'Oh, have ye tint at tournament Your sword, or yet your spear? Or mourn ye for the southern lass, Whom ye may not win near?' 'I have not tint at tournament My sword, nor yet my spear; But sair I mourn for my true love, Wi' mony a bitter tear. 'But weel's me on you, my gay gos-hawk, Ye can both speak and flie; Ye sall carry a letter to my love, Bring an answer back to me.' _Hardyknute_, _Sir Patrick Spence_, and _Gil Morrice_, all open, it will be recollected, with the sending away of a message. Here is a fourth instance, very like one artist's work, truly. The lover describes his mistress in terms recalling _Bradislee_: 'The red that is on my true love's cheek Is like blood-draps on the snaw; The white that is on her breast bare, Like the down o' the white sea-maw.' The bird arrives at the lady's abode: And first he sang a low, low note, And syne he sang a clear; And aye the owerword o' the sang Was, 'Your love can no win here.' _Gil Morrice_ has: Aye the owerword o' his sang Was, 'My mother tarries lang.' The lady feigns death, after the device of Juliet: Then up and rose her seven brethren, And hewed to her a bier; They hewed frae the solid aik, Laid it ower wi' silver clear. Then up and gat her seven sisters, And sewed to her a kell; And every steek that they put in Sewed to a silver bell. Here we have the same style of luxurious description of which we have already seen so many examples--so different from the usually bald style of the real homely ballads of the people. It is, further, very remarkable that in _Clerk Saunders_ it is seven brothers of the heroine who come in and detect her lover; and in the _Douglas Tragedy_, when the pair are eloping, Lord William spies his mistress's ... seven brethren bold Come riding o'er the lee. Both of these ballads, indeed, shew a structure and a strain of description and sentiment justifying the strongest suspicions of their alleged antiquity, and pointing to the same source as the other pieces already noticed. The ballad of _Fause Foodrage_, which Sir Walter Scott printed for the first time, describes a successful conspiracy by Foodrage and others against King Honour and his queen. The king being murdered, the queen is told, that if she brings forth a son, it will be put to death likewise; so she escapes, and, bringing a male child into the world, induces the lady of Wise William to take charge of it as her own, while she herself takes charge of the lady's daughter. The unfortunate queen then arranges a future conduct for both parties, in language violently figurative: 'And ye maun learn my gay gos-hawk, Right weel to breast a steed; And I sall learn your turtle-dow As weel to write and read.