A horseman arm'd, at headlong speed- XXXIII. While yet the smoke the deed conceals, 3 MS.-"Oppress'd and pinn'd him to the ground." • MS.-"Had more of laugh in it than moan." 7 MS.-"But held their weapons ready set, Lest the grim king should rouse him yet." "Whether we see him scaling the cliffs in desperate course, and scaring the hawks and the ravens from their nests; or, while the Castle is on fire, breaking from the central mass of noke; or, amidst the terrific circumstances of his death, when is 'parting groan Had more of laughter than of moan,' By tenfold odds oppress'd at length, XXXIV. No more of death and dying pang, Clasp'd him, and sobb'd, "My son! my son!"-" we mark his race of terror, with the poet, like the 'eve of tropic sun!' 'No pale gradations quench his ray, No twilight dews his wrath allay; He rushes to his burning bed; Dyes the wide wave with bloody light, "I hope you will like Bertram to the end; he is a Caravaggio sketch, which, I may acknowledge to you-but tell it not in Gath-I rather pique myself upon; and he is within the keeping of Nature, though critics will say to the contrary. It may be difficult to fancy that any one should take a sort of pleasure in bringing out such a character, but I suppose it is partly owing to bad reading, and ill-directed reading, when I was young."-SCOTT to Miss Baillie.-Life, vol. iv. p. 49. 10 MS.-Here the author of Rokeby wrote, "End of Canto VI." Stanza xxxv., added at the request of the printer and another 2 XXXV. This chanced upon a summer morn, friend, was accompanied by the following note to Mr. Ballantyne : "DEAR JAMES, "I send you this, out of deference to opinions so strongly expressed; but still retaining my own, that it spoils one eflect without producing another. W. S." 1. Mr. Scott has now confined himself within much narrower limits, and, by descending to the sober annals of the seventeenth century, has renounced nearly all those ornaments of Gothic pageantry, which, in consequence of the taste with which he displayed them, had been tolerated, and even admired, by modern readers. He has subjected his style to a severer code of criticism. The language of the poet is often unconsciously referred to the date of the incidents which he relates; so that what is careless or idiomatic escapes censure, as a supposed anomaly of antique diction: and it is, perhaps, partly owing to this impression, that the phraseology of Marmion,' and of the Lady of the Lake,' has appeared to us to be no less faulty than that of the present poem. "But, be this as it may, we confidently persist in thinking, that in this last experiment, Mr. Scott's popularity will be still farther confirmed; because we have found by experice, that, although during the first hasty inspection of the poem, undertaken for the gratification of our curiosity, some blemishes intruded themselves upon our notice, the merits of the story, and the minute shades of character displayed in the conduct of it, have been sufficient, during many succeeding perusals, to awaken our feelings, and to reanimate and sustain our attention. "The original fiction from which the poem is derived, appears to us to be constructed with considerable ability; but it is on the felicity with which the poet has expan led and dramatized it; on the diversity of the characters; on the skill with which they are unfolded, and on the ingenuity with which every incident is rendered subservient to his final purpose, that we chiefly found our preference of this over his former productions. From the first canto to the last, nothing is superfluous. The arrival of a nocturnal visitor at Barnard Castle is announced with such solemnity, the previous terrors of Oswald, the arrogance and ferocity of Bertram, his abruptness and discour tesy of demeanor, are so eminently delineated, that the picture seems as if it had been introduced for the sole purpose of displaying the author's powers of description! yet it is from this visit that all the subsequent incidents naturally, and almost necessarily flow. Our curiosity is, at the very commencement of the poem, most powerfully excited; the principal actors in the scene exhibit themselves distinctly to our view, the development of the plot is perfectly continuous, and our attention is never interrupted, or suffered to relax."