which it is rot easy to see how Lord Wellington and Bonaparte ca 1379 any concern. But, on the other hand, no sooner is this new interest excited,-no sooner have we surrendered our imaginations into the hands of this dark enchanter, and heated our fancies to the proper pitch for sympathizing in the fortunes of Gothic kings and Moorish invaders, with their imposing accompaniments of harnessed knights, ravished damsels, and enchanted statues, than the whole romantic group vanishes at once from our sight; and we are hurried, with minds yet disturbed with those powerful apparitions, to the comparatively sober and cold narration of Bonaparte's villajes, and to draw battles between mere mortal combatants in English and French uniforms. The vast and elaborate vesti bule, in short, in which we had been so long detained, Where wonders wild of Arabesque combine has no corresponding palace attached to it; and the long no vitiate we are made to serve to the mysterious powers of romance is not repaid, after all, by an introduction to their awful presence."-JEFFREY. 1 MS.-"Who shall command the torrent's headlong tids." 2 See Appendix, Note O. 3 Ibid. Note P Say, thou hast left his legions in their blood, Deceived his hopes, and frustrated thine own; Say, that thine utmost skill and valor shown, By British skill and valor were outvied ; Last say, thy conqueror was WELLINGTON ! And, if he chafe, be his own fortune tried-God and our cause to friend, the venture we'l abide. XII. But you, ye heroes of that well-fought day, How shall a bard, unknowing and unknown, His meed to each victorious leader pay, Or bind on every brow the laurels won? Yet fain my harp would wake its boldest tone, O'er the wide sea to hail CADOGAN brave; And he, perchance, the minstrel-note might own, Mindful of meeting brief that Fortune gave 'Mid yon far western isles that hear the Atlantic rave. XIII Yes! hard the task, when Britons wield the sword, To give each Chief and every field its fame: Hark! Albuera thunders BERESFORD, And Red Barosa shouts for dauntless GR.EME! O for a verse of tumult and of flame, Bold as the bursting of their cannon sound, To bid the world re-echo to their fame! For never, upon gory battle-ground, With conquest's well-bought wreath were braver victors crown'd! XIV O who shall grudge him Albuera's bays, Who brought a race regenerate to the field, Roused them to emulate their fathers' pras ;, Temper'd their headlong rage, their courage steel'd," And raised fair Lusitania's fallen shield, And gave new edge to Lusitania's sword, And taught her sons forgotten arms to wield pedantries of his profession-but playing the gera, and he hero when most of our military commanders would h.3 exhibited the drill sergeant, or at best the adjutant. Toes campaigns will teach us what we have long needed to know, that success depends not on the nice drilling of regiments, but upon the grand movements and combinations of a army. We have been hitherto polishing hinges, when we should have studied the mechanical union of a huge machine. Now, our army begin to see that the grand secret, as the French call it, consists only in union, joint exertion, and concered move This will enable us to meet the dogs on fair terms as to numbers, and for the rest. My soul and body on the action both.'"-Life, vol. iii. p. 313. ment. See Appendix, Editor's Note T. • MS.-" O who shall grudge yon chief the victor's bays." See Appendix, Note U. Shiver'd my harp, and burst its every chord, If it forget thy worth, victorious BERESFORD! XV. Not on that bloody field of battle won, away, Was half his self-devoted valor shown, He gaged but life on that illustrious day; But when he toil'd those squadrons to array, Who fought like Britons in the bloody game, Sharper than Polish pike or assagay, He braved the shafts of censure and of shame, And, dearer far than life, he pledged a soldier's fame. XVI. Nor be his praise o'erpast who strove to hide Beneath the warrior's vest affection's wound, Whose wish Heaven for his country's weal denied; Danger and fate he sought, but glory found. From clime to clime, where'er war's trumpets sound, The wanderer went; yet, Caledonia! still3 He dream'd 'mid Alpine cliffs of Athole's hill And heard in Ebro's roar his Lyndoch's lovely rill. XVII O hero of a race renown'd of old, Whose war-cry oft has waked the battle-swell Since first distinguish'd in the onset bold, Wild sounding when the Roman rampart fell! By Wallace' side it rung the Southron's knell, Alderne, Kilsythe, and Tibber, own'd its fame, Tummell's rude pass can of its terrors tell, But ne'er from prouder field arose the name. Than when wild Ronda learn'd the conquering shout of GREME! XVIII. But all too long, through seas unknown and dark (With Spenser's parable I close my tale,)" By shoal and rock hath steer'd my venturous bark, And landward now I drive before the gale. And now the blue and distant shore I hail, And nearer now I see the port expand, And now I gladly furl my weary sail, And as the prow light touches on the strand, Thine was his thought in march and tented I strike my red-cross flag and bind my skiff tc ground; 1 MS.