Jamieson has it,—­

“‘Twas lang i’ the night, and the bairnies grat [cried], Their mither she under the mools [mould] heard that.”

Again, Dr. Prior gives us,—­

  “Her eldest daughter then she sped
  To fetch Child Dyring out of bed”;

instead of Jamieson’s—­

  “Till her eldest dochter syne [then] said she,
  ‘Ye bid Child Dyring come here to me.’”

And, still worse,—­

  “Out from their chest she stretch’d her bones
  And rent her way through earth and stones”;

where Jamieson is not only more literal, but more forcible,—­

  “Wi’ her banes sae stark a bowt she gae
  Hath riven both wall and marble gray.”

The original is better than either,—­

  “She upward heaved her mighty bones
  And rived both wall and gray marble-stones.”

Jamieson had the true instinct of a translator, though his own verses defy the stanchest reader; and, reasoning by analogy, Dr. Prior’s translations are so bad that he ought to be capable of very good original poetry.

However, with all its defects, Dr. Prior’s book is of value for the information it gives.  Under the dead ribs of his translations the reader familiar with old ballads can create a life for himself, and can form some conception of the spirit and strength of the originals.

Mr. Chambers’s pamphlet is one that we should hardly have expected from the editor of the best collection of ballads in the language before that of Professor Child.  Directly in the teeth of all probability, he attributes the bulk of the romantic Scottish ballads to Lady Wardlaw, who wrote “Hardyknute.”  This is one of those theories (like that of Lord Bacon being the author of Shakspeare’s plays) which cannot be argued, but which every one familiar with the subject challenges peremptorily.  Without going very deeply into the matter, Mr. Norval Clyne has put in a clever plea in arrest of judgment.  The truth is, that, in the present state of our knowledge, “Hardyknute” could not pass muster as an antique better than “Vortigern,” or the poems of “Master Rowley”; and the notion that Lady Wardlaw could have written “Sir Patrick Spens” will not hold water better than a sieve, when we consider how hopelessly inferior are the imitations of old ballads written by Scott, with fifty times her familiarity with the originals, and a man of genius besides.

* * * * *

Miss Gilbert’s Career.  An American Story.  By J.G.  HOLLAND.  New York:  Charles Scribner.