courtesy of her manners, the soundness of her un- to repeat to me many long specimens of their poetderstanding, and her unbounded benevolence, gave ry, which had not yet appeared in print. Amongst more the idea of an angelic visitant, than of a be- others, was the striking fragment called Christabel, ing belonging to this nether world; and such a by Mr. Coleridge, which, from the singularly irregthought was but too consistent with the short space ular structure of the stanzas, and the liberty which she was permitted to tarry among us. Of course, it allowed the author, to adapt the sound to the where all made it a pride and pleasure to gratify sense, seemed to be exactly suited to such an exher wishes, she soon heard enough of Border lore; travaganza as I meditated on the subject of Gilpin among others, an aged gentleman of property,' Horner. As applied to comic and humorous ponear Langholm, communicated to her ladyship the etry, this mescolanza of measures had been already story of Gilpin Horner, a tradition in which the used by Anthony Hall, Anstey, Dr. Wolcott, and narrator, and many more of that country, were others; but it was in Christabel that I first found firm believers. The young Countess, much de- it used in serious poetry, and it is to Mr. Coleridge lighted with the legend, and the gravity and full that I am bound to make the acknowledgment due confidence with which it was told, enjoined on me from the pupil to his master. I observe that Lord as a task to compose a ballad on the subject. Of Byron, in noticing my obligations to Mr. Coleridge, course, to hear was to obey; and thus the goblin which I have been always most ready to acknowlstory, objected to by several critics as an excres- edge, expressed, or was understood to express, a cence upon the poem, was, in fact, the occasion of hope, that I did not write an unfriendly review on its being written. Mr. Coleridge's productions. On this subject I have only to say, that I do not even know the review which is alluded to; and were I ever to take the unbecoming freedom of censuring a man of Mr. Coleridge's extraordinary talents, it would be on account of the caprice and indolence with which he has thrown from him, as if in mere wantonness, those unfinished scraps of poetry, which, like the Torso of antiquity, defy the skill of his poetical brethren to complete them. The charming fragments which the author abandons to their fate, are surely too valuable to be treated like the proofs of careless engravers, the sweepings of whose studios often make the fortune of some painstaking collector. A chance similar to that which dictated the subject, gave me also the hint of a new mode of treating it. We had at that time the lease of a pleasant cottage, near Lasswade, on the romantic banks of the Esk, to which we escaped when the vacations of the Court permitted me so much leisure. Here I had the pleasure to receive a visit from Mr. Stoddart (now Sir John Stoddart, Judge-Advocate at Malta), who was at that time collecting the particulars which he afterwards embodied in his Remarks on Local Scenery in Scotland. I was of some use to him in procuring the information which he desired, and guiding him to the scenes which he wished to see. In return, he made me better acquainted than I had hitherto been with the poetic effusions which have since made the Lakes of Westmoreland, and the authors by whom they have been sung, so famous wherever the English tongue is spoken. I was already acquainted with the "Joan of Arc," the "Thalaba," and the "Metrical Ballads" of Mr. Southey, which had found their way to Scotland, and were generally admired. But Mr. Stoddart, who had the advantage of personal friendship with the authors, and who possessed a strong memory with an excellent taste, was able 1 The Duchess died in August, 1814. Sir Walter Scott's lines on her death will be found in a subsequent page of this collection.-ED. This was Mr. Beattie of Mickledale, a man then considerably upwards of eighty, of a shrewd and sarcastic temper, which he did not at all times suppress, as the following anec dote will show :-A worthy clergyman, now deceased, with better good-will than tact, was endeavoring to push the senior forward in his recollection of Border ballads and legends, by expressing reiterated surprise at his wonderful memory. "No, sir," said old Mickledale; "my memory is good for little, for it cannot retain what ought to be preserved. I can remember all these stories about the auld riding days, which are of no I did not immediately proceed upon my projected labor, though I was now furnished with a subject, and with a structure of verse which might have the effect of novelty to the public ear, and afford the author an opportunity of varying his measure with the variations of a romantic theme. On the contrary, it was, to the best of my recollection, more than a year after Mr. Stoddart's visit, that, by way of experiment, I composed the first two or three stanzas of "The Lay of the Last Minstrel." I was shortly afterwards visited by two intimate friends, one of whom still survives. earthly importance; but were you, reverend sir, to repeat your 4 Medwin's Conversations of Lord Byron, p. 309. 