gent, (not vert, as stated by Burn,) a bend chequey, or and gules, for Vaux of Triermain. 6th, Gules, a cross patonce, or, -Dela nore. 7th, Gules, 6 lions rampant argent, 3, 2, and 1, -Leybourne.-This more detailed genealogy of the family of Triermain was obligingly sent to the author by Major Braddyll of Conishead Priory.

tirements look like haunts of evil spirits. There was no de lusion in the report; we were soon convinced of its truth; for this piece of antiquity, so venerable and noble in its aspect, as we drew near, changed its figure, and proved no other than a shaken massive pile of rocks, which stand in the midst of this little vale, disunited from the adjoining mountains, and have so much the real form and resemblance of a castle, that they bear the name of the Castle Rocks of St. John."-HUTCHINSON'S Excursion to the Lakes, p. 121.

NOTE C.

He pass'd red Penrith's Table Round.-P. 379.

A circular intrenchment, about half a mile from Penrith, is thus popularly termed. The circle within the ditch is about one hundred and sixty paces in circumference, with openings, or approaches, directly opposite to each other. As the ditch is on the inner side, it could not be intended for the purpose of defence, and it has reasonably been conjectured, that the enclosure was designed for the solemn exercise of feats of chivalry, and the embankment around for the convenience of the spectators.

NOTE D.

Mayburgh's mound.-P. 379.

Higher up the river Eamont than Arthur's Round Table, is a prodigious enclosure of great antiquity, formed by a collection of stones upon the top of a gently sloping hill, called Mayburgh. In the plain which it encloses there stands erect an unhewn stone of twelve feet in height. Two similar masses are said to have been destroyed during the memory of man. The whole appears to be a monument of Druidical times.

NOTE F.

The flower of Chivalry.
There Galaad sate with manly grace,
Yet maiden meekness in his face;
There Morolt of the iron mace,

And love-lorn Tristrem there.-P. 385.

The characters named in the stanza are all of them more or less distinguished in the romances which treat of King Arthur and his Round Table, and their names are strung together according to the established custom of minstrels upon such occasions; for example, in the ballad of the Marriage of Sir Gawaine:

"Sir Lancelot, Sir Stephen bolde,
They rode with them that daye,
And, foremost of the companye,
There rode the stewarde Kaye.

"Soe did Sir Banier, and Sir Bore,
And eke Sir Garratte keen,
Sir Tristrem too, that gentle knight,
To the forest fresh and greene."

NOTE E.

The Monarch, breathless and amazed,
Back on the fatal castle gazed-

Nor tower nor donjon could he spy,
Darkening against the morning sky.-P. 384.

"We now gained a view of the Vale of St. John's, a very narrow dell, hemmed in by mountains, through which a small brook makes many meanderings, washing little enclosures of grass-ground, which stretch up the rising of the hills. In the widest part of the dale you are struck with the a appearance of an ancient ruined castle, which seems to stand upon the summit of a little mount, the mountains around forming an amphitheatre. This massive bulwark shows a front of various towers, and makes an awful, rude, and Gothic appearance, with its lofty turrets and ragged battlements; we traced the galleries, the bending arches, the buttresses. The greatest antiquity stands characterised in its architecture; the inhabitants near it assert it is an antediluvian structure.

"The traveller's curiosity is roused, and he prepares to nake a nearer approach, when that curiosity is put upon the rack, by his being assured, that, if he advances, certain genii who govern the place, by virtue of their supernatural art and aecromancy, will strip it of all its beauties, and by enchantment, transform the magic walls. The vale seems adapted for the habitation of such beings: its gloomy recesses and re

NOTE G.

Lancelot, that ever more

Look'd stolen-wise on the Queen.-P. 385.

Upon this delicate subject hear Richard Robinson, citizen of London, in his Assertion of King Arthur:-"But as it is a thing sufficiently apparent that she (Guenever, wife of King Arthur,) was beautiful, so it is a thing doubted whether she was chaste, yea or no. Truly, so far as I can with honestie, I would spare the impayred honour and fame of noble women. But yet the truth of the historie pluckes me by the eare, and willeth not onely, but commandeth me to declare what the ancients have deemed of her. To wrestle or contend with so great authoritie were indeede unto mei a controversie, and that greate."-Assertion of King Arthure. Imprinted by John Wolfe, London, 1582.

NOTE H.

There were two who loved their neighbour's wives, And one who loved his own.-P. 386.

