'Mak haste, mak haste, my merry men a'.' This must remind the reader of _Sir Patrick Spence_: Half ower, half ower to Aberdour, It's fifty fathom deep. _Gilderoy_, in the version printed by Percy, is a ballad somewhat peculiar, in a rich dulcet style, and of very smooth versification, but is only an improved version of a rude popular ballad in the same measure, which was printed in several collections long before,[17] and was probably a street-ditty called forth by the hanging of the real robber, Patrick Macgregor, commonly called Gilderoy,[18] in 1636. The concluding verses of the refined version recall the peculiar manner of the rest of these poems: [17] In a _Collection of Old Ballads_, printed for J. Roberts, London, 1723; also in Thomson's _Orpheus Caledonius_, 1733. [18] The appellative, Gilderoy, means the ruddy-complexioned lad. Gif Gilderoy had done amiss, He might hae banished been; Ah what sair cruelty is this, To hang sic handsome men: To hang the flower o' Scottish land, Sae sweet and fair a boy; Nae lady had sae white a hand As thee, my Gilderoy. Of Gilderoy sae 'fraid they were, They bound him mickle strong; Till Edinburgh they led him there, And on a gallows hung: They hung him high aboon the rest, He was sae trim a boy; There died the youth whom I lo'ed best, My handsome Gilderoy. Thus having yielded up his breath, I bare his corpse away; With tears that trickled for his death, I washed his comely clay. And sicker in a grave sae deep, I laid the dear-lo'ed boy; And now for ever maun I weep My winsome Gilderoy. If any one will compare the Percy version of this ballad with the homely and indecorous ones printed before, he will not be the more disposed to go back to antiquity and a humble grade of authorship for what is best in the Scottish ballads.[19]