A collection of ancient and modern Scottish ballads, etc

220
FAUSE FOODRAGE.
[The hero of this ballad is a nobleman at the court of a
King Honour, against whom he heads a conspiracj' and
assassinates in his chamber; the queen begs her life,
which he spares, on condition that the child with which
she is pregnant, shall be put to death if it prove to be a
male, and suffered to live if a female; a very short time
before her delivery, she eludes the vigilance of her keep-
ers, escapes from them, and is delivered of a son ; the
wife of one of the conspirators discovers her, but, to
save the life of the child, exchanges it for her daughter;
the boy is brought up in this family till be reaches man-
hood, when, on a hunting with his reputed father, he is
informed of his noble birth; he immediately storms the
castle of his father's murderer, slays him, and sets his
mother at liberty; as a reward for the care bestowed on
him by Wise William, he gives him large possessions,
and marries his daughter.
The ballad is old, popular, and contains many fine pas-
.
sages ; the meeting of the conspirators, their irreso-
lution, the progress of Foodrage to the chamber of the
king, the conversation of the queen with Wise William's
wife, and particularly that of Wise William with King
Honour's son, are related in a manner that prove the
author to have known well the " workings of the human
heart/' and give to the poem a fine dramatic effect.]