The poetical works of Sir Walter Scott, Baronet

Front matter

TENLE?

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

From a Painting by Sir H. Raf.bukn, .SoS

Preface

The aim in this edition of Scott's Poems has been to give a correct text, with such portions of Scott's notes as are likely to be useful or interesting to the general reader, and with fuller and better pictorial illustrations than are to be found in any former edition. The volume contains all the poems (not the plays, which are seldom, if ever, read nowadays, unless as mere literary curiosities), with the exception of a few bits of personal or occasional verse which Scott himself would never have printed, and which are not worth preserving. The original contributions to the Border Minstrelsy are included, except Scott's portion of Thomas the Rhymer (the Third Part only), which could not well be separated from the rest. Of the Songs scattered through the novels and plays, the best of such as are comparatively independent of the context are given, together with all the poetical mottoes written by Scott himself for the heading of chapters.

The text of all the editions, English or American, published during the last fifty years, is more or less corrupt. I do not except that of Lockhart, who very rarely corrected an error in Scott's editions, while he allowed many slips made by his own printers to pass undetected. In the prefaces to the " Students' Edition " of the Lady of the Lake and Marmion, I have quoted examples of these corruptions, some of which are almost incredibly bad. Marmion, as I have shown, was never printed correctly until I edited viii PREFACE.

it, sundry misprints in the first edition having been overlooked by Scott and by all his commentators and critics. This is the more amazing, inasmuch as the passages in which the errors occurred became utterly nonsensical.

In carefully collating the text of all the other long poems with that of the earliest editions I have been able to obtain (I have not always succeeded in getting hold of the first edition), I have found corruptions quite as bad as those in the Lady and Marmioii. In the minor poems I have met with comparatively few of these inaccuracies.

The punctuation has been revised throughout, in accordance with the best recent usage, thousands of the superfluous points with which former editions are so plentifully besprinkled having been deleted.

In abridging Scott's voluminous notes (they have been merely abridged without alteration of the portions retained), I have omitted nothing which the reader who turns to them for explanation or illustration of the text is likely to miss. That the longer notes have been little read, is evident from the fact that Lockhart's accidental dropping of a whole page from one in the Lady in 1833, which destroyed the sense by uniting the fragments of two independent sentences, was not observed, or at least not pointed out, until I called attention to it in 1883.

The Glossary contains all the words explained in Scott's shorter notes, with a few additions of my own.

The engravings may be trusted to speak for themselves. Whether for beauty or for accuracy, they may challenge comparison with anything that has appeared in former editions on either side of the Atlantic.

W. J. R.

Page

THE LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL i

Lntroduction 3

Canto Sixth 459 BALLADS, TRANSLATED OR IMI- TATED, FROM THE GERMAN, etc. 465

William and Helen 467

The Wild Huntsman 470

The Fire-King 472

Frederick and Alice 475

The Battle of Sempach 475

The Noble Moringer 477

The Erl-King 481

Glenfinlas : or, Lord Ronald's Coronach 482

The Eve of Saint John 486

Cadyow Castle 488

The Violet 492

To a Lady 492

The Bard's Incantation 492

Hellvellyn 493

The Dying Bard 494

The Norman Horse-Shoe .... 494

The Maid of Toro 494

The Palmer 495

Page MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.

The Maid of Neidpath 495

Wandering Willie 496

Hunting Song 496

Song 497

The Resolve 497

Epitaph designed for a Monument in Lichfield Cathedral, at the Burial- Place of the Family of Miss Seward 498 Prologue to Miss Baillie's Play of " The Family Legend " . . . . 498

The Poacher 498

The Bold Dragoon ; or, The Plain of

Badajos 501

On the Massacre of Glencoe . . . 501 Song for the Anniversary Meeting of

the Pitt Club of Scotland .... 502 Lines addressed to Ranald Macdon-

ald, Esq., of Staffa 502

Pharos Loquitur 503

Letters in Verse on the Voyage with the Commissioners of Northern

Lights 503

Farewell to Mackenzie, High Chief

of Kintail 505

Imitation of the preceding Song . . 506 War- Song of Lachlan, High Chief of

Maclean 506

Saint Cloud 507

The Dance of Death 507

Romance of Dunois 508

The Troubadour 509

From the French 509

Song on the Lifting of the Banner of the House of Buccleuch, at a great Foot-Ball Match on Carterhaugh . 509 Lullaby of an Infant Chief .... 511

The Return to Ulster 511

Jock of Hazeldean 512

Pibroch of Donald Dhu 512

Nora's Vow 512

MacGregor's Gathering 513

Verses composed for the Occasion, adapted to Haydn's Air, " God save the Emperor Francis," and sung by a select Band after the Dinner given by the Lord Provost of Edinburgh to the Grand Duke Nicholas of Russia, and his Suite, 19th December, i8i6 513

CONTENTS.

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.

The Search for Happiness ; or, The

Quest of Sultaun Solimaun . . . 514

Lines written for Miss Smith . . . 51S Mr. Kemble's Farewell Address on

taking Leave of the Edinburgh Stage 519

The Sun upon the Weirdlaw Hill . 519

The Monks of Bangor's March . . 510

Epilogue to the Appeal 520

Mackrimmon's Lament . . . . . 520

Epitaph on Mrs. Erskine 521

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. *^''''"

On Ettrick Forest's Mountains Dun . 522

The Maid of Isla 522

Farewell to the Muse 522

The Bannatyne Club 523

Epilogue to the Drama founded on

" Saint Ronan's Well " .... 524

Epilogue 525

The Death of Keeldar 525

The Foray 526

Inscription for the Monument of the

Rev. George Scott 526