Walter Scott.
I shall close this chapter with a transcript of some Notes on the proof sheets of The Field of Waterloo. John Ballantyne being at Abbotsford on the 3d of October, his brother the printer addressed the packet containing the sheets to him. John appears to have considered James's observations on the margin before Scott saw them; and the record of the style in which the Poet repelled, or yielded to, his critics, will at all events illustrate his habitual good-nature.
John Ballantyne writes on the fly-leaf of the proofs, to his confidential clerk: "Mr. Hodgson, I beg these sheets and all the MS. may be carefully preserved just as they stand, and put in my father's desk. J. B."
James prefaces his animadversions with this quotation:—
"Cut deep and spare not.—Penruddock."
The Notes are these:—
Stanza I.—"Fair Brussels, thou art far behind."
James Ballantyne.—I do not like this line. It is tame, and the phrase "far behind," has, to my feeling, some associated vulgarity.
Scott.—Stet.
Stanza II.—"Let not the stranger with disdain
The architecture view."