-Quarterly Review. "This production of Mr. Scott altogether abounds in imagery and description less than either of its precursors, in pretty And blessing on the lovely pair. Time and Tide had thus their sway, nearly the same proportion as it contains more famatie in cident and character. Yet some of the picto er which it presents are highly wrought and vividly colored; for example, the terribly animated narrative, in the 5th canto, of the battle within the hall, and the conflagration of the mansion of Rokeby. "Several defects, of more or less importance, we noticed, or imagined that we noticed, as we read. It appears like presumption to accuse Mr. Scott of any failure in respect to cotume-of the manners and character of the times which he describes-yet the impression produced on our minds by the perusal, has certainly been, that we are thrown back in imagination to a period considerably antecedent to that which be intends to celebrate. The other faults, we remarked, consist principally in the too frequent recurrence of those which we have so often noticed on former occasions, and which are so incorporated with the poet's style, that it is now become as useless as it is painful, to repeat the censures which they have occasioned. "We have been informed that Rokeby' has hitherto circalated less rapidly than has usually been the case with Mr. Scott's works. If the fact be so, we are inclined to attribute it solely to accidental eircumstances; being persuaded that the defects of the poem are only common to it with all the produc tions of its author; that they are even less numerous than in most; and that its beauties, though of a different stamp, are more profusely scattered, and, upon the whole, of a higher or der."-Critical Review. "Such is Rokeby; and our readers must confess that it is a very interesting tale. Alone, it would stan, the author one of the most picturesque of English poets. Of the story, we need hardly say any thing farther. It is complicated without being confused, and so artfully suspended in its unravelment, as to produce a constantly increasing sensation of curiosity. Parts, indeed, of the catastrophe may at intervals be foreseen, but they are like the partial glimpses that we catch of a noble and well-shaded building, which does not break on us in all its proportion and in all its beauty, until we suddenly arrive in front. Of the characters, we have something to observe, in addition to our private remarks. Our readers may perhaps have seen that we have frequently applied the term sketch, to the several personages of the drama. Now, although this poem possesses more variety of well-sustained ebaracter than any other of Mr. Scott's performances-although Wilfrid will be a favorite with every lover of the soft, the gentle, and the oathetic, while Edmund offers a fearful warning to misused avil. ities-and although Redmond is indeed a man, compared to the Cranstoun of The Lay, to the Wilton of Marmion, or to the Malcolm of the Lady of the Lake; yet is Redmond himsel but a sketch compared to Bertram. Here is Mr. Scott's true and favorite hero. He has no sneaking kindness' for these barbarians;-he boldly adopts and patronizes them. Delorainə (it has humorously been observed) would have been exactly what Marmion was, could he have read and written; Bertram is a happy mixture of both ;-as great a villain, if possible, as Marmion; and, if possible, as great a scamp as Deloraine. His character is completed by a dash of the fierceness of Roderick Dhu. We do not here enter into the question as to the good taste of an author who employs his utmost strength of description on a compound of bad qualities; but we must observe, in the way of protest for the present, that something must be wrong where poetical effect and moral approbation are so much at variance. We leave untouched the general argument, whether it makes any difference for portical purposes, that a hero's vices or his virtues should preponderate. Powerful indeed must be the genius of the poet who, out of such materials as those above mentioned, can form an interesting whole. This, however, is the fact; and Bertram at times so overcomes hatred with admiration, that he (or rather his painter) is almost pardonable for his energy alone. There is a charm about this spring of mind which bears down all opposition, and throws a brilliant veil of light over the most hideous deformity.' This is the fascination-this is the variety and vigor by which Mr. Scott recommends barbarous heroes, undignified occurrences, and, occasionally, the most incorrect language, and the most imperfect versification "Catch but his fire- And you forgive him all.'" Monthly Review. That Rokeby, as a whole, is equally interesting with Mr. Scott's former works, we are by no means prepared to assert. But if there be, comparatively, a dimination of interest, it is evidently owing to no other cause than the time or place of its action--the sobriety of the period, and the