days she must him wed,
Or he vows he will her slay."

"Now hie thee back, thou little foot-page,
And greet thy Lady from me,

And tell her that I, her own true love,
Will die or set her free.

Now hie thee back, thou little foot-page,
And let thy fair lady know,
This night I will be at her bow-window,
Betide me weal or woe.

The boy he tripped, the boy he ran,
He neither stint nor stayed,

Until he came to fair Emmeline's bower,
When kneeling down he said:

"O lady, I've been with thy own true love, And he greets thee well by me;

This night will he be at thy bow-window, And die or set thee free."

Now day was gone and night was come,

And all were fast asleep,

All save the Lady Emmeline,

Who sat in her bower to weep:

And soon she heard her true love's voice Low whispering at the wall: