Page:The Poetical Works of William Motherwell, 1849.djvu/50

 might be accounted for by showing that one edition had been derived from the French or Norman, another from the Danish, and so on, so that, though the substance of the dish be the same, the cookery is that of foreign and distant cuisiniers. This reasoning certainly does not apply to mere brief alterations and corruptions, which do not, as it were, change the tone and form of the original.

'You will observe that I have no information to give respecting ,' so I might as well, perhaps, have saved you the trouble of this long letter. 'I am, , 'Your obliged humble servt., '.'

Sir Walter and Motherwell never met, but after the death of that great man he performed a pilgrimage to Abbotsford, and, as I am informed, was wont to say that 'nothing in that splendid mansion had affected him so much as Sir Walter's staff, with the bit dibble at the end of it.' Of course, in the forthcoming edition of the Minstrelsy he followed the advice of the illustrious critic, and kept his own copy of the ballad distinct from the others, and so it stands in the volume.

In 1828 the Paisley Magazine was begun by Mother-well, and carried on by him, with the assistance of his friends, for a year. It is, undoubtedly, what Mr Campbell represents it—a respectable provincial work; and in it, for