-"Not greater on that mount of strife and blood, Not greater when he toil'd yon legions to array, Far dearer than his life, the hero pledged his fame." 2 MS." Nor be his meed o'erpast who sadly tried With valor's wreath to hide affection's wound, To whom his wish Heaven for our weal denied." MS.-"From war to war the wanderer went his round, Yet was his soul in Caledonia still; Hers was his thought," &c. "These lines excel the noisier and more general panegyrics of the commanders in Portugal, as much as the sweet and thrilling tones of the harp surpass an ordinary flourish of drums and trumpets."-Quarterly Review. "Perhaps it is our nationality which makes us like better the tribute to General Grahame-though there is something, we believe, in the softness of the sentiment that will be felt, even by English readers, as a relief from the exceeding clamor and loud boastings of all the surrounding stanzas."— Edinburgh Review. See Appendiz, Note V. "Now, strike your sailes, yee iolly mariners, land.' On the long voiage whereto she is bent: Faerie Queene, book i. canto 12 7 "No comparison can be fairly instituted between composi tions so wholly different in style and designation as the present poem and Mr. Scott's former productions. The present poom neither has, nor, from its nature, could have the interest which arises from an eventful plot, or a detailed delineation of char acter; and we shall arrive at a far more accurate estimation of its merits by comparing it with The Bard' of Gray, or that particular scene of Ariosto, where Bradamante beholds the wonders of Merlin's tomb. To this it has many strong and evident features of resemblance; but, in our opinion, greatly surpasses it both in the dignity of the objects represented, and the picturesque effect of the machinery. "We are inclined to rank The Vision of Don Roderick, not only above The Bard,' but (excepting Adam's Vision from the Mount of Paradise, and the matchless beauties of the sixth book of Virgil) above all the historical and poetical prospects which have come to our knowledge. The scenic representation is at once gorgeous and natural; and the language, and inagery, is altogether as spirited, and bears the stamp of more care and polish than even the most celebrated of the author's former productions. If it please us less than these, we must attribute it in part perhaps to the want of contrivance, and in a still greater degree to the nature of the subject itself, which is deprived of all the interest derived from suspense or sympathy, and, as far as it is connected with modern politics, represents & scene too near our immediate inspection to admit the interposition of the magic glass of fiction and poetry."-Quarterly Review, October, 1811. "The Vision of Don Roderick has been received with less interest by the publie than any of the author's other per formances; and has been read, we should imagine, with some degree of disappointment even by those who took it up with the most reasonable expectations. Yet it is written with very considerable spirit, and with more care and effort than most of the author's compositions;-with a degree of effort, indeed, which could scarcely have failed of success, if the author had not succeeded so splendidly on other occasions without any effort at all, or had chosen any other subject than that which fills the cry of our alehouse politicians, and supplies the gabble of all the quidnuncs in this country,-our depending campaigns In Spain and Portugal,-with the exploits of Lord Wellington and the spoliations of the French armies. The nominal subject of the poem, indeed, is the Vision of Don Roderick, in the eighth century; but this is obviously a mere prelude to the grand piece of our recent battles,-a sort of machinery devised to give dignity and effect to their introduction. In point of fact, the poem begins and ends with Lord Wellington; and being written for the benefit of the plundered Portuguese, and upon a Spanish story, the thing could not well have been otherwise. The public, at this moment, will listen to nothing about Spain, but the history of the Spanish war; and the old Gothic king, and the Moors, are considered, we dare say, by Mr. Scott's most impatient readers, as very tedious interlopers in the proper business of the piece.. The Poem has scarcely any story, and scarcely any characters; and