"In our forefathers' tyme, when Papistrie, as a standyng poole covered and overflowed all England, fewe books were

read in our tongue, savying certaine bookes of chevalrie, as they said, for pastime and pleasure; which, as some say, were made in the monasteries, by idle monks or wanton chanons. As one, for example, La Morte d'Arthure; the whole pleasure of which book standeth in two speciall poynts, in open manslaughter and bold bawdrye; in which booke they be counted the noblest knightes that do kill most men without Any quarrell, and commit fowlest adoulteries by sutlest shiftes;

as Sir Launcelot, with the wife of King Arthur, his master. Sir Tristram, with the wife of King Marke, his uncle; Sir Lamerocke, with the wife of King Lote, that was his own aunt. This is good stuffe for wise men to laugh at; or honest men to take pleasure at: yet I know when God's Bible was banished the Court, and La Morte d'Arthure received into the Prince's chamber."-AsCH 4 M's Schoolmaster.

NOTICE TO EDITION 1833.

THE composition of "The Lord of the Isles," as we now have it in the Author's MS., seems to have been begun at Abbotsford, in the autumn of 1814, and it ended at Edinburgh the 16th of December. Some part of Canto I. had probably been committed to writing in a rougher form earlier in the year. The original quarto appeared on the 2d of January 1815. It may be mentioned, that those parts of this Poem which were written at Abbotsford, were composed almost all in the presence of Sir Walter Scott's family, and many in that of casual visitors also: the original cottage which he then occupied not affording him any means of retirement. Neither conversation nor music seemed to disturb him.

INTRODUCTION TO EDITION 1833.

I COULD hardly have chosen a subject more popular in Scotland, than any thing connected with the Bruce's history, unless I had attempted that of Wallace. But I am decidedly of opinion, that a popular, or what is called a taking title, though well qualified to ensure the publishers against loss, and clear their shelves of the original impression, is rather apt to be hazardous than otherwise to the reputation of the author. He who attempts a subject of distinguished popularity, has not the privilege of awakening the enthusiasm of his audience; on the contrary, it is already awakened, and glows, it may be, more ardently than that of the author himself. In this case, the warmth of the author is inferior to that of the party whom he addresses, who has, therefore, little chance of being, in Bayes's phrase, "elevated and surprised" by what he has thought of with more enthusiasm than the writer.

The sense of this risk, joined to the consciousness of striving against wind and tide, made the task of composing the proposed Poem somewhat heavy and hopeless; but, like the prize-fighter in "As You Like it," I was to wrestle for my reputation, and not neglect any advantage. In a most agreeable pleasure-voyage, which I have tried to commemorate in the Introduction to the new edition of the "Pirate," I visited, in social and friendly company, the coasts and islands of Scotland, and made myself acquainted with the localities of which I meant to treat. But this voyage, which was in every other effect so delightful, was in its conclusion saddened by one of those strokes of fate which so often mingle themselves with our pleasures. The accomplished and excellent person who had recommended to me the subject for "The Lay of the Last Minstrel," and to whom I proposed to inscribe what I already suspected might be the close of my poetical labours, was unexpectedly removed from the world, which she seemed only to have visited for purposes of kindness and benevolence. It is needless to say how the author's feelings, or the composition of his trifling work, were affected by a circumstance which occasioned so many tears and so much sorrow.3 True it is, that "The Lord of the Isles" was concluded, unwillingly and in haste, under the painful feeling. of one who has a task which must be finished, rather than with the ardour of one who endeavours to perform that task well. Although the Poem cannot be said to have made a favourable impression on the public, the sale of fifteen thousand copies enabled the author to retreat from the field with the honours of war.

In the meantime, what was necessarily to be considered as a failure, was much reconciled to my feelings by the success attending my attempt in another species of composition. "Waverley" had, under strict incognito, taken its flight from the press, just before

I set out upon the voyage already mentioned; it had now made its way to popularity, and the success of that work and the volumes which followed, was sufficient to have satisfied a greater appetite for applause than I have at any time possessed.1

