tain district in the world, with the possible exception of that around Lake Lucerne in Switzerland. To the latter it is far inferior in grandeur, but superior in the charm of its association, owing to Sir Walter's pen. The story of the Knight incognito, James Fitz-James, and his acquaintance with fair Ellen, daughter of the banished Douglas, is so easily followed that it would be unkind to mar the reader's pleasure by revealing it. Criticisms. Charming as is the narrative, it has called forth some adverse criticisms. R. H. Hutton terms it a novelette in verse, without the higher and broader characteristics of Scott's prose novels. He adds: "I suppose what one expects from a poem as distinguished from a [prose] romance even though the poem incorporates a story-is that it should not rest for the chief interest on the mere development of the story; but rather that the narrative should be quite subordinate to that insight into the deeper side of life and manners, in expressing which poetry has so great an advantage over prose: Of The Lay and Marmion this is true; less true of The Lady of the Lake." It seems to us, nevertheless, that the critic's partiality for Marmion inclines him to be too severe toward the quiet sister. And "insight into the deeper side of life" was never the aim of our modern troubadour, but to tell an interesting story in an interesting way. The mode of versification affords opportunity for expression often careless and sometimes slipshod, and Scott's peculiar genius did not take the form of either deep thought or intense feeling, although we find the latter in some of his prose romances. Characters. The characters in The Lady of the Lake, while presented somewhat superficially, are very pleasing. The relations between Ellen and the father are models for imitation. "Their mutual affection and solicitude, their pride in each other's excellencies, the parent's regret at the obscurity to which fate has doomed his child, and the daughter's self-devotion to her father's welfare and safety constitute the highest interest of the poem, and that which is most uniformly sustained." The above is quoted from the evidence given by the critic who first publicly declared that the man who described the love between Isaac and Rebecca, David Deans and his daughter, Sir Duncan Campbell and his child, and a score of others, must be the same who wrote The Lady of the Lake and Rokeby. Snowdoun's Knight is a gallant stranger, Roderick Dhu and Malcolm Graeme bring out each other's values, the old minstrel and Dame Margaret win our sympathies from the start, while the lesser persons have each a distinct, even if slight, individuality. Versification. -The poem is written in fluent iambic tetrameter, xa xa xa xa, with an occasional trochee, as, "Onward | amid | the copse | 'gan peep." The rhyme is in couplets, sometimes extended to convete the sense, as, "Thus up the margin of the Lake, Between the precipice and brake, O'er stock and rock their race they take." Scott felt that this was the best measure for the tales, having much of the smoothness of the heroic couplet, less monotony, and a more rapid movement. All introductions are in the standard Spenserian stanza, so called because first used by Edmund Spenser, author of the Faerie Queene. The additional foot in the closing line of each stanza gives a lingering effect especially adapted to imitate the harp accompaniment. No two of the songs are constructed exactly alike, and it will be pleasant for the student to observe the means by which each carries out the feeling of the singer. Compare, for instance, the sad martial melody of,— "Soldier, rest! thy warfare o'er, Sleep the sleep that knows no breaking," with its hint of muffled drum beat, with the triumphant shout, "Hail to the chief who in triumph advances, "Loud should Clan-Alpine then Ring from her deepmost glen, Roderigh Vich Alpine dhu, ho, ieroe!" Then the joyous ballad of Alice Brand, Merry it is in the good greenwood, When the mavis and merle are singing, When the deer sweeps by, and the hounds are in cry, Beauties. Next to the interest of the story the charm of the poem lies in its description. Scott himself said of it, "The force of The Lay is thrown on style, of Marmion on description, and of The Lady of the Lake on incident." The verdict of Jeffrey, in the Edinburgh Review, is usually considered final. "It is more polished in its diction, and more regular in its versification; the story is constructed with infinitely more skill and address; there is a greater proportion of pleasing and tender passages with much less antiquarian detail; and upon the whole, a larger variety of characters, more artfully and judiciously contrasted. There is nothing so fine, perhaps, as the battle in Marmion, or so picturesque as some of the scattered sketches in The Lay; but there is a richness and a spirit in the whole piece which does not pervade either of those poems, a profusion of incident and a shifting brilliancy of coloring that reminds us of the witchery of Ariosto, and a constant elasticity and occasional energy which seems to belong more peculiarly to the author now before us." Such passages as the picturing of the glen at sunset in the first canto, of Ellen in the same, of the gathering and preparation of the Fiery Cross in the third, of the parting of Roderick Dhu and James Fitz-James, and of the sports at Stirling in the fifth, are of rare excellence. In narration the Combat and the Battle of Beal' an Duine are second only to the account of Flodden Field in Marmion. Lockhart tells how The Lady of the Lake first reached a company of Scotch soldiers in Spain during the Napoleonic wars. They were exposed at the time to the fire of the enemy. The men were made to lie at full length on the earth, while the captain, himself kneeling, read aloud the description of that battle of Beal' an Duine. All danger was forgotten, and the listening soldiers only interrupted him by a joyous huzza, when the French shot struck the bank close above them. Again, this poem is one of Scott's titles to be called "the poet of association." Every bank, glen, and stream, as well as every old ruin, held him, not only by its intrinsic beauty, but also by every possible legend or adventure that could be suggested by it. Purpose and Conclusion. It is the fashion nowadays to seek for some underlying "criticism of life" in every bit of literature. Sir Walter lived before it became necessary that even a poetic tale should have a purpose. Besides, he was not that sort of man. He preferred to take you with him on a ramble or a gallop in the invigorating breezes of his beloved Highlands, and introduce you to all the fascinating people along the road. If you prefer to sit indoors by the fire and moralize, it is no concern of his. Perhaps, after all, the tonic of the Trosachs may be more healthful to soul as well as to body. Best of all it may be, to have spent these hours with eyes wider open than before to the flowers and the sunrise glory, in the companionship of a great-minded Man who was to the day of his death a frank, warm-hearted, unspoiled Boy. |