5 Sir Walter, elsewhere, in allusion to "Coleridge's beanti- To call up him who left half told 9 THE POETICAL WORKS OF SIR WALTER SCOTT, The Lay of the Last Minstrel: A POEM, IN SIX CANTOS. Dum relego, scripsisse pudet; quia plurima cerno, ADVERTISEMENT TO EDITION 1833. THE INTRODUCTION TO THE LAY OF THE LAST MINSTEEL, 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. 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 through out the Author's various readings, which, in the case of Marmion, the Lady of the Lake, the Lord of the Isles, &c., are often highly curious and instructive.-ED. INTRODUCTION TO EDITION 1830. A POEM of nearly thirty years' standing' may be supposed 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 favor, should also be accompanied with such scraps of their literary his 1 Published in 4to (£1 5s.), January, 1805. tory as may be supposed to carry interest along with them. Even if I should be mistaken in think ing that the secret history of what was once so popular, may still attract public attention and curiosity, it seems to me not without its use to record the manner and circumstances under which the present, and other Poems on the same plan, attained for a season an extensive reputation. I must resume the story of my literary labors at the period at which I broke off in the Essay on the Imitation of Popular Poetry [see post], when I had enjoyed the first gleam of public favor, by the success of the first edition of the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. The second edition of that work, published in 1803, proved, in the language of the trade, 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 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. 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 pub 2 "The Lay' is the best of all possible comments on the Border Minstrelsy."-British Critic, August, 1803 cantos, might remind the reader, at intervals, of the time, place, and circumstances of the recitation. This species of cadre, or frame, afterwards afforded the poem its name of "The Lay of the Last Minstrel." They were men whose talents might have raised them to the highest station in literature, had they not preferred exerting them in their own profession of the law, in which they attained equal preferment. I was in the habit of consulting them on my attempts at composition, having equal confidence in their sound taste and friendly sincerity.' In this specimen I had, in the phrase of the High-primatur of Mr. Francis Jeffrey, who had been land servant, packed all that was my own at least, already for some time distinguished by his critical for I had also included a line of invocation, a little softened, from Coleridge "Mary, mother, shield us well." As neither of my friends said much to me on the subject of the stanzas I showed them before their departure, I had no doubt that their disgust had been greater than their good-nature chose to express. Looking upon them, therefore, as a failure, | I threw the manuscript into the fire, and thought as little more as I could of the matter. Some time afterwards, I met one of my two counsellors, who inquired, with considerable appearance of interest, about the progress of the romance I had commenced, and was greatly surprised at learning its fate. He confessed that neither he nor our rautual friend had been at first able to give a precise opinion on a poem so much out of the common road; but that as they walked home together to the city, they had talked much on the subject, and the result was an earnest desire that I would proceed with the composition. He also added, that some sort of prologue might be necessary, to place the mind of the hearers in the situation to understand and enjoy the poem, and recommended the adoption of such quaint mottoes as Spenser has used to announce the contents of the chapters of the Faery Queen, such as— "Babe's bloody hands may not be cleansed. The work was subsequently shown to other friends during its progress, and received the im talent. The poem, being once licensed by the critics as fit for the market, was soon finished, proceeding at about the rate of a canto per week. There was, indeed, little occasion for pause or hesitation, when a troublesome rhyme might be accommodated by an alteration of the stanza, or where an incorrect measure might be remedied by a variation of the rhyme. It was finally published in 1805, and may be regarded as the first work in which the writer, who has been since so