[Footnote 368:  It is hard to say just how much he accomplished by the proof-reading, which, to judge by his Journal, he habitually performed.  He wrote to Kirkpatrick Sharpe in 1809, after seeing a new number of the Quarterly:  “I am a little disconcerted with the appearance of one or two of my own articles, which I have had no opportunity to revise in proof.” (Sharpe’s Correspondence, Vol.  I, p. 370.) Lockhart gives an interesting sample of a sheet of Scott’s poetry tentatively revised by Ballantyne and reworked by the author. (Lockhart, Vol.  III, pp. 32-5.) It is certain that Ballantyne made many suggestions, some of which Scott accepted and some of which he summarily rejected.  In Hogg’s Domestic Manners of Scott we find the following account of what the printer said when Hogg reported that Sir Walter was to correct some proofs for him:  “He correct them for you!  Lord help you and him both!  I assure you if he had nobody to correct after him, there would be a bonny song through the country.  He is the most careless and incorrect writer that ever was born, for a voluminous and popular writer, and as for sending a proof sheet to him, we may as well keep it in the office.  He never heeds it....  He will never look at either your proofs or his own, unless it be for a few minutes amusement” (pp. 242-3).  When he wrote to Miss Baillie that he had read the proofs of a play of hers which was being published in Edinburgh, he added, “but this will not ensure their being altogether correct, for in despite of great practice, Ballantyne insists I have a bad eye.” (Familiar Letters, Vol.  I, p. 173.)]

  [Footnote 369:  Journal, Vol.  II, p. 79; also 234 and 239;
  Lockhart, Vol.  V, pp. 116 and 240.]

  [Footnote 370:  Journal, Vol.  I, p. 117; Lockhart, Vol.  IV, p.
  448.]

  [Footnote 371:  Lockhart, Vol.  IV, pp. 2 and 391.]

  [Footnote 372:  Familiar Letters, Vol.  I, p. 72.]

  [Footnote 373:  Ibid., Vol.  I, p. 101.]

  [Footnote 374:  Ibid., Vol.  I, p. 113.]

  [Footnote 375:  Essay on Imitations of the Ancient Ballad.]

[Footnote 376:  A friend of Scott’s once wrote to him, “You are the only author I ever yet knew to whom one might speak plain about the faults found with his works.” (Familiar Letters, Vol.  I, p. 282.) He took great pains, contrary to his usual custom, in revising and correcting the Malachi Malagrowther papers, but these were argumentative and in an altogether different class from his poems and novels; and besides he felt a special responsibility in writing upon a public matter “far more important than anything referring to [his] fame or fortune alone.” (Lockhart, Vol.  IV, p. 460.)]

  [Footnote 377:  Lockhart, Vol.  III, p. 379.]

  [Footnote 378:  Introduction to the Pirate.]