nd 1811, are sometimes attributed to Scott in library
catalogues, but on what authority it seems impossible to discover.
There is almost no commentary in the _Ancient British Drama_, but the
_Modern British Drama_ contains three brief introductions which I
believe were written by Scott. They show a striking likeness to some
parts of the _Essay on the Drama_ written several years later, and it
is not probable that Scott took his criticism ready-made from another
author. In the preface to the _Ancient British Drama_ we find this
statement: "The present publication is intended to form, with _The
British Drama_ and _Shakspeare_, a complete and uniform collection in
ten volumes of the best English plays." The Shakspeare here referred
to is doubtless that of which Constable the publisher afterwards spoke
in his correspondence with Scott as "Ballantyne's Shakespeare," and
Scott had no hand in the editorship. (_Constable's Correspondence_,
Vol. III, p. 244.)

It is true, however, as R.S. Mackenzie says in his _Life of Scott_,
that Scott "had not only meditated, but partly executed an edition of
Shakespeare." The work was suggested by Constable in 1822, was begun
in 1823 or 1824, and three volumes of the proposed ten were printed by
the time of Constable's financial crash in the beginning of 1826. The
project was sometime afterwards abandoned, and the printed sheets,
which apparently were not bound up, disappeared from view. The first
volume was to be a life of Shakspere by Scott, and this was probably
not begun at all. Of the commentary in the other volumes, Scott was to
have the oversight but Lockhart was to do most of the work. It was not
designed that the critical apparatus should to any great degree
represent original ideas furnished by Lockhart or Scott, but the book
was to be "a sensible Shakespeare, in which the useful and readable
notes should be condensed and separated from the trash." (See the
discussion of the matter in letters between Scott and his publisher
given in the third volume of _Constables Correspondence_. See also
Lang's _Life of Lockhart_, Vol. I, p. 409, and Vol. II, p. 13, and
Mackenzie's _Life of Scott_, pp. 475-6.) The Boston Public Library
contains three volumes which are thought to be a unique copy of so
much of the Scott-Lockhart Shakspere as was printed. (See below, the
Bibliography of books edited by Scott.)

Scott's notes o