I take it, for
this reason, that Hogg did not write stanzas xv., xviii. It was hardly
in nature for Hogg, if he knew Ville de Grace in Normandy (a thing not
very probable), to invent "Billop-Grace" as a popular corruption of the
name--and a popular corruption it is, I think. Probably the original
maker of this stanza wrote, in line 4, "alace," an old spelling--not
"alas"--to rhyme with "grace."
Colonel Elliot then assigns xv., xviii. as most likely of all to be by
Hogg. On that I have given my opinion, with my reasons.
These verses, with xviii., lead us to France, and whereas Scott here
suspects that some verses have been lost (see his note to stanza
xviii.), Colonel Elliot suspects that the stanzas relating to France
have been interpolated. But the French scenes occupy the whole poem
from xvi. to lxv., the end.
What, if Hogg were the forger, were his sources? He MAY have known
Douglas's Palice of Honour, which, of course, existed in print, with
its mention of Maitland's grey beard. But how did he know Maitland's
"three noble sons," in 1801-1802, lying unsunned in the Maitland MSS.
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