The age of ballad collection and collation had fairly set in. But this does not deprive the _Minstrelsy_ of the praise that, with the beginning of a new century, it ensured that the search for and rescue from oblivion of the old ballads should thenceforth be a business which, not alone the antiquary and the poet, but the whole people should make their concern. Jamieson's _Popular Ballads_ followed in 1806; and, after a pause, filled up with the appearance of fresh volumes and fresh editions of the earlier collections, the works of Kinloch, Motherwell, and Buchan came with a rush, in the years 1827-8.
Of these, and other repertories of the national ballads, the number is legion, and the merits and methods as varied and diverse. There is not space to discuss and compare them, even were discussion and comparison part of the present plan. Such treatment is apt to reduce a book on ballads and balladists to what Charles G. Leland terms 'mere logarithmic tables of variants.' First came the harvesters; and then those who were content to glean where the others had left. As matter of course and of necessity the readings, and even the structure of the pieces picked up from oral recitation and singing, presented endless points of difference according to the locality and to the individual singer or collector. As has been said, each old piece of popular poetry, before it has been fixed in print, and even after, takes a certain part of its colour and character from the minds and memories through which it has been strained. As an illustration of this, in another field, one might mention that Pastor Hurt, when he set about, a few years ago, gathering the fragments of Esthonian folk literature, obtained contributions from 633 different collectors, most of them simple peasants, and as the result of three and a half years' work, he brought together 'of epics, lyrics, wedding songs, etc., upwards of 20,000 specimens; of tales about 3000; of proverbs about 18,000; of riddles, about 20,000, besides a large collection of magical formulæ, superstitions, and the like.' These figures include variants of the same tale or ballad theme, of which there were in some cases as many as 160.
The Scottish ballads may scarce be so multitudinous and protean a host as this. But the search for them, and the choice of them when discovered, have given infinite exercise to the industry, the judgment, and the patience of successive editors; and literature has no more curious and romantic chapter than that which deals with ballad collecting and collectors. The latter, in Scotland as elsewhere, have not been free from the human liability to err--few men have been less so. As Percy admitted _Hardyknut_ and other examples of the pseudo-antique among his specimens of 'Old Romance Poetry,' Scott's critical acumen did not avail to detect brazen forgeries of Surtees, like _Barthram's Dirge_ and _The Death of Featherstonhaugh_. In Cromek's _Relics of Galloway Song_ were somewhat palpable 'fakements' of Allan Cunningham; William Motherwell and Peter Buchan made their egregious blunders, and even such careful and experienced antiquaries as Joseph Ritson and David Laing slipped on the dark and broken and intricate paths which they sought to explore. On the whole it can hardly be regretted that our ballad collections bear the impress of the idiosyncrasies of the individual ballad-hunters, as well as of the game they pursued and the district they coursed over.