#R.# 'Sir Patrick Spence,' communicated by Mr Macmath. 1 stanza. Stanzas of #E# and of #L#, a little altered, are given by Motherwell in his Introduction, pp xlv, xlvi. The ballad in the Border Minstrelsy, #H#, was made up from two versions, the better of which was #G#, and five stanzas, 16-20, recited by Mr Hamilton, sheriff of Lanarkshire. Mr Hamilton is said to have got his fragment "from an old nurse, a retainer of the Gilkerscleugh family," when himself a boy, about the middle of the last century.[19] The copy in Finlay's Scottish Ballads, I, 49, is Scott's, with the last stanza exchanged for the last of #A#, and one or two trifling changes. The imperfect copies #K#, stanzas 6-10, #M# 1, 3, show admixture with the more modern ballad of 'Young Allan.' #L# 1, with variations, is found in 'Fair Annie of Lochroyan,' Herd, 1776, I, 150, and may not belong here. But ballad-ships are wont to be of equal splendor with Cleopatra's galley: see, for a first-rate, the Scandinavian 'Sir Peter's Voyage,' cited in the preface to 'Brown Robyn's Confession.'[20] This admired and most admirable ballad is one of many which were first made known to the world through Percy's Reliques. Percy's version remains, poetically, the best. It may be a fragment, but the imagination easily supplies all that may be wanting; and if more of the story, or the whole, be told in #H#, the half is better than the whole. The short and simple story in #A-F# is that the king wants a good sailor to take command of a ship or ships ready for sea. Sir Patrick Spens[21] is recommended, and the king sends him a commission. This good sailor is much elated by receiving a letter from the king, but the contents prove very unwelcome.[22] He would hang the man that praised his seamanship, if he knew him, #B#; though it had been the queen herself, she might have let it be, #F#; had he been a better man, he might ha tauld a lee, #D#. The objection, as we learn from #A# 5, #C# 5, is the bad time of year. Percy cites a law of James III, forbidding ships to be freighted out of the realm with staple goods between the feast of Simon and Jude and Candlemas, October 28-February 2. There is neither choice nor thought, but prompt obedience to orders. The ship must sail the morn, and this without regard to the fearful portent of the new moon having been seen _late_ yestreen with the auld moon in her arm. They are only a few leagues out when a furious storm sets in. The captain calls for a boy to take the steer in hand while he goes to the topmast to spy land, #B#; or, more sensibly, sends up the boy, and sticks to the rudder, #C#, #E#. The report is not encouraging, or is not waited for, for the sea has everything its own way, and now the nobles, who were loath to wet their shoes, are overhead in water, and now fifty fathoms under. It would be hard to point out in ballad poetry, or other, happier and more refined touches than the two stanzas