abated wildness of the scenery. With us, the wonder is, that a period so late as that of Charles the First, could have been managed so dexterously, and have been made so happily subservient to poetic invention. "In the mean time, we have no hesitation in declaring our opinion, that the tale of Rokeby is much better told than those of The Lay,' or of Marmion.' Its characters are introduced with more ease; its incidents are more natural; one event is more necessarily generated by another; the reader's mind is kept more in suspense with respect to the termination of the story; and the moral reflections interspersed are of a deeper cast. Of the versification, also, we can justly pronounce, that it is more polished than in Marmion,' or The Lay;' and though we have marked some careless lines, yet even in the instance of bold disorder,' Rokeby can furnish little room for animadversion. In fine, if we must compare him with himself, we judge Mr. Scott has given us a poem in Rokeby, superior to Marmion,' or The Lay,' but not equal, perhaps, to 'The Lady of the Lake.'"-British Critic. "It will surprise no one to hear that Mr. Morritt assured his friend he considered Rokeby as the best of all his poems. The admirable, perhaps the unique fidelity of the local descriptions, might alone have swayed, for I will not say it perverted the judgment of the lord of that beautiful and thenceforth classical domain; and, indeed, I must admit that I never understood or appreciated half the charm of this poem until I had become familiar with its scenery. But Scott himself had not designed to rest his strength on these descriptions. He said to James Ballantyne, while the work was in progress (September 2), I hope the thing will do, chiefly because the world will not expect from me a poem of which the interest turns upon character;' and in another letter (October 28, 1812), I think you will see the same sort of difference taken in all my ormer poems, of which I would say, if it is fair for me to say any thing, that the force in the Lay is thrown on style-in Marmion on description, and in the Lady of the Lake, on intident.' I suspect some of these distinctions may have been matters of after-thought; but as to Rokeby there can be nc mistake. His own original conceptions of some of its princi pal characters have been explained in letters already cited; and I believe no one who compares the poem with his novels will doubt that, had he undertaken their portraiture in prose, they would have come forth with effect hardly inferior to any of all the groups he ever created. As it is, I question whether, even in his prose, there is any thing more exquisitely wrought out as well as fancied, than the whole contrast of the two ri vals for the love of the heroine in Rokeby; and that heroine herself, too, has a very particular interest attached to her. Writing to Miss Edgeworth five years after this time (10th March, 1818), he says, I have not read one of my poems since they were printed, excepting last year the Lady of the Lake, which I liked better than I expected, but not well enough to induce me to go through the rest; so I may truly say with Macbeth 'I am afraid to think of what I've done- "This much of Matilda I recollect (for that is not so easily forgotten), that she was attempted for the existing person of a lady who is now no more, so that I am particularly flattered with your distinguishing it from the others, which are in general mere shadows.' I can have no doubt that the lady he here alludes to was the object of his own unfortunate first love; and as little, that in the romantic generosity both of the youthful poet who fails to win her higher favor, and of his chivalrous competitor, we have before us something more than a mere shadow. "In spite of these graceful characters, the inimitable scenery on which they are presented, and the splendid vivacity and thrilling interest of several chapters in the story-such as the opening interview of Bertram and Wycliffe--the flight up the cliff on the Greta-the first entrance of the cave at Brignallthe firing of Rokeby Castle-and the catastrophe in Egliston Abbey; in spite certainly of exquisitely happy lines profusely scattered throughout the whole composition, and of some detached images--that of the setting of the tropical sun, for example-which were never surpassed by any poet; in spite of all these merits, the immediate success of Rokeby was greatly inferior to that of the Lady of the Lake; nor has it ever since been so much a favorite with the public at large as any other of his poetical romances. He ascribes this failure, in his introduction of 1830, partly