PUBLISHERS' NOTE. The present edition of Scott's Poems was published in 1887 in a more bulky and expensive form. In reissuing it now in smaller compass and at a reduced price, the Publishers desire to call attention to two features which, in their judgment, render the book exceptionally worthy of attention. The text of the poems represents very close and careful study on the part of the scrupulous editor, and may be accepted as the most satisfactory complete text in existence. The illustrations, executed at the time when the art of wood-engraving may be said to have reached its culmination in the United States, are not careless random sketches, evolved for the most part from the brain of the designer, but are really in the nature of notes to the poems, since they are for the most part actual studies of Scottish scenery and life, the artist having visited the localities of the poems for the purpose of securing somewhat of the same fidelity to nature which Scott himself aimed at, in his recourse to history and legend. BOSTON, February, 1899. 224463 |