Note 11 — LETTER XXXII.

That is our first lesson, then, very utterly learned ‘by heart.’ This is our second, (marginal note on Sir Walter’s copy of Allan Ramsay’s Tea-table Miscellany, ed. 1724): “This book belonged to my grandfather, Robert Scott, and out of it I was taught ‘Hardiknute’ by heart before I could read the ballad myself. It was the first poem I ever learnt, the last I shall ever forget.”11 He repeated a great part of it, in the forests of La Cava, in the spring of the year in which he died; and above the lake Avernus, a piece of the song of the ewe-milkers:—