to the radically unpoetical character of the Roundheads; but surely their character has its poetical side alvo, had his prejudices allowed him to enter upon its study with impartial sympathy; and I doubt not Mr. Morritt suggested the difficulty on this score, when the outline of the story was as yet undetermined, from the consideration rather of the poet's peculiar feelings, and powers as hitherto exhibited, than of the subject absolutely. Partly he blames the satiety of the public ear, which had had so much of his rhythm, not only from himself, but from dozens of mocking birds, male and female, all more or less applauded in their day, and now all equally forgotten. This circumstance, too, had probably no slender effect; the more that, in defiance of all the hints of his friends, he now, in his narrative, repeated (with more negligence) the uniform octo-syllabic couplets of the Lady of the Lake, instead of recurring to the more varied cadence of the Lay or Marmion. It is fair to add that, among the London circles at least, some sarcastic flings in Mr. Moore's Twopenny Post Bag' must have had an unfavorable influence on this occasion. But the cause of failure which the poet himself places last, was unquestionably the main one. The deeper and darker passion of Childe Harold, the audacity of its morbid volup tuousness, and the melancholy majesty of the numbers in which it defied the world, had taken the general imagination by storm and Rokeby, with many beauties, and some sublimities, was pitched, as a whole, on a key which seemed tame in the com parison."-LOCKHART, Life f Scott, vol. iv. pp. 53 53. APPENDIX. NOTE A. On Barnard's towers, and Tees's stream, &c.-P. 296. "BARNARD CASTLE," saith old Leland, "standeth stately apon Tees." It is founded upon a very high bank, and its ruins impend over the river, including within the area a circuit of six acres and upwards. This once magnificent fortress derives its name from its founder, Barnard Baliol, the ancestor of the short and unfortunate dynasty of that name, which succeeded to the Scottish throne under the patronage of Edward I. and Edward III. Baliol's Tower, afterwards mentioned in the poem, is a round tower of great size, situated at the western extremity of the building. It bears marks of great antiquity, and was remarkable for the curious construction of its vaulted roof, which has been lately greatly injured by the operations of some persons, to whom the tower has been leased for the purpose of making patent shot! The prospect from the top of Baliol's Tower commands a rich and magnificent view of the wooded valley of the Tees. Barnard Castle often changed masters during the middle ages. Upon the forfeiture of the unfortunate John Baliol, the first king of Scotland of that family, Edward I. seized this fortress among the other English estates of his refractory vassal. It was afterwards vested in the Beauchamps of Warwick, and in the Staffords of Buckingham, and was also sometimes in the possession of the Bishops of Durham, and sometimes in that of the crown. Richard III. is said to have enlarged and strengthened its fortifications, and to have made it for some time his principal residence, for the purpose of bridling and suppressing the Lancastrian faction in the northern counties. From the Staffords, Barnard Castle passed, probably by marriage, into the possession of the powerful Nevilles, Earls of Westmoreland, and belonged to the last representative of that family, when he engaged with the Earl of Northumberland in the ill-concerted insurrection of the twelfth of Queen Elizabeth. Upon this occasion, however, Sir George Bowes of Sheatlam, who held great possessions in the neighborhood, anticipated the two insurgent earls, by seizing upon and garrisoning Barnard Castle, which he held out for ten days against all their forces, and then surrendered it upon honorable terms. See Sadler's State Papers, vol. ii. p. 330. In a ballad, contained in Percy's Reliques of Ancient Poetry, vol. i., the siege is thus commemorated: "Then Sir George Bowes he straight way rose "That baron he to his castle fled; To Barnard Castle then fled he; The uttermost walles were eathe to won, The erles have won them presentlie. "The uttermost walles were lime and brick; But though they won them soon anone, Long ere they wan the innermost wa.les, For they were cut in rock and stone." By the suppression of this rebellion, and the consequent torCature of the Earl of Westmoreland Barnard Castle reverted to the crown, and was sold or leased out to Car, Earl of Somer set, the guilty and unhappy favorite of James I. It was afterwards granted to Sir Henry Vane the elder, and was therefore, in all probability, occupied for the Parliament, whose interest during the Civil War was so keenly espoused by the Vanes. It is now, with the other estates of that family, the property of the Right Honorable Earl of Darlington. NOTE B. no human ear, Unsharpen'd by revenge and fear, Could e'er distinguish horse's clank.