• thine' thii reissue of the late Mr. Henderson's scholarly
edition of The Border Minstrelsy (Edinburgh : Oliver and Boyd. 4 vols., £1 10s.). The book was first published in 1802, and reissued in 1833, with further notes by Lockhart and two long essays by Scott on the nature of popular poetry and the various attempts at its imitation.- In 1902 Mr. Henderson published his edition, in which he embodied the great mass of ballad scholarship which had been accumulated in the seventy years since Lockhart. Professor Child of Harvard had produced his monumental work, and a dozen scholars, like Gummere and Alfred Nutt and Andrew Lang, had speculated on the origin of 'the ballad. • Mr. Henderson amplifies and corrects Scott's own introductions and notes, and, by his variorum notes on the different versions, enables us to see Scott's editorial methods. Above all, in an admirable preface he gives his own views, the views of a learned and acute critic, on many controverted questions. The Minstrelsy is essential to the understanding of Scott's long apprenticeship to letters. The preparation of it gave. him much of that encyclopaedic 'lore about the past which lie was to turn to good purpose in • the novels ; and familiarity with the noble bareness of the ballads did something to correct the Gothic extravagance of his -taste, and to make him a poet. Mr. Henderson does full justice to his achievement. Scott preserved many of the most famous of the .ballads from oblivion, and he provided a standard text. His purpose was literary rather than anti- quarian, but his conscience about alterations was much more sensitive than that of Bishop Percy. The- book is a mine of . curious and delectable, information, and Mr. Henderso&s critical apparatus enables us to see how cunningly Suitt did his work, and how in the process his own -poetic style wish
shaped. ' (Chapman and- Halt. 2 guineas;) • • ' • • •
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