"The tradition of Ettrick Forest bears, that the outlaw was a man of prodigious strength, possessing a baton or club, with which he laid _lee_ (_i. e._ waste) the country for many miles round; and that he was at length slain by Buccleuch, or some of his clan, at a little mount, covered with fir-trees, adjoining to Newark Castle, and said to have been a part of the garden. A varying tradition bears the place of his death to have been near to the house of the Duke of Buccleuch's gamekeeper, beneath the castle; and that the fatal arrow was shot by Scott of Haining, from the ruins of a cottage on the opposite side of Yarrow. There were extant, within these twenty years, some verses of a song on his death. The feud betwixt the Outlaw and the Scots, may serve to explain the asperity with which the chieftain of that clan is handled in the ballad. "In publishing the following ballad, the copy principally resorted to is one apparently of considerable antiquity, which was found among the papers of the late Mrs. Cockburn of Edinburgh, a lady whose memory will be long honoured by all who knew her. Another copy, much more imperfect, is to be found in Glenriddel's MSS. The names are in this last miserably mangled, as is always the case when ballads are taken down from the recitation of persons living at a distance from the scenes in which they are laid. Mr. Plummer also gave the editor a few additional verses, not contained in either copy, which are thrown into what seemed their proper place. There is yet another copy in Mr. Herd's MSS., which has been occasionally made use of. Two verses are restored in the present edition, from the recitation of Mr. Mungo Park, whose toils during his patient and intrepid travels in Africa have not eradicated from his recollection the legendary lore of his native country."--S. Since the above was printed, Mr. Aytoun has published still another copy of this piece, (_Ballads of Scotland_, ii. 129,) from a manuscript in the Philiphaugh charter-chest. I cannot assent to the praise bestowed by Scott on _The Outlaw Murray_. The story lacks point, and the style is affected--not that of the unconscious poet of the real _traditional_ ballad. Ettricke Foreste is a feir foreste, In it grows manie a semelie trie; There's hart and hynd, and dae and rae, And of a' wilde bestis grete plentie. There's a feir castelle, bigged wi' lyme and stane; O gin it stands not pleasauntlie! 6 In the fore front o' that castelle feir, Twa unicorns are bra' to see: There's the picture of a knight, and a ladye bright, And the grene hollin abune their brie: 10 There an Outlaw kepis five hundred men, He keepis a royalle cumpanie. His merryemen are a' in ae liverye clad, O' the Lincome grene sae gaye to see; He and his ladye in purple clad, 15 O gin they lived not royallie!