Note 59 — MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.
Reading edition
These very beautiful stanzas first appeared in the Edinburgh Annual Register for 1815, (p. 255,) with the following interesting heading.
“A literary friend of ours received these verses with a letter of the following tenor:—
“‘A very ingenious young friend of mine has just sent me the enclosed, on reading Waverley. To you the world gives that charming work; and if in any future edition you should like to insert the Dirge to a Highland Chief, you would do honour to
Your Sincere Admirer.’
“The individual to whom this obliging letter was addressed, having no claim to the honour which is there done him, does not possess the means of publishing the verses in the popular novel alluded to. But that the public may sustain no loss, and that the ingenious author of Waverley may be aware of the honour intended him, our correspondent has ventured to send the verses to our Register.”
Notwithstanding the mysticism in the note about the “very ingenious young friend of mine” and “your sincere admirer,” on the one hand; and the disclaimer by “a literary friend of ours,” on the other, there can be little doubt that the Dirge was sent by Mrs Hermans to Sir Walter, then Mr Scott, and by him to the Register—of which he himself wrote that year the historical department.—Vide Lockhart’s Life of Scott, vol. iv. p. 80.