Note 82 — Chapter III

Kölbing thinks Scott probably hired a transcriber who knew nothing of Middle English—a usual method of procedure in the beginning of the nineteenth century. In later editions more errors were introduced by the carelessness of printers, until, after 1830, when the book was included in the complete editions of Scott's poems, the text was collated with the manuscript. But it was still far from correct. Kölbing enumerates about a hundred and thirty mistakes (see his Introduction, p. xvii). Of these I took twenty-one at random, and found that eight of them did not occur in the 1806 edition—in other words, the person who collated the text nearly thirty years after Scott or his hired transcriber had done it was far from infallible. A few illustrations may be given of mistakes that occur in both the 1806 and the 1833 editions: l. 117, send is given for sent; l. 846, telle for tel; l. 863, How for Hou; l. 912, mak for make; l. 1212, leuedi for leuedy; l. 1580, wende sche weren for whende sche were; l. 1334. have for han; l. 1514, as for als.