-P. 297. I have had occasion to remark, in real life, the effect of keen and fervent anxiety in giving acuteness to the organs of sense. My gifted friend, Miss Joanna Baillie, whose dramatic works display such intimate acquaintance with the opera tions of human passion, has not omitted this remarkable cir cumstance : "De Montfort. (Off his guard.) 'Tis Rezervelt: I heard his well-known foot, From the first staircase mounting step by step. Freb. How quick an ear thou hast for distant sound! I heard him not. (De Montford looks embarrassed, and is silent.") NOTE C. The morion's plumes his visage hide, Mantles his form's gigantic mould.-P. 298. The use of complete suits of armor was fallen into disuse during the Civil War, though they were still worn by leaders of rank and importance. "In the reign of King James I..” says our military antiquary, "no great alterations were made in the article of defensive armor, except that the buff-coat, or jerkin, which was originally worn under the cuirass, now became frequently a substitute for it, it having been found that a good buff leather would of itself resist the stroke of a sword; this, however, only occasionally took place among the light-armed cavalry and infantry, complete suits of armor being still used among the heavy borse. Buff-coats continued to be worn by the city trained-bands till within the memory of persons now living, so that defensive armor may, in some measure, be said to have terminated in the same materials with which it began, that is, the skins of animals, or leather."-GROSE's Military Antiquities. Lond. 1801, 4to. vol. ii. p. 323. Of the buff-coats, which were worn over the corslets, several are yet preserved; and Captain Grose has given an engraving of one which was used in the time of Charles I. by Sir Francis Rhodes, Bart. of Balbrough-Hall, Derbyshire. They were usually lined with silk or linen, secured before by buttons, or by a lace, and often richly decorated with gold or silver embroidery. From the following curious account of a dispute respecting a buff-coat between an old roundhead captain and a justice of the peace, by whom his arms were seized after the Restoration, we learn, that the value and importance of this defensive garment were considerable:-"A party of norse came to my house, commanded by Mr. Peebles; and he told me he was come for my arms, and that I must deliver them. I asked him for his order. He told me he had a better order than Oliver used to give; and, clapping his hand upon nis sword-hilt, he said, that was his order. I told him, if he had none but that, it was not sufficient to take my arms; and then he pulled out his warrant, and I read it. It was signed by Wentworth Armitage, a general warrant to search all persons they suspected, and so left the power to the soldiers at their pleasure. They came to us at Coalley-Hall, about sunsetting; and I caused a candle to be lighted, and conveyed Peebles into the room where my arms were. My arms were near the kitchen fire; and there they took away fowlingpieces, pistols, muskets, carbines, and such like, better than £20. Then Mr. Peebles asked me for my buff-coat; and I told him they had no order to take away my apparel. He told me I was not to dispute their orders; but if I would not deliver it, he would carry me away prisoner, and had me out of doors. Yet he let me alone unto the next morning, that I must wait upon Sir John, at Halifax; and, coming before him, be threatened me, and said, if I did not send the coat, for it was too good for me to keep. I told him it was not in his power to demand my apparel; and he, growing into a fit, called me rebel and traitor, and said, if I did not send the coat with all speed, he would send me where I did not like well. I told him I was no rebel, and he did not well to call me so before these soldiers and gentlemen, to make me the mark for every one to shoot at. I departed the room; yet, notwithstanding all the threatenings, did not send the coat. But the next day he sent John Lyster, the son of Mr. Thomas Lyster, of Shipden Hall, for this coat, with a letter, verbatim thus:— Mr. Hodson, I admire you will play the child so with me as you have done in writing such an inconsiderate letter. Let me have the buff-coat sent forthwith, otherwise