serve, 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 character than any other of Mr. Scott's performances-although Wilfrid will be a favourite with every lover of the soft, the gentle, and the pathetic, while Edmund offers a fearful warning to misused abilitics-and although Redmond is indeed a man, compared to the Cranstoun of The Lay, to the Willon of Marmion, or to the Malcolm of the Lady of the Lake; yet is Redmond himself but a sketch compared to Bertram. Here is Mr. Scott's true and favourite hero. He has no sneaking kindness' for these barbarians;-he boldly adopts and patronises them. Deloraine (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 poetical 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 vigour 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 diminution 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 meantime, 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, yot 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 former 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 incident.' I suspect some of these distinctions may have been matters of after-thought; but as to Rokeby there can be no mistake. His own original conceptions of some of its principal 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 rivals 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 doneLook on't again I dare not.' "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 favour, 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 storysuch as the opening interview of Bertram and Wycliffe-the flight up the cliff on the Greta-the first entrance of the cave at Brignall-the 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 favourite 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 Round-heads; but surely their character has its poetical side also, 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 ❘ fair to add that, among the London circles at least, sonie sar. 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 octosyllabic couplets of the Lady of the Lake, instead of recurring to the more varied cadence of the Lay or Marmion. It is castic flings in Mr. Moore's 'Twopenny Post Bag' must have had an unfavourable 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 voluptuousness, 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 comparison.”— LOCKHