William Macmath and F. J. Child
William Macmath and F. J. Child
by James D. Reppert
PMLA, Vol. 71, No. 3 (Jun., 1956), pp. 510-520
WILLIAM MACMATH AND F. J. CHILD
By James D. Reppert
THE RECOVERY of Professor Child's letters to William Macmath (1844-1921) makes it possible to answer an important question which has not been much investigated: what was the relationship between Child and Macmath with respect to The English and Scottish Popular Ballads?[1]
Sigurd B. Hustvedt has rightly credited Macmath with capital use- fulness as copyist and agent, and has listed the MS sources?Glenriddell, Kinloch, Abbotsford?which he "helped to unearth, to copy, or to secure for Child by purchase."[2] This summary view represents the current estimate of Macmath's importance; the Child-Macmath correspondence suggests that this estimate should be amplified.
After Child's death (September 1896), Kittredge assembled Child's papers into thirty-one volumes of scrapbooks, commonly called "the Child MSS." These volumes were composed chiefly of ballad texts and letters received. Since none of Child's letters was in the collection, it was necessary to trace the original letters through the literary remains of his many friends and correspondents. Many letters on ballads have been recovered: letters to Henry Bradshaw, Halliwell-Phillipps, James Barclay Murdoch, and William Macmath.[3] By far the most important of these, if only in scope, is the Macmath collection. Macmath carefully preserved Child's letters, together with copies of his own replies, in ten volumes of scrapbooks. In many cases even the original envelopes are mounted. We have, therefore, not only all of Child's missing letters to Macmath in their original form, but also copies of certain Macmath letters which Child did not preserve.
Reading this vast correspondence produces an entirely new awareness of the extent to which Macmath influenced Child's ballads. Macmath's background, too, it is worth mentioning, provided him with many of the qualities which an editor like Child might hope for in an associate.
Macmath was employed as a scrivener and was a copyist of the finest calibre.[4] Always to be relied upon to produce a more accurate copy than anyone else, Macmath was entrusted with the most important legal papers of his employers, Dundas and Wilson, Edinburgh. When he successfully entered the claim of a client to the Borthwick peerage, he gained a certain prestige in the profession. Thereafter he was consulted in all problems of genealogies and legal antiquities. This was in effect a promotion, for it freed him from the piece-work system to which junior clerks were bound. Special tasks were frequently assigned to him. He was, for example, placed in charge of the Mazarin Bible while it remained in the firm's strong room. On another occasion he arranged and cataloged his firm's correspondence between 1791 and 1831, turning up letters from Sir Walter Scott, Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, and Gilbert Burns, brother of the poet. Everything reported of him in this period (1866-70) suggests that this young man was getting a thorough Scottish grounding in orderly method.
Unlike his great associate, Professor Child, Macmath was exposed to ballad singing and recital from his earliest days. The family used to gather in the kitchen of his grandfather's house at Airds, singing, posing rhymed questions, and telling stories. Many members of his family knew ballads, but chiefly his aunt, Miss Jane Webster, from whom Child received versions of sixteen ballads, all of which he printed. Mrs. Hamilton of Dalbeattie (Macmath's cousin) wrote to Frank Miller of Macmath's eagerness to hear ballads, and she recounted how Macmath would pester his beloved Miss Jane with shouts of "Again, Aunt Jeanie, again!"[5] Macmath thus had a first-hand acquaintance with oral tradition which Child apparently never had. Macmath's sisters also supplied Child with ballad material. Minnie proved an invaluable source to Child on the weakest part of his collection, the tunes. She sent him eight ballad tunes, seven of which Child printed in ESPB, x, 411-425. Macmath's neighbors at the Airds farm were familiar with the old songs, and one of these neighbors, a Miss Hannay, taught ballads to Miss Jane herself. It is to be regretted that Minnie Macmath, who in her old age set out to record some of the Airds material, died in the very beginning of her project. Only three short verses and some riddles remain among her papers.
In planning his work, Child determined to secure every manuscript and every version of all the traditional ballads still extant. To this end he wrote an appeal, entitled, "Wanted: Old Ballads? Prof. Child's Appeal," which he printed in Notes and Queries.[6] From this notice, F. J. Furnivall, at Child's behest, reprinted in London circulars announcing Child's wants. Macmath saw Child's article in Notes and Queries and wrote at once to Furnivall. This letter was Macmath's first note on ballads. In it he quoted a copy of "Lady Margaret," adding that "the above fragments . . . were discovered tied up with a number of law papers originally dated 1590."[7] Then followed an exchange of communications with Furnivall which dealt chiefly with the distribution of Child's "Appeal" and with a set of notes on "The Baron of Brackely" which Macmath wanted to place at Child's disposal through Furnivall. Furnivall, however, did not believe that Child wanted notes of a historical or genealogical character and discouraged Macmath from sending them. Macmath had his own view as to the value of his notes; he decided to deal with Child directly, and on 22 March 1873 he wrote to Child the first letter of a series which was destined to extend into thousands of pages and to become his real life's work.
Macmath at once tried to modify Child's statement in the "Appeal" circulars that Aytoun[8] did not print a third edition; there was, he said, a revised edition by Blackwood, Edinburgh, 1861. He then sent a rapid series of notes on "The Baron of Brackely." Hardly more than a dozen letters had been exchanged between them when Child appeared on Macmath's doorstep in person. Here is Macmath's account of their meeting:
In the forenoon of Friday, the eighth of August, 1873, George Duncan, our office- keeper, told me I was wanted in the wraiting-room. On entering I found a short, pleasant-faced gentleman, in a light tweed suit, who rose and said, "Professor Child." I had received no previous intimation of his being in Europe. We natu- rally talked chiefly of his ballad undertaking, though he gave me to understand that the primary objects of his jaunt were health and relaxation rather than ballads. He said, "I suppose you are a barrister?" I told him NO: I was only an assistant to a legal firm. . . . On his telling me he wished to call on Mr David Laing I said I had heard he was absent in England attending the annual meeting of the British Archaeological Association. He said he would leave his card at the Signet Library. I suggested his calling also on Mr Kinloch and Mr Maidment, but he said he had to leave for the north on the following morning, and would be unable to do so. Shyness is one of his characteristics noted in the Nation of 17th September 1896. I said I would give him Denniston's Battle of Craignilder and McDiarmid's Scrapbook, not to be returned but to keep. "A little souvenir?', he replied. His stay was not long and being at that time in lodgings, and assuming that he was accompanied by Mrs Child (though I don't remember that he said so) I did not offer him hospitality. I shook hands with him on the doorsteps, directing him on his way to the Signet Library, and stood looking at him as he walked away. (Macmath MSS. i, Art. 29.)
This was the only time these men met. Child, fresh from his victory at the British Museum, where he had the satisfaction of finding Herd's papers, set out for Scott's Abbotsford library in the north, all the while maintaining that he was in Scotland for a rest and was not searching for ballads. At Abbotsford he failed utterly, unable even to gain admittance. At an earlier date both David Laing and Thomas Carlyle had been through the Abbotsford library without finding any ballads. It is very curious that Laing never found Scott's MSS., since the Abbotsford library, at the request of the family, was arranged by none other than Laing himself.
On his return to Harvard in the fall of 1873, Child did what he could have done better in Edinburgh, he wrote to George Ritchie Kinloch, asking for permission to make a copy of the Kinloch ballad MS. Concurrently, Macmath in Edinburgh applied to Kinloch to the same effect through mutual friends. Kinloch seems to have been kindly disposed towards Macmath, who gained a personal acquaintance with him through George M. Paul, Macmath's employer. Kinloch readily granted Macmath permission to make a copy of the Kinloch ballad MS., provided only that it should not leave Macmath's hands and that no other copy than Macmath's should be taken.
Child spent the summer of 1874 in Europe, touring France, Switzerland, and England. When he returned for the college year, he wrote to Macmath that Macmath might name his own fee for undertaking the copy of Kinloch's ballads.[9] In the midst of these arrangements, Macmath announced a discovery of great importance to Child. For some time the professor had been making an effort to secure two missing MSS.: the Fraser-Tytler Brown MS. and the Glenriddell MS. On 2 January 1875 Macmath wrote to Child that he had found the Glenriddell MS. in the library of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. This volume was one of five MSS. purchased for the library by David Laing at the sale of the library of Adam Sim of Culter on 3 April 1869. Child had known of the sale and of Laing's purchase. He wrote to Laing asking if the Glenriddell MS. was among the volumes. In his reply to Child, Laing stated expressly that he knew nothing of the manuscript. For so able and amiable a scholar Laing seems to have been remarkably lacking in initiative in ballad matters; it seems certain that he either did not examine his purchase or did not recognize the Glenriddell MS. when he saw it. At any rate, Macmath recognized it at once and notified Child. Even the reluctant Furnivall, whose academic standing was always to modify his appreciation of Macmath, was moved to exclaim, "That's good of Mac? math, finding that Glenriddell MS."[10] Furnivall, it might be added, very nearly wrecked the curious scheme by which Macmath and Laing planned to get the Glenriddell MS. into Child's hands. Macmath wrote to Child, "He [Laing] tells me simply to keep quiet, and he will carry off the volume for me the first time he is in the library. You will therefore keep quiet also until I get hold of it."[11] Thereupon Furnivall rushed a note into print announcing the discovery of the Glenriddell MS.[12] No harm resulted from this ill wind, however, except a necessary loss of time and a certain outrage of Scottish phlegm.
Meanwhile, Macmath was concluding with Henderson and Bisel, stationers, his transactions concerning the Kinloch MS. Macmath's exquisite copy of this manuscript cost, besides his labors, much more in money than he had expected. The excessive charges he had to bear, for paper and binding, set the stage for a development in the Kinloch affair which almost broke up the Child-Macmath team forever. When Macmath fixed his fee at fifty guineas, Child flew into an extraordinary rage. On 18 March 1875 he wrote to Macmath eight pages of furious castigation: Macmath's fee, he said, was too high, the binding was too ornate, the calligraphy was irrelevantly beautiful, the paper was of an extravagantly good quality.[13] Most cutting of all was Child's note of contempt. Perhaps he was remembering too clearly the young clerk as mere copyist. The letter ends with a demand for an itemized list of expenses. This was a far cry from "name your own fee." One hopes that Child did not realize the amount of pain he caused his well-meaning friend by imputing to these enthusiatic expenditures a motive other than a love of ballads. Macmath, "sickened," as he expressed it, by Child's letter, requested the return of the copies he had made for Child so that Child would not feel held to paying for them. For an answer, Child again denounced him, challenging his "presumptive strain" in asking for the copies, which he refused to return. Kinloch, he said, had allowed him the privilege of a copy, not Macmath. In this point Child was painfully in error, for the controversy was ultimately settled by Kinloch's bluntly refusing Child any other copy than Macmath's (a stipulation Kinloch had made clear from the first) and by his supporting Macmath in the quarrel for possession of the Kinloch copy.
Child suddenly found himself without either the Kinloch MS. or the forthcoming, newly-discovered Glenriddell MS. Macmath, realizing the position of his irate friend, generously offered him the use of the Kinloch copy without question of further payment, at the same time offering Child the copy of Glenriddell which he had just completed. Macmath was as distressed at the thought that he was obstructing the progress of Child's collection as he was by any personal affront. Here was Child's chance to get on with the work. Child coldly refused the copies, and communication between the men ceased.
This was in 1876. Child, who was now in an awkward position indeed, held out for four years. Finally, on 8 January 1880, he wrote to Macmath, asking if William Paterson (the Edinburgh bookseller) had any Kinloch ballads not included in the Kinloch MS. proper, and enclosing a printed specimen of "Gil Brenton," No. 5 of ESPB.[14] With Macmath's answer, the long and stupid breach in their friendship came to a permanent close. For the next sixteen years, until Child's death, their collaboration remained one of ever-deepening accord and affection.
Macmath's relation to Child's collection was a peculiar one. He was not in Child's employ. He was not even under Child's specific direction. Child had the good sense to allow Macmath to conduct his negotiations in his own way. Macmath would ask Child for a list of the ballads to be printed next; then he would start sending versions, sources, analogs, notes on persons and places, and cross references of all sorts to the ballad text at hand. Many of these notes are still available in the Child MSS. To this material must be added the massive collection in the Macmath MSS. and, finally, the Macmath Ballad MS. itself. Almost all of this material was in Macmath's copperplate hand, and it was all, in one way or another, relevant to ballads.
One can imagine Child's being quite puzzled by the problem of how to acknowledge so much help. In the prefaces and notes to the ballads in ESPB he was precise in acknowledging his debt to Macmath for copies of ballad MSS., copies of passages from books, and versions of ballads which Macmath himself collected from oral tradition. On occasion he gave Macmath specific credit for a note or reference. Frequently he referred simply to Macmath's "suggestions." Child was an impeccable scholar and he tried to be just. Yet it is not always clear whether a note originated with one or the other of the men. For example, "The Baron of Brackely" (No. 203) nearly everything in ESPB, iv, 81, Child learned from Macmath. Macmath is credited in the notes (iv, 81 ff.) for a citation from Thomson's Acts, vn, 18, 286. The letters exchanged between the men prove that Macmath also found for him, and sent him extracts from, the Fourth Report, Histoncal Commission on Manuscripts, p. 534, and Macfarlane's Genealogical Collections (MS., Advocate's Library), i, 299 ff. The citation in ESPB, iv, 80, of the Scots Magazine (Oct. 1803) is also Macmath's. It is usually safe throughout the whole of ESPB to look for Macmath's hand in the citation of any Scottish magazine of early date. Many of these magazines were short-lived and obscure, and Child repeatedly marvelled at his friend's comprehensive, magnetlike ability to gather in ballad information from so diffuse a source as these proved to be. Child seems to have settled the problem of acknowledgement in his own mind by employing covering phrases like that in ESPB, iv, 83 ("Brackely," as above), where he credits Macmath for "this and other communications."
Macmath made the ESPB his own life's work every bit as much as Child himself did. He had many chances to publish in his own right, and Child frequently encouraged him to do so. The substance of Macmath's reply was always that everything he knew about ballads he wanted to appear in ESPB; that collection he wished to make the definitive work. He refused "to put a text past the Ballads," as he always referred to Child's collection.
Macmath's chances to publish must not be regarded as conjectures; they were real possibilities. When Blackwood and Son still held Bedford's Skene MS. (of which more in a moment), "with the definite intention of printing," as they said, they needed only a suitable editor to persuade them to the undertaking. Macmath was under pressure from Child himself to accept the post. Child even proposed as an alternate suggestion that they edit the Skene MS. together. On another occasion Child proposed to Macmath that Macmath edit the ballad letters of Mrs. Brown and oflered to help him with references and the like. There was also a suggestion from Child that Macmath collect ballads from magazines and put out a little book of them, again with Child's assistance. A fourth proposal from Child suggested that Macmath edit and print in Edinburgh "The Outlaw Murray" at Child's expense. Macmath still refused to put into print outside of ESPB any ballad he thought belonged in it. Child, who would have been glad not to include it, capitulated, and "The Outlaw Murray" became No. 305, the very last ballad of ESPB.
It is worth remembering that Macmath could have published himself any of the manuscript versions of ballads which he discovered. The Glen? riddell, Sharpe, Wilson, and other material collected from recitation by and for him formed an invaluable foundation for ESPB.
Macmath, then, was working on a line parallel to, but independent from, the course set by Child. Child did not send him minute instructions on where to go for what, nor did he give Macmath directions on procedure and method. On the contrary, it was more frequently the case that Macmath directed the often complicated moves in making a purchase or getting permission from a difficult owner (difficult even to find) to make a copy of his ballad manuscript. Where Child was most in Macmath's control was in a situation like that created by the Abbotsford texts. That he succeeded where Laing, Carlyle, and Child had failed is some measure of the man. Working against time, Child had to trust absolutely that Macmath would pick out the Child-type ballads. Macmath spent his holidays for three years working in the library at Abbotsford. On each occasion he had only three weeks for his research, and Part vm of ESPB had already been started in print. He managed to secure not only Scott's manuscript ballads as they fell within Child's scope, but even copies of Scott's letters as they related to those ballads.
At Abbotsford Macmath prevailed upon R. Bruce Armstrong to ask Father Forbes-Seith, the confessor of the Scott family, for permission to examine the contents of the library. Father Forbes-Seith was willing to cooperate, and allowed Armstrong to proceed. Armstrong, however, knew nothing of ballads, and less of what Child wanted, so that Macmath concluded he would have to go himself, remaining in the district for some length of time so that he could pay frequent visits. The opening he needed came in February 1890 when Armstrong left the country, allowing Macmath to deal directly with Father Forbes-Seith. Macmath paid his first visit to Abbotsford in March 1890, and ignoring the catalog of the li? brary, which had yielded nothing to Laing and Carlyle, told Forbes-Seith, "It did not seem to me fitting that I should rush in where such eminent names had failed. But though silent I have remained unconvinced and dissatisfied. Though the Abbotsford Library may contain no ballads in MS. bound up together as such, the ballads which Sir Walter collected in MS. must, I think, still be in existence, and are probably bound up with or form part of his correspondence."[15] Father Forbes-Seith had undertaken no part of the research himself and the project had to wait for Macmath's second visit, in July, for he was resolved to spend his vacation in the search and to do nothing by halves. The second trip proved success- ful. He wrote to Child that he had a great success, "but how great I do not know, as the Rev. Father is producing the chief treasures from some repository in the private part of the mansion which no ordinary mortal is allowed to enter." On his return to Edinburgh, Macmath reported that he had not seen everything at Abbotsford, stating that "one small bookcase in the library, which contains ballads, can only be opened with a screw driver."
He conjectured that the Abbotsford MSS. would contain less than the Motherwell MSS. but more than the Kinloch MSS., and suggested that Child communicate with Mrs. Maxwell-Scott, the most influential and sympathetic member of the family. His only course with Father Forbes-Seith and the bookcase, he recounted, was "to sit down before the place, and pointing, say in effect, but more politely, 'I must have that book out, please get the screw driver'."
Macmath figured in an earlier manuscript hunt, the one for the Skene MS. in 1883, and, as at Abbotsford, his perseverance and tact are largely responsible for its recovery. He had early determined that the Skene MS. was in the possesssion of Mr. Bedford and that the publishing house of Blackwood and Son was toying with the idea of publishing it; they had, in fact, persuaded Bedford to forward the MS. to them for that purpose. There the matter rested, for the project was only a tentative one, ap- parently. Against the advice of Macmath, Child wrote to Blackwood requesting information as to the status of the MS., thereby, as Macmath had foretold, convincing the publisher that the Skene MS. was worth something. They forthwith announced an edition and went in search of an editor, alighting upon none other than Macmath himself. Macmath promptly refused. He then wrote to Child that if the subject were not pursued, it was his guess that Blackwood would drop the scheme. Macmath proved to be correct. Blackwood returned the Skene MS. to Bedford, who never had a clear idea what it was. Child, of course, wrote at once to Bedford, who agreed to allow one of Child's agents to examine it. Macmath called upon the invalided Bedford only to learn that Bedford had gone to Malta for his health and had, before his departure, made a present of the Skene MS. to Alexander Allardyce. In pursuit of Allardyce, Macmath found that he was willing to submit the MS. to Child but it was locked up in Bedford's house and Bedford had the necessary key in Malta. Meanwhile Child's printing schedule was a full year advanced. An impasse had been reached. Allardyce could not graciously ask Bedford to produce his gift so soon after presenting it, and Child was at a momen- tary loss for a policy; for Bedford, still an invalid, was returning home to a dying wife. Macmath wrote ostensibly to Allardyce, but with one eye on Bedford, delicately stating their position, and the MS. at last passed into Allardyce's hands. Allardyce was now less willing to have a transcript of the MS. published. Macmath could get permission to print only one ballad. After more delays, Child and Macmath managed to win over Allardyce for a second time and Macmath was able to send a copy of Skene to Child in Boston.
Macmath was instrumental in this way in securing for Child 28 of the 49 MSS. listed in ESPB, "Sources of the Texts." There were differing shades of agreement, of course, as to what ought to be included. On the basis of the letters Macmath seems to have been the more relentless (or less discriminating?) of the two in their attempt at completeness. It is a remarkable circumstance that Child's undefined but deeply felt ballad theories were so well understood by Macmath that serious friction never arose between them.
The material which Macmath himself collected from tradition he assembled into two manuscript volumes (not always in his hand), which he called "Ballads and Songs Collected by William Macmath." Child consulted this collection as far as Article 62, "The Song of the Rid Square." The other thirty pieces, including some music, were added after Child's death. To distinguish these volumes further from the Macmath MSS. (correspondence) it might be well to refer to them as the Macmath Ballad MS. In ESPB Child calls this MS. simply "the Macmath MS."[16] Macmath's collecting after Child's death was not distin- guished. Most of the pieces are songs; the last piece, "The Bonny House of Airlie," is a ballad from print mounted in the book in 1912. Between 1912 and 1921, the year in which he died, Macmath seems to have been content to allow the matter to rest.
The full extent of Macmath's influence on Child is difficult to represent statistically. The Child MSS. contain 238 letters from Macmath, which in turn account for 226 Articles in that collection. The Macmath MSS. contain 1,104 Articles, many of great length and complexity. ESPB printed 36 versions of ballads received from Macmath. Of the 226 Articles men- tioned above, I count 78 acknowledged notes in ESPB, 46 notes printed without reference to Macmath, 38 notes not used. The remaining 74 Articles I cannot classify beyond stating that they appear in ESPB and lead to notes which report facts probably already known to Child. The 21 MS. sources with which Macmath had little or nothing to do were already well known collections placed in accessible and famous libraries. Child himself found the Herd MS. at the British Museum. James Barclay Murdoch sent Child the Motherwell MS. and the Motherwell Notebooks; Miss Mary Fraser-Tytler tried to locate the papers of the Frasers and of the Tytlers of Belmaine. Macmath, however, along with Child, remains the most brilliant collector of his day. While Child's extraordinary grasp of comparative literature framed his ballads against patterns of thought and feeling the world over, Macmath labored to locate and secure for Child every ballad MS. extant in Scotland. Some idea of the extent of his operations may be gathered from the following partial list of MSS. he sent Child (with the number of Articles which he sent from each):
Scott's Abbotsford MSS. (119), Kinloch (104), Skene (91), Sharpe (63), Robertson (31), Glenriddell (25), Findlay (25), Burton (24), Rosebery (18).
Although many more Articles were sent than were used, it is precisely the MSS. which Macmath sent which give to ESPB much of that collec- tion's interest and authenticity, and without which no collection of ballads could pretend to be complete.
Macmath's work outside of ESPB has faded into obscurity. There are, however, several papers of his which might be noticed here. He wrote for The Scots Peerage two articles: "Lord Borthwick" and "Gor- don, Viscount of Kenmure." Macmath's longer work on the Gordons, to whom he was related through his mother, was edited posthumously by Thomas Fraser. Of more importance are two papers he read before the Edinburgh Bibliographical Society, both published in that society's Transactions (1896), 1, 9, 20. "The Bibliography of Scottish Popular Ballads in Manuscript" he compiled in 1891. It anticipated the list in ESPB, x, 397-404, marked by Child "Sources of the Texts," but differs from that list in that Macmath attempted to give the names of the then current owners.
The second of Macmath's papers on ballads, "The Ballad Manuscripts of Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe and James Skene of Rubislaw," was written in 1893. It was Macmath's purpose to bring up to date what was known of these volumes. He had purchased on 20 April 1893 a large collection of Sharpe's manuscripts, exclusive of the correspondence, most of which was held by Alexander Allardyce. Of the fourteen Sharpe ballad MSS. here described by Macmath, nine were in his own possession. The results of Macmath's researches in ballad literature were incor- porated into the works of other men, for Child was not the only scholar with whom Macmath corresponded. He was well known to all the ballad men of Scotland. Besides these men, he was in touch also with such pro- fessionals as Ewald Flugel, Henry M. Belden, Hans Hecht, T. F. Hen- derson, Andrew Lang, F. J. Furnivall, and, briefly, G. L. Kittredge. This is learned company for an obscure junior clerk in an Edinburgh law office, yet one is tempted to say with the ballad,
That there was not a man amang them a'
Would blaw such a blast as yon.
Albright College Reading, Penn.
Footnotes:
1 F. J. Child ed. (Boston, 1882-96), 5 vols. Hereafter, ESPB. This collection is the standard reference for traditional balladry.
2 Ballad Books and Ballad Men (Cambridge, Mass., 1930), p. 215.
3 To Bradshaw: Univ. Lib. Cam. Add. MSS. 2519 and 2592. To Halliwell-Phillipps: Univ. Lib. Edinb., Halliwell-Phillipps Papers, xi, Nos. 18, 19; xn, No. 29; L, No. 52; lviii, Nos. 27, 50, 66. To Murdoch: 39 letters, originals in possession of J. B. B. Murdoch, Thames-Ditton, Surrey. To Macmath: 10 MS. vols., originals in possession of E. A. Hornel estate, Castle Douglas, Scotland. A distinction must be made between the Macmath MSS. (letters, as above) and the Macmath Ballad MS. (ballad texts). See n. 16. The present writer is responsible for locating and securing copies of these letters and holds written permission to publish them in further studies.
4 The following biographical details are derived largely from a miscellany of Macmath's writings, The Gordons of Craichlaw, ed. Thomas Fraser (Dalbeattie, 1924), published posthumously by friends as a memorial. An appendix prints Macmath's 2 bibliographies of Scottish ballad MSS., both documents of interest for the sake of the names of the owners.
5 Macmath, Gordons, p. 41.
6 Jan. 1873 (4th Ser.), xi, 12.
7 Macmath MSS., i, Art. 1. The ballad is cited by Macmath as from John McDiarmid, Scrapbook (Edinburgh, 1822), p. 428.
8 William E. Aytoun, The Ballads of Scotland, 2 vols. (Edinburgh and London, 1858). ESPB, "Sources of the Texts," notes a 2nd ed., 1859, but not the revision, 1861.
9 Macmath MSS., i, Art. 76.
10 Child MSS., xn, Art. 28a.
11 Macmath MSS., i, Art. 80.
12 Academy, vn, No. 141 (16 Jan. 1875), 62.
13 Macmath MSS., i, Art. 109.
14 Macmath MSS., i, Art. 139.
15 The quotations concerning the Abbotsford Library are all from Macmath MSS., vi, Arts. 623-625.
16 I have not discovered that Child ever mentioned Macmath's letter collection, although he may have surmised its existence.