FOOTNOTES

It is unnecessary to give here any detailed account of Scott's procedure, as the matter has been thoroughly worked out by students of ballads. A few examples may be given as illustrations, however. In The Dowie Dens of Yarrow (Henderson's edition, Vol. III, p. 173) 28 lines out of the 68 are noted by Mr. Henderson as either changed or added by Scott. Scott writes (beginning of fifth stanza), "As he gaed up the Tennies bank" for "As he gaed up yon high, high hill," and we find from a note of Lockhart's that The Tennies is the name of a farm belonging to the Duke of Buccleuch. In the sixth stanza Scott changes the lines,

In the seventeenth stanza he changes,

In Jellon Grame (Vol. III, p. 203), Mr. Henderson notes changes in 15 different lines, and points out 2 whole stanzas, out of the 21, that are interpolated. In the Gay Goss-hawk (Vol. III, p. 187) 6 stanzas out of 39 are noted as probably wholly or mainly by Scott, and 30 stanzas were changed by him. Sometimes his alterations occurred in every line of a stanza. It is probable that Scott changed Jamie Telfer enough to make the Scotts take the place of prominence that had been held by the Elliotts in the original form of the story. See The Trustworthiness of Border Ballads as Exemplified by 'Jamie Telfer i' the Fair Dodhead' and other Ballads; by Lieut.-Col. the Hon. Fitzwilliam Elliott. Reviewed in Edinburgh Review, No. 418, p. 306 (October, 1906).

It is true, however, as R.S. Mackenzie says in his Life of Scott, that Scott "had not only meditated, but partly executed an edition of Shakespeare." The work was suggested by Constable in 1822, was begun in 1823 or 1824, and three volumes of the proposed ten were printed by the time of Constable's financial crash in the beginning of 1826. The project was sometime afterwards abandoned, and the printed sheets, which apparently were not bound up, disappeared from view. The first volume was to be a life of Shakspere by Scott, and this was probably not begun at all. Of the commentary in the other volumes, Scott was to have the oversight but Lockhart was to do most of the work. It was not designed that the critical apparatus should to any great degree represent original ideas furnished by Lockhart or Scott, but the book was to be "a sensible Shakespeare, in which the useful and readable notes should be condensed and separated from the trash." (See the discussion of the matter in letters between Scott and his publisher given in the third volume of Constables Correspondence. See also Lang's Life of Lockhart, Vol. I, p. 409, and Vol. II, p. 13, and Mackenzie's Life of Scott, pp. 475-6.) The Boston Public Library contains three volumes which are thought to be a unique copy of so much of the Scott-Lockhart Shakspere as was printed. (See below, the Bibliography of books edited by Scott.)

Scott's notes on Beaumont and Fletcher, which he had wished in 1804 to offer to Gifford, were actually used by Weber in his Beaumont and Fletcher, published about 1810, an edition which was characterized by Scott as "too carelessly done to be reputable." (Lockhart, Vol. IV, p. 472.)

are probably much better known as they appear in Ivanhoe, incorrectly quoted, than in their proper form. Scott also added a note on Coleridge in this connection. (Ivanhoe, Chapter VIII.)

"At any rate, if what I propose should not be found of force to prevent piracy, I cannot but think from the generosity and justice of American feeling, that a considerable preference would be given in the market to the editions emanating directly from the publisher selected by the author, and in the sale of which the author had some interest.

"If the scheme shall altogether fail, it at least infers no loss, and therefore is, I think, worth the experiment. It is a fair and open appeal to the liberality, perhaps in some sort to the justice, of a great people; and I think I ought not in the circumstances to decline venturing upon it. I have done so manfully and openly, though not perhaps without some painful feelings, which however are more than compensated by the interest you have taken in this unimportant matter, of which I will not soon lose the recollection." (Knickerbocker Magazine, Vol. XI, p. 380 ff., April, 1838.)

"We believe by far the greater part of the poetry interspersed through these novels to be original compositions by the author. At the same time the reader will find passages which are quoted from other authors, and may probably debit more of these than our more limited reading has enabled us to ascertain. Indeed, it is our opinion that some of the following poetry is neither entirely original nor altogether borrowed, but consists in some instances of passages from other authors, which the author has not hesitated to alter considerably, either to supply defects of his own memory, or to adapt the quotation more explicitly and aptly to the matter in hand." (Constable's Correspondence, Vol. III, pp. 222-3.)