consists, in truth, almost entirely of a series of descriptions, intermingled with plaudits and execrations. The descriptions are many of them very fine, though the style is more turgid and verbose than in the better parts of Mr. Scott's other productions; but the invectives and acclamations are too vehement and too frequent to be either graceful or impressive. There is no climax or progression to relieve the ear, or stimulate the imagination. Mr. Scott sets out on the very highest pitch of his voice, and keeps it up to the end of the measure. There are no grand swells, therefore, or overpowering bursts in his song. All, from first to last, is loud, and clamorous, and obtrusive,-indiscriminately noisy, and often ineffectually exaggerated. He has fewer new images than in his other poetry-his tone is less natural and varied,-and he moves, upon the whole, with a slower and more laborious pace."-JEFFREY, Edinburgh Review, 1811. "The Edinburgh Reviewers have been down on my poor Don hand to fist; but, truly, as they are too fastidious to approve of the campaign, I should be very unreasonable if I expected them to like the celebration of it. I agree with them, however, as to the lumbering weight of the stanza, and I threwdly suspect it would require a very great poet indeed to prevent the tedium arising from the recurrence of rhymes. Our language is unable to support the expenditure of so ma for each stanza; even Spenser himself, with all the license of using obsolete words and uncommon spellings, sometimes fatigues the ear. They are also very wroth with me for omitting the merits of Sir John Moore; but as I never exactly discov ered in what these lay, unless in conducting his advance and retreat upon a plan the most likely to verify the desponding speculations of the foresaid reviewers, I must hold myself excused for not giving praise where I was unable to see that much was due."-Scott to Mr. Morritt, Sept. 26, 1811. Life, vol. iii. p. 328. "The Vision of Don Roderick had features of novelty, both as to the subject and the manner of the composition, which excited much attention, and gave rise to some sharp controversy. The main fable was indeed from the most picturesque region of old romance; but it was made throughout the vehicle of feelings directly adverse to those with which the Whig critics had all along regarded the interference of Britain in behalf of the nations of the Peninsula; and the silence which, while celebrating our other generals on that scene of action, had been preserved with respect to Scott's own gallant countryman, Sir John Moore, was considered or represented by them as an odious example of genius hoodwinked by the influ ence of party. Nor were there wanting persons who affected to discover that the charm of Scott's poetry had to a great extent evaporated under the severe test to which he had exposed it, by adopting, in place of those comparatively light and easy measures in which he had hitherto dealt, the most elaborate one that our literature exhibits. The production, notwithstanding the complexity of the Spenserian stanza, had been very rapidly executed; and it shows, accordingly, many traces of negligence. But the patriotic inspiration of it found an echo in the vast majority of British hearts; many of the Whig oracles themselves acknowledged that the difficulties of the metre had been on the whole successfully overcome; and even the hardest critics were compelled to express unqualified admiration of various detached pictures and pas sages, which, in truth, as no one now disputes, neither he nor any other poet ever excelled. The whole setting or framework -whatever relates in short to the last of the Goths himself— was, I think, even then unanimously pronounced admirable; and no party feeling could blind any man to the heroic splen dor of such stanzas as those in which the three equally gar lant elements of a British army are contrasted."-LOCKHART Life, vol. iii. p. 319. 1 See Appendix, Editor's Note T. APPENDIX. NOTE A. And Cattreath's glens with voice of triumph rung, And mystic Merlin harp'd, and gray-hair'd Llywarch sung!-P. 271. THIS locality may startle those readers who do not recollect that much of the ancient poetry preserved in Wales refers less to the history of the Principality to which that name is now limited, than to events which happened in the northwest of England, and southwest of Scotland, where the Britons for a long time made a stand against the Saxons. The battle of Cattreath, lamented by the celebrated Aneurin, is supposed, by the learned Dr. Leyden, to have been fought on the skirts of Ettrick Forest. It is known to the English reader by the paraphrase of Gray, beginning, "Had I but the torrent's might, With headlong rage and wild affright," &c. p. But it is not so generally known that the champions, mourned in this beautiful dirge, were the British inhabitants of Edinburgh, who were cut off by the Saxons of Diria, or Northumberland, about the latter part of the sixth century.