The popularity obtained by the ballad of "Auld Robin Gray" has seldom been exceeded in the history of any other metrical composition. It was sung in every fashionable circle, as well as by the ballad-singers, from Land's-end to John o' Groat's; was printed in every collection of national songs, and drew tears from our military countrymen both in America and India. With the exception of Pinkerton, every writer on Scottish poetry and song has awarded it a tribute of commendation. "The elegant and accomplished authoress," says Ritson, "has, in this beautiful production, to all that tenderness and simplicity for which the Scottish song has been so much celebrated, united a delicacy of expression which it never before attained." "'Auld Robin Gray,'" says Sir Walter Scott, "is that real pastoral which is worth all the dialogues which Corydon and Phillis have had together, from the days of Theocritus downwards." During a long lifetime, till within two years of her death, Lady Anne Barnard resisted every temptation to declare herself the author of the popular ballad, thus evincing her determination not to have the secret wrested from her till she chose to divulge it. Some of those inducements may be enumerated. The extreme popularity of the ballad might have proved sufficient in itself to justify the disclosure; but, apart from this consideration, a very fine tune had been put to it by a doctor of music;[9] a romance had been founded upon it by a man of eminence; it was made the subject of a play, of an opera, and of a pantomime; it had been claimed by others; a sequel had been written to it by some scribbler, who professed to have composed the whole ballad; it had been assigned an antiquity far beyond the author's time; the Society of Antiquaries had made it the subject of investigation; and the author had been advertised for in the public prints, a reward being offered for the discovery. Never before had such general interest been exhibited respecting any composition in Scottish verse. In the "Pirate," published in 1823, the author of "Waverley" had compared the condition of Minna to that of Jeanie Gray, in the words of Lady Anne, in a sequel which she had published to the original ballad:-- "Nae langer she wept, her tears were a' spent; Despair it was come, and she thought it content; She thought it content, but her cheek it grew pale, And she droop'd like a snowdrop broke down by the hail!" At length, in her seventy-third year, and upwards of half a century after the period of its composition, the author voluntarily made avowal of the authorship of the ballad and its sequel. She wrote to Sir Walter Scott, with whom she was acquainted, requesting him to inform his _personal friend_, the author of "Waverley," that she was indeed the author. She enclosed a copy to Sir Walter, written in her own hand; and, with her consent, in the course of the following year, he printed "Auld Robin Gray" as a contribution to the Bannatyne Club.