SIR ALDINGAR. THIS ballad is taken from Percy's "Reliques," having passed under the correcting and improving hands of that learned and accomplished annotator. But our information as to its authorship or its origin, is very meagre and unsatisfactory. Sir Walter Scott, indeed, has published in his "Minstrelsy,” a ballad, in which the incidents are nearly similar, though the deliverance of the Queen is Yet, although Scott was informed on good authority that the founder of the Arbuthnot family was the actual hero of this story, and that the very sword, with which he defended the Queen's honor, is still in existence, it is a curious fact, that no in tance is recorded in history, in which the good name of a Queen of Scotland was committed to the chance of a duel.-We are glad that Mr. Hall has given us the version that follows, with its supernatural agency, in preference to the oft-told tale of intervention at the eleventh hour by some wandering Knight, the never-failing champion of "widows, orphelines, and maidens of good fame." Here take thy queene, our King Harrye, For never had a king in Christentye, King Henrye ran to clasp his queene, And loosed her full sone; Then turned to look for the tinye boye; —The boye was vanisht and gone! But first hee had touchd the lazar man, All whole and sounde did stand. The lazar under the gallowes tree Was comelye, straight and tall; King Henrye made him his head stewarde To wayte within his hall. |