Fac simile of Sir Walter Scott's hand-writing – 1810. The Ladges the Lecker Canto Third And hold our mari ж Time rolls his ceaseless course. At the race of your To swup Like stranded wrecks, the ticle returning hourse ул H course. live Nevre still who can remember well Now, when a mountain Chucf his bugle blew, Both fuld and fewest, divyle, cleff, and dell Aber soletway with the bighal knew; And fast the faithful clase around him drew, what some the warning note was Kurely wound, What home aloft the kindad banner flow, While clamerous wwr - pipes gill'd the gathering sound, I And while the Fury Goss glurenst, like a miter, round. glaved, Scotts Poetry, Royal Octavo. 10.194 1 HE POETICAL WORKS OF SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART. The Lay of the Last Minstrel: A POEM, IN SIX CANTOS. Dum relego, scripsisse pudet; quia plurima cerno, ADVERTISEMENT TO EDITION 1833. was once so popular, may still attract public attention THE INTRODUCTION to THE LAY OF THE LAST MIN-record the manner and circumstances under which and curiosity, it seems to me not without its use to STREL, written in April 1830, was revised by the Author in the autumn of 1831, when he also made some corrections in the text of the Poem, and several additions to the notes. The work is now printed from his interleaved copy. the present, and other Poems on the same plan, attained for a season an extensive reputation. the period at which I broke off in the Essay on the I must resume the story of my literary labours at enjoyed the first gleam of public favour, by the sucImitation of Popular Poetry, [see post,] when I had It is much to be regretted that the original MS. of this Poem has not been preserved. We are thus denied the advantage of comparing throughout the tish Border. The second edition of that work, pubcess of the first edition of the Minstrelsy of the ScotAuthor's various readings, which, in the case of Mar-lished in 1803, proved, in the language of the trade, mion, the Lady of the Lake, the Lord of the Isles, &c. are often highly curious and instructive.-ED. rather a heavy concern. The demand in Scotland had been supplied by the first edition, and the curiosity of the English was not much awakened by poems in the rude garb of antiquity, accompanied with notes sup-referring to the obscure feuds of barbarous clans, of whose very names civilized history was ignorant. It was, on the whole, one of those books which are more praised than they are read." INTRODUCTION TO EDITION 1830. A POEM of nearly thirty years' standing' may be posed hardly to need an Introduction, since, without one, it has been able to keep itself afloat through the best part of a generation. Nevertheless, as, in the edition of the Waverley Novels now in course of publication, [1830,] I have imposed on myself the task of saying something concerning the purpose and history of each, in their turn, I am desirous that the Poems for which I first received some marks of the public favour, should also be accompanied with such scraps of their literary history as may be supposed to carry interest along with them. Even if I should be mistaken in thinking that the secret history of what Published in 4to, (£1, 5s.) January 1805. At this time I stood personally in a different position from that which I occupied when I first dipt my desperate pen in ink for other purposes than those of my profession. In 1796, when I first published the translations from Bürger, I was an insulated individual, with only my own wants to provide for, and having, in a great measure, my own inclinations alone to consult. In 1803, when the second edition of the Minstrelsy appeared, I had arrived at a period of life "The Lay' is the best of all possible comments on the Border Minstrelsy.”—British Critic, August 1805. |
