_The Raid of the Reidswire_, he said, "first appeared in Allan Ramsay's _Evergreen_, but some liberties have been taken by him in transcribing it; and, what is altogether unpardonable, the manuscript, which is itself rather inaccurate, has been interpolated to favour his readings; of which there remain obvious marks."[59] Scott said also that the time had come for the publication of Percy's folio manuscript; though we must believe that he would not have wished to see the manuscript published until the ballads had become familiar to the world in what he considered a beautified form.
The changes Scott made were usually in style rather than in substance.
Often he merely substituted an archaic word for a modern one; but often whole lines and longer passages offered temptations which the poet in him could not resist, and he "improved" lavishly.

For example, we have his note on _Earl Richard_--"The best verses are here selected from both copies, and some trivial alterations have been adopted from tradition,"-- with the comment by Mr.Henderson--"The emendations of Scott are so many, and the majority relate so entirely to style, that no mere tradition could have supplied them."[60] His versions are in general characterized by a smoothness and precision of meter which to the student of ballads is very suspicious.

But he seems occasionally to have altered or supplied incidents as well as phrases.

The historical event which furnished the purpose for the expedition of Sir Patrick Spens seems to have been introduced into the ballad by Scott, and Mr.
Henderson thinks that "when the deeds of his ancestors were concerned it was impossible for him to resist the temptation to employ some of his own minstrel art on their behalf."[61] Certainly Scott's qualifications for evolving true poetry out of the crude fragments that sometimes served as a basis formed a very unusual combination when they were united with his knowledge of early history and literature.

He had such confidence in his own powers in this direction that he at one time intended to write a series of imitations of Scottish poets of different periods, from Thomas the Rhymer down, and thus to exhibit changes in language as well as variations in literary style.[62] He evidently thought that the ballads as they appeared in the _Minstrelsy_ were truer to their originals than were the copies he was able to procure from recitation.