BY SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART. 1 EDITED ITH NOTES BY WILLIAM J. ROLFE, LITT. D. FORMERLY HEAD MASTER OF THE HIGH SCHOOL, CAMBRIDGE, MASS BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 1891 E.R. THE 912274 ASTOR, LENOY AND Copyright, 1886, BY TICKNOR AND COMPANY. All rights reserved. The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A. PREFACE. THE Lay is here edited on the same plan as its predecessors, the Lady of the Lake and Marmion; and, as in those, the illustrations are from the publishers' holiday edition of the poem. The text has been carefully compared with that of the earliest editions I have been able to consult - including the 9th (quarto), the 10th (octavo), that of 1821, and several issues of Lockhart's. The corruptions I have detected are few and unimportant, compared with those in the Lady of the Lake and Marmion. The readings of the 1st edition I have had to take from Lockhart, who I hope may be more trustworthy in this case than I have found him in others. If I am ever so fortunate as to get hold of a copy of the 1st edition, I shall compare it with the later texts, and, if necessary, revise the notes referring to it. I have given all of Scott's own notes in full-correcting sundry misprints and corruptions that appear in all the recent reprints — and most of Lockhart's. Of other editions, I have been most indebted to Professor Minto's, as the extracts credited to him will show. I have also taken an occasional note from Mr. J. S. Phillpotts's school edition. As usual, I have found the commentaries “good except on difficult passages," and have done my best to supply the deficiency. The proof-readers of the University Press are exceedingly keen-eyed and critical, but neither they nor I can lay claim to infallibility. If we have overlooked any errors of the type, I shall be very grateful to the reader who will kindly send me a memorandum of such as he may detect. CAMBRIDGE, Dec. 21, 1886. |