you shall so hear from me as will not very well please you.' I was not at home when this messenger came; but I had ordered my wife not to deliver it, but, if they would take it, let them look to it: and he took it away; and one of Sir John's brethren wore it many years after. They sent Captain Butt to compound with my wife about it; but I sent word I would have my own again but he advised me to take a price for it, and make no more ado. I said it was hard to take my arins and apparel too; I had laid out a great deal of money for them; I hoped they did not mean to destroy me, by taking my goods illegally from me. He said he would make up the matter, if I pleased, betwixt us; and, it seems, had brought Sir John to a price for my coat. I would not have taken £10 for it; he would have given about £4; but, wanting my receipt for the money, he kept both sides, and I had never satisfaction.”—Memoirs of Captain Hodgson. Edin. 1806, p. 178. had never been forgotten; and, from that period downward, the exploits of Drake and Raleigh were imitated, upon a smaller scale indeed, but with equally desperate valor, by small bands of pirates, gathered from all nations, but chiefly French and English. The engrossing policy of the Spaniards tended greatly to increase the number of these freebooters, from whom their commerce and colonies suffered, in the issue, dreadful calamity. The Windward Islands, which the Span iards did not deem worthy their own occupation, had been gradually settled by adventurers of the French and English nations. But Frederic of Toledo, who was despatched in 1630, with a powerful fleet, against the Dutch, had orders from the Court of Madrid to destroy these colonies, whose vicinity at once offended the pride and excited the jealous suspiciers of their Spanish neighbors. This order the Spanish Admiral executed with sufficient rigor; but the only consequence was, that the planters, being rendered desperate by persecution, began, under the well-known name of Bucaniers, to commence a retaliation so horridly savage, that the perusal makes the reader shudder. When they carried on their depredations at sea, they boarded, without respect to disparity of number, every Spanish vessel that came in their way; and, demeaning themselves, both in the battle and after the conquest, more like demous than human beings, they succeeded in impressing their enemies with a sort of superstitious terror, which rendered them incapable of offering effectual resistance. From piracy at sea, they advanced to making predatory descents on the Spanish territories; in which they displayed the same furious and irresistible valor, the same thirst of spoil, at the same brutal inhumanity to their captives. The large treasures which they acquired in their adventures, they dissipated by the most unbounded licentiousness in gaming, women, wine, and debauchery of every species. When thei spoils were thus wasted, they entered into some new association, and undertook new adventures. For farther particulars concerning these extraordinary banditti, the reader may consult Raynal, or the common and popular book called the History of the Bucaniers. NOTE E. On Marston heath Met, front to front, the ranks of death.-P. 299. The well-known and desperate battle of Long-Marstor. Moor, which terminated so unfortunately for the cause of Charles, commenced under very different auspices. Prince Rupert had marched with an army of 20,000 men for the relief of York, then besieged by Sir Thomas Fairfax, at the head of the Parliamentary army, and the Earl of Leven, with the Scottish auxiliary forces. In this he so completely succeeded, that he compelled the besiegers to retreat to Marston Moor, a large open plain, about eight miles distant from the city. Thither they were followed by the Prince, who had now united to his army the garrison of York, probably not less than ten thousand men strong, under the gallant Marquis (then Earl) of Newcastle. Whitelocke has recorded, with much impartiality, the following particulars of this eventful day :-"The right wing of the Parliament was commanded by Sir Thomas Fairfax, and consisted of all his horse, and three regiments of the Scots horse; the left wing was commanded by the Earl of Manchester and Colonel Cromwell. One body of their foot was commanded by Lord Fairfax, and consisted of his foot, and two brigades of the Scots foot for reserve; and the main body of the rest of the foot was commanded by General Leven. "The right wing of the Prince's army was commanded by the Earl of Newcastle: the left wing by the Prince himself and the main body by General Goring, Sir Charles Lucas, anc |