MELROSE BY SUNLIGHT.
The beautiful description of the appearance of the ruins of Melrose Abbey by moonlight, in the Lay of the Last Minstrel, has led thousands to visit the scene “when silver edges the imagery,” yet it is worth noting that the author never saw the ruined pile by “the pale moonlight.” Bernard Barton once wrote to Scott to request him to favor a young lady with a copy of the lines in his own handwriting. Sir Walter complied, but substituted for the concluding lines of the original the following:—
“Then go—and muse with deepest awe
On what the writer never saw;
Who would not wander ’neath the moon
To see what he could see at noon.”