Sir Walter Scott and the Border Minstrelsy

Persons not much interested in, or cognisant of, “antiquarian old womanries,” as Sir Walter called them, may ask “what all the pother is about,” in this little tractate.  On my side it is “about” the veracity of Sir Walter Scott.  He has been suspected of helping to compose, and of issuing as a genuine antique, a ballad, Auld Maitland.  He also wrote about the ballad, as a thing obtained from recitation, to two friends and fellow-antiquaries.  If to Scott’s knowledge it was a modern imitation, Sir Walter deliberately lied.