Note 151 — ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS (continued 3)

Scott suggested that the passage in Knox was the foundation of the ballad, January, 1802, in the first edition of his Minstrelsy, where only three stanzas were given. The Rev. Mr Paxton, however, first saw Scott’s fragment not long before 1804, and then in the second number of the Edinburgh Review, where there is no mention of the apothecary. Thereupon, he says, I “instantly” wrote the enclosed piece from the mouth of my aged mother. There is no room, consequently, for the supposition that either mother or son might have taken a hint from Knox, and put in the pottinger.