Arthurian romances; Lady of the Lake (Legendary character) -- Romances
Since our first edition appeared we have had the privilege of examining
a copy of Scott's 2d ed. (1810), belonging to Mr. E. S. Gould, of
Yonkers, N. Y. This 2d ed. is in smaller type than the 1st, and in
octavo form, the 1st being in quarto. A minute collation of the text
with that of the 1st ed. and our own shows that Scott carefully revised
the poem for this 2d ed., and that the changes he afterwards made in
it were few and unimportant. For instance, the text includes the verbal
changes which we have adopted in i. 198, 290, 432, ii. 103, 201, 203,
534, iii. 30, 173, 190, 508, v. 106, 253, 728, 811, iv. 6, 112, 527,
556, 567, etc. In vi. 291 fol. it reads (including the omissions and
insertions) as in our text. In i. 336, 340, the pointing is the same as
in the 1st ed.; and in i. 360, the reading is "dear." In ii. 865, 866,
it varies from the pointing of the 1st ed.; but we are inclined to
regard this as a misprint, not a correction. In ii. 76 this 2d ed.
has "lingerewave" for "lingerer wave," and in ii. 217 it repeats the
preposterous misprint of "his glee" from the 1st ed. If Scott could
overlook such palpable errors as these, he might easily fail to detect
the misplacing of a comma. We have our doubts as to i. 336, 340, where
the 1st and 2d eds. agree; but there a misprint may have been left
uncorrected, as in ii. 217.
Jan. 25, 1884.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: One of Scott's (on vi. 47) has suffered badly in Lockhart's
edition. In a quotation from Lord Berners's Froissart (which I omit) a
whole page seems to have dropped out, and the last sentence, as it now
stands, is made up of pans of the one preceding and the one following
the lost matter. It reads thus (I mark the gap): "There all the
companyons made them[... ] breke no poynt of that ye have ordayned and
commanded.,' This is palpable nonsense, but it has been repeated without
correction in every reprint of Lockhart's edition for the last fifty
years.]
[Footnote 2: Lockhart says: "The lady with whom Sir Walter Scott held this
conversation was, no doubt, his aunt, Miss Christian Rutherford; there
was no other female relation DEAD when this Introduction was written,
whom I can suppose him to have consulted on literary questions. Lady
Capulet, on seeing the corpse of Tybalt, exclaims,--
'Tybalt, my cousin! O my brother's child!'"]
[Footnote 3: Lockhart quotes Byron, Don Juan, xi. 55:
"In twice five years the 'greatest living poet,'
Like to the champion in the fisty ring,
Is called on to support his claim, or show it,
Although 't is an imaginary thing," etc.]
[Footnote 4: "Sir Walter reigned before me," etc. (Don Juan, xi. 57).]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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