mind was completely overthrown; his nervous impatience forced his companions to hurry him homeward from Rome through the Tyrol to Frankfort; in June they arrived in London, whence Sir Walter was conveyed by sea to Edinburgh; and, having reached Abbotsford on the 11th of July, he there continued to exist, with few intervals of consciousness, till the afternoon of the 21st of September, when he expired, having just completed the sixty-first year of his age. On the 26th he was buried in the beautiful ruins of Dryburgh Abbey. ADVERTISEMENT. THE INTRODUCTION to the Lay of the Last Minstrel, written in April, 1830, was revised by the Author in the autumn of 1831, when he also made some corrections in the text of the poem, and several additions to the notes. The work is now printed from his interleaved copy. It is much to be regretted that the original MS. of this poem has not been preserved. We are thus denied the advantage of comparing throughout the Author's various readings, which in the case of Marmion, the Lady of the Lake, the Lord of the Isles, &c., are often highly curious and instructive.-LOCKHART. |