-TURNER'S History of the Anglo-Saxons, edition 1799, vol. i. 999 Llywarch, the celebrated bard and monarch, was Prince of Argood, in Cumberland; and his youthful exploits were performed upon the Border, although in his age he was driven into Powys by the successes of the Anglo-Saxons. As for Merlin Wyllt, or the Savage, his name of Caledonia, and his retreat into the Caledonian wood, appropriate him to Scotland. Fordun dedicates the thirty-first chapter of the third book of his Scoto-Chronicon, to a narration of the death of this celebrated bard and prophet near Drumelzier, a village upon Tweed, which is supposed to have derived its name (quasi Tumulus Merlini) from the event. The particular spot in which he is buried is still shown, and appears, from the following quotation, to have partaken of his prophetic qualities:-"There is one thing remarkable here, which is, that the burn called Pausayl runs by the east side of this churchyard into the Tweed; at the side of which burn, a little below the churchyard, the famous prophet Merlin is said to be buried. The particular place of his grave, at the root of a thorntree, was shown me, many years ago, by the old and reverend minister of the place, Mr. Richard Brown; and here was the old prophecy fulfilled, delivered in Scots rhyme, to this Durpose: When Tweed and Pausayl meet at Merlin's grave, For, the same day that our King James the Sixth was trowned King of England, the river Tweed, by an extraordinary flood, so far overflowed its banks, that it met and joined with the Pausayl at the said grave, which was never before observed to fall out."-PENNYCUICK's Description of Tweeddale. Edin. 1715, iv. p. 26. NOTE B. Minchmore's haunted spring.-P. 271. A belief in the existence and nocturnal revels of the fairies still lingers among the vulgar in Selkirkshire. A copious foun tain upon the ridge of Minchmore, called the Cheesewei, is supposed to be sacred to these fanciful spirits, and it was ens tomary to propitiate them by throwing in something upon pass ing it. A pin was the usual oblation; and the ceremony is still sometimes practised, though rather in jest than earnest. NOTE C. The rude villager, his labor done, In verse spontaneous chants some favor'd name.-P. 271. The flexibility of the Italian and Spanish languages, and perhaps the liveliness of their genius, renders these countries distinguished for the talent of improvisation, which is found even among the lowest of the people. It is mentioned by Baretti and other travellers. NOTE D. Kindling at the deeds of Grame.-P. 271. Over a name sacred for ages to heroic verse, a poet may be allowed to exercise some power. I have used the freedom, here and elsewhere, to alter the orthography of the name of my gallant countryman, in order to apprise the Southern reader of its legitimate sound ;--Grahame being, on the other side of the Tweed, usually pronounced as a dissyllable. NOTE E. What! will Don Roderick here till morning stay, To wear in shrift and prayer the night away? And are his hours in such dull penance past, For fair Florinda's plunder'd charms to pay ?-P. 272. Almost all the Spanish historians, as well as the voice o tradition, ascribe the invasion of the Moors to the forcible vio. lation committed by Roderick upon Florincs alled by the Moors, Caba or Cava. She was the daughter of Count Julian, one of the Gothic monarch's principal lieutenants, who, when the crime was perpetrated, was engaged in the defence of Ceuta against the Moors. In his indignation at the ingrati. tude of his sovereign, and the dishonor of his daughter, Count Julian forgot the duties of a Christian and a patriot, and, forming an alliance with Musa, then the Caliph's lieutenant in Africa, he countenanced the invasion of Spain by a body ot Saracens and Africans, commanded by the celebrated Tarik ; the issue of which was the defeat and death of Roderick, and the occupation of almost the whole peninsula by the Moors Voltaire, in his General History, expresses his doubts of this popular story, and Gibbon gives him some countenance; but the universal tradition is quite sufficient for the purposes of poetry. The Spaniards, in detestation of Florinda's memory, are said, by Cervantes, never to bestow that name upon any human female, reserving it for their dogs. Nor is the tradition less inveterate among the Moors, since the same author mentions a promontory on the coast of Barbary, called "The Cape of the Caba Rumia, which, in our tongue, is the Cano |