Note I — MEMOIR OF BEATTIE, BY THE REV. ALEXANDER DYCE.

I have been told that the poem consisted originally of only four stanzas, and that the two beautiful ones with which it now concludes were added, a considerable time after the others were written, at the request of Mrs. Carnegie, of Charlton, near Montrose. This lady, whose maiden name was Scott, was authoress of a poem called Dunotter Castle, printed in the second edition of Colman and Thornton's Poems by Eminent Ladies.

'Pentland Hills', for which Beattie wrote The Hermit, was an air composed by Mr. Tytler, of Woodhouselee, in imitation of the old Scottish melodies.