"Auld Robin Gray; a ballad by the Right Honourable Lady Anne Barnard, born Lady Anne Lindsay of Balcarras; Edin. printed by James Ballantyne and Co. 1825, qto. This is the first authentic edition of this beautiful Scottish ballad, and forms one of the publications by Sir Walter Scott as a member of the Bannatyne Club. The publication gives an interesting account of the authoress--of the origin of the ballad--the ballad--continuation of Auld Robin Gray, all from the same hand; it is to be regretted it is not published for wider circulation. It will, it may be expected, find a vent for the publick at some future period, and some of the gatherings in this volume swell a note or two, if not a page.--See 'Cens. Lib.' vol. ix. p. 323. for another ballad called, 'Continuation of Auld Robin Gray.' Auld Robin gray's Ghaist begins 'Right sweetly sang the nightingale,' among my Scotch songs. The sequel to Auld Robin Gray begins, 'Full five long years' in do." J.F.M. * * * * * OPINIONS ON ENGLISH HISTORIANS. II. _Lord Clarendon._ "This great historian is always too free with his judgments. But the piety is more eminent than the superstition in this great man's foibles."--Bishop Warburton, note, last edition, vol. vii. p. 590. "It is to be hoped no more chancellors will write our story, till they can divest themselves of that habit of their profession, apologising for a bad cause."--H. Walpole, Note in _Historic Doubts_. "Clarendon was unquestionably a lover of truth, and a sincere friend to the free constitution of his country. He defended that constitution in Parliament, with zeal and energy, against the encroachments of prerogative, and concurred in the establishment of new securities for its protection."--Lord Grenville, Note in _Chatham Correspondence_, vol. i. p. 113. "We suffer ourselves to be delighted by the keenness of Clarendon's observations, and by the sober majesty of his style, till we forget the oppressor and the bigot in the historian."--Macaulay, _Essays_, vol. ii. p. 281. "There is no historian, ancient or modern, with whose writings it so much behoves an Englishman to be thoroughly conversant, as Lord Clarendon."--Southey, _Life of Cromwell_.