I may as well add in this place, that, being much urged by my intimate friend, now unhappily no more, William Erskine, (a Scottish judge, by the title of Lord Kinedder,) I agreed to write the little romantic tale called the " Bridal of Triermain ;" but it was on the condition, that he should make no serious effort to disown the composition, if report should lay it at his door. As he was more than suspected of a taste for poetry, and as I took care, in several places, to mix something which might resemble (as far as was in my power) my friend's feeling and manner, the train easily caught, and two large editions were sold. A third being called for, Lord Kinedder became unwilling to aid any longer a deception which was going farther than he expected or desired, and the real author's name was given. Upon another occasion, I sent up another of these trifles, which, like schoolboy's kites, served to show how the wind of popular taste

was setting. The manner was supposed to be that of a rude minstrel or Scald, in opposition to the "Bridal of Triermain," which was designed to belong rather to the Italian school. This new fugitive piece was called "Harold the Dauntless ;" and I am still astonished at my having committed the gross error of selecting the very name which Lord Byron had made so famous. It encountered rather an odd fate. My ingenious friend, Mr. James Hogg, had published, about the same time, a work called the "Poetic Mirror," containing imitations of the principal living poets. There was in it a very good imitation of my own style, which bore such a resemblance to "Harold the Dauntless," that there was no discovering the original from the imitation; and I believe that many who took the trouble of thinking upon the subject, were rather of opinion that my ingenious friend was the true, and not the fictitious Simon Pure. Since this period, which was in the year 1817, the Author has not been an intruder on the public by any poetical work of importance.

ABBOTSFORD, April 1830.

W. S.

1 The first edition of Waverley appeared in July 1814. "Harold the Dauntless" was first published in a small 12mc volume, January 1817.

Mr. Hogg's "Poetic Mirror" appeared in October 1814.

ABBOTSFORD, 10th December, 1814.o

"Here is another genuine lay of the great Minstrel, with all his characteristic faults, beauties, and irregularities. The same glow of colouring-the same energy of narration-the same amplitude of description, are conspicuous here, which distinguish all his other productions: with the same still more characteristic disdain of puny graces and small originalitiesthe true poetical hardihood, in the strength of which he urges on his Pegasus fearlessly through dense and rare, and aiming gallantly at the great ends of truth and effect, stoops but rarely to study the means by which they are to be attainedavails himself, without scruple. of common sentiments and common images wherever they seem fitted for his purposesand is original by the very boldness of his borrowing, and impressive by his disregard of epigram and emphasis.

"Though bearing all these marks of the master's hand, the work before us does not come up, in interest, to the Lady of the Lake, or even to Marmion. There is less connected story; and, what there is, is less skilfully complicated and disentangled, and less diversified with change of scene, or variety of character. In the scantiness of the narrative, and the broken and discontinuous order of the events, as well as the inartificial insertion of detached descriptions and morsels of ethical reflection, it bears more resemblance to the earliest of the author's greater productions; and suggests a comparison, perhaps not altogether to his advantage, with the structure and execution of the Lay of the Last Minstrel :-for though there is probably more force and substance in the latter parts of the present work, it is certainly inferior to that enchanting performance in delicacy and sweetness, and even-is it to be wondered at, after four such publications ?-in originality.

"The title of "The Lord of the Isles,' has been adopted, we

is no analogy in the stories-nor does the title, on this occasion, correspond very exactly with the contents. It is no unusual misfortune, indeed, for the author of a modern Epic to have his hero turn out but a secondary personage, in the gradual unfolding of the story, while some unruly underling runs off with the whole glory and interest of the poem. But here the author, we conceive, must have been aware of the misnomer from the beginning; the true, and indeed the ostensible hero being, from the very first, no less a person than King Robert Bruce."-Edinburgh Review, No. xlviii. 1815. "If it be possible for a poet to bestow upon his writings a superfluous degree of care and correction, it may also be possible, we should suppose, to bestow too little. Whether this be the case in the poem before us, is a point upon which Mr. Scott can possibly form a much more competent judgment than ourselves; we can only say, that without possessing greater beauties than its predecessors, it has certain violations of propriety, both in the language and in the composition of the story, of which the former efforts of his muse afforded neither so many nor such striking examples.

"We have not now any quarrel with Mr. Scott on account of the measure which he has chosen; still less on account of his subjects: we believe that they are both of them not only pleasing in themselves, but well adapted to each other, and to the bent of his peculiar genius. On the contrary, it is because we admire his genius, and are partial to the subjects which he delights in, that we so much regret he should leave room for any difference of opinion respecting them, merely from not bestowing upon his publications that common degree of labour and meditation which we cannot help saying it in scarcely decorous to withhold."—Quarterly Review, No. xxvi. July, 1815.