Autograph note signed to William Jerdan, editor of the Literary Gazette.

Litterateur and Poet (1757-1833). One page, 4to, fold marks, minor tears and staining, clear and good. Sotheby asks Jerdan "If there be time, l;et the Two last lines of the Proem [underlined] be -/ "And, in his grave while falls a Nation's tears,/ I strow these fading flours on Scott's untimely Bier".The equivalent text published in "the Literary Gazette", 3 Nov. 1832, p.699, runs as follows: "The golden close of F,me's unclouded day --/ Now strew these fading flowers on his untrimely tomb." In other words, Sotheby was too late with his changes. Note from DNB: "In June 1833[Sotheby] attended the third meeting of the British Association at Cambridge, and penned a poem on the proceedings, which was published posthumously [1834] with a memoir and verses written in 1831-2 on Scott's declining health and death." Presumably Jerdan intended to publish obituary verses on Scott in the Literary Gazette which wereeventually published in 1834.