voluminous, laid his claim to be considered as an original author. The book was published by Longman and Company, and Archibald Constable and Company. The principal of the latter firm was then commencing that course of bold and liberal industry which was of so much advantage to his country, and might have been so to himself, but for causes which it is needless to enter into here. The work, brought out on the usual terms of division of profits between the author and publishers, was not long after purchased by them for £500, to which Messrs. Longman and Company afterwards added £100, in their own unsolicited kindness, in consequence of the uncommon success of the work. It was handsomely given to supply the loss of a fine horse, which broke down suddenly while the author was riding with one of the worthy publish ers.3 It would be great affectation not to own frankly, that the author expected some success from "The Lay of the Last Minstrel." The attempt to return to a more simple and natural style of poetry was likely to be welcomed, at a time when the public had become tired of heroic I entirely agreed with my friendly critic in the necessity of having some sort of pitch-pipe, which might make readers aware of the object, or rather the tone, of the publication. But I doubted wheth-hexameters, with all the buckram and binding er, in assuming the oracular style of Spenser's mottoes, the interpreter might not be censured as the harder to be understood of the two, I therefore introduced the Old Minstrel, as an appropriate prolocutor, by whom the lay might be sung, or spoken, and the introduction of whom betwixt the 1 One of these, William Erskine, Esq. (Lord Kinnedder), I have often had occasion to mention; and though I may hardly be thanked for disclosing the name of the other, yet I cannot but state that the second is George Cranstoun, Esq., now a Senator of the College of Justice, by the title of Lord Corenonse. 1831.-[Mr. Cranstoun resigned is seat on the Bench in 1839.] which belong to them of later days. But whatever might have been his expectations, whether moderate or unreasonable, the result left them far behind, for among those who smiled for the adventurous Minstrel, were numbered the great names of William Pitt and Charles Fox. Neither was 2 Book II. Canto II. 3 Mr. Owen Rees, here alluded to, retired from the house of Longman & Co. at Midsummer, 1837, and died 5th September following, in his 67th year.-ED. "Through what channel or in what terms Fox made known his opinion of the Lay, I have failed to ascertain. Pitt's praise, as expressed to his niece, Lady Hester Stanhope, within a few the extent of the sale inferior to the character of the judges who received the poem with approbation. Upwards of thirty thousand copies of the Lay were disposed of by the trade; and the author had to perform a task difficult to human vanity, when called upon to make the necessary weeks after the poem appeared, was repeated by her to Mr. William Stewart Rose, who, of course, communicated it forthwith to the author; and not long after, the Minister, in conversation with Scott's early friend, the Right Hon. William Dandas, signified that it would give him pleasure to find some opportunity of advancing the fortunes of such a writer. **I remember," writes this gentleman, "at Mr. Pitt's table in 1805, the Chancellor asked me about you and your then situation, and after I had answered him, Mr. Pitt observed- He can't remain as he is,' and desired me to look to it.'"'— LOCKHART. Life of Scott, vol. ii. p. 926. 1. The poet has under-estimated even the patent and tangible evidence of his success. The first edition of the Lay was a magnificent quarto, 750 copies; but this was soon exhaust deductions from his own merits, in a calm attempt to account for his popularity.1 A few additional remarks on the author's literary attempts after this period, will be found in the Introduction to the Poem of Marmion. ABBOTSFORD, April, 1830. ed, and there followed an octavo impression of 1500; in 1806, two more, one of 2000 copies, another of 2250; in 1807, a fifth edition of 2000, and a sixth of 3000; in 1808, 3550; in 1809, 3000-a small edition in quarto (the ballads and lyrical pieces being then annexed to it)-and another octavo edition of 3250; in 1811, 3000; in 1812, 3000; in 1816, 3000; in 1823, 1000. A fourteenth impression of 2000 foolscap appeared in 1825; and besides all this, before the end of 1836, 11,000 copies had gone forth in the collected editions of his poetical works. Thus, nearly forty-four thousand copies had been disposed of in this country, and by the legitimate trade alone, before he superintended the edition of 1830, to which his biographical introductions were prefixed. In the history of Brit. ish Poetry nothing had ever equalled the demand for the Lay of the Last Minstrel."-Life, vol. ii. p. 226. |