The field of Waterloo (2)

Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832)
The field of Waterloo: a poem
Edinburgh: printed by James Ballantyne & Co. for Archibald Constable and Co. [etc.], 1815
Keynes.H.2.8, pp. 14–15

Scott’s Waterloo poem sold well, but was roughly handled by some critics; an epigram attributed to Lord Erskine was particularly damning:

On Waterloo’s ensanguined plain
Lie tens of thousands of the slain;
But none by sabre or by shot
Fell half as flat as Walter Scott.

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