This is very suspicious." I give
what appears to be Colonel Elliot's line of reflection in my own
words. He decides that, as early as June 1802, "Hogg"(in the
Colonel's 'view'), "in the first instance, tried to palm off the
ballad on Scott, and failed; and that then Scott palmed it off on the
public, and succeeded."
This is all a mare's nest. Scott, in March-May 1802, had the whole
of the ballad except one stanza, which Hogg sent to him on 30th June.
I now print, for the first time, the whole of Hogg's letter of 30th
June, with its shrewd criticism on ballads, hitherto omitted, and I
italicise the passage about Auld Maitland:-
ETTRICK HOUSE, June 30.
Dear Sir,--I have been perusing your minstrelsy very diligently for a
while past, and it being the first book I ever perused which was
written by a person I had seen and conversed with, the consequence
hath been to me a most sensible pleasure; for in fact it is the
remarks and modern pieces that I have delighted most in, being as it
were personally acquainted with many of the modern pieces formerly.
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