HE DEMON LOVER. This ballad first appeared in the "Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border; " it was communicated to Sir Walter Scott by Mr. William Laidlaw, by whom it was "taken down from recitation." Mr. Motherwell, by whom it was reprinted in his valuable volume, "Minstrelsy, Ancient and Modern," surmises that, although it would be unfair for a moment to imagine that Sir Walter Scott made any addition to it, Mr. Laidlaw may have improved upon its naked original." That he did so, is by no means unlikely; nor is it very improbable that, in passing through the alembic of the great Magician of the North, it received additional purity, without losing aught of its intrinsic worth. Mr. Motherwell, with all his industry, was unable to find it in a more perfect state than this," which the reader will be interested in comparing with the appended copy from the "Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border:"

'I have seven ship upon the sea Laden with the finest gold,

And mariners to wait us upon

All these you may behold.

And I have shoes for my love's feet,
Beaten of the purest gold,

And lined with the velvet soft,

To keep my love's feet from the cold.

O how do you love the ship,' he said,
'Or how do you love the sea?

Or how do you love the bold mariners,
That wait upon thee and me?'

'O I do love the ship,' she said,
'And I do love the sea;
But woe be to the dim mariners,
That nowhere I can see.'

They had not sailed a mile awa',

Never a mile but one,

When she began to weep and mourn,
And to think on her little wee son.

O hold your tongue, my dear,' he said,
And let all your weeping abee,
For I'll soon show to you how the lilles grow
On the banks of Italy.'

They had not sailed a mile awa',

Never a mile but two,
Until she espied his cloven foot,

From his gay robes sticking thro'.

They had not sailed a mile awa',
Never a mile but three,

When dark dark grew his eerie looks,
And raging grew the sea.

They had not sailed a mile awa',

Never a mile but four,

When the little wee ship ran round about

And never was seen more.

If this be, in reality, the skeleton which Mr. Laidlaw clothed in sinews and flesh, he has given unquestionable proof of genius of a very rare order. There is, however, little doubt that he had actually "taken down, from recitation," a much more perfect copy, to which he gave some "finishing touches" of his own; for the composition bears unequivocal marks of old time; and a collateral proof of its antiquity, in a more extended form, is supplied by an authority, to which reference is made by the accomplished editor of the latest edition of the "Border Minstrelsy." Mr. Buchan, in his "Ancient Ballads and Songs of the North of Scotland, hitherto unpublished," prints another version of the story, under the title of "James Herries; " with this difference, however, that here, the lover, who wreaks his vengeance on the "fause

woman," is not a demon with a "cloven foot," but the ghost of a "first true love;"

the other incidents are precisely similar, and many of the lines are exactly the same; although as a whole it is far less grand, touching, and dramatic, than the version as preserved by Sir Walter Scott. Mr. Buchan gives three additional stanzas, descriptive of the misery of the betrayed husband; they are fine and effective, and contribute strongly to impress the moral of the tale :

'O wae be to the ship, the ship,

And wae be to the sea;

And wae be to the mariners

Took Jeanie Douglas frae me!

O bonny, bonny was my love,

A pleasure to behold;
The very hair o' my love's head
Was like the threads of gold.

O bonny was her cheek, her cheek,
And bonny was her chin;
And bonny was the bride she was,
The day she was made mine.'

From Mr. Motherwell's volume we copy the air, to which the old ballad was sung:

be

The legend contained in the ballad is, according to Sir Walter Scott, "in various shapes current in Scotland;" but it is by no means peculiar to that country. Similar stories are told in many of the English counties; and in Ireland it is very common; the moral conveying a warning against the crime of infidelity. Sir Walter says, "I remember to have heard a ballad, in which a fiend is introduced paying his addresses to a beautiful maiden; but, disconcerted by the holy herbs she wore in her bosom, makes the following lines the burthen of his courtship:

'Gin ye wish to be leman mine,

Lay aside the St. John's wort, and the vervain." "

The same power of keeping away evil spirits is attributed to the vervain in Ireland; where, when it is pulled by village mediciners, while the morning dew is on the ground, this verse is generally repeated:

The unhappy lady whose fate is described in the accompanying ballad had no such "protection," and was without that surer safeguard, to which the great poet refers as a possession, o'er which

No goblin or swart fairy of the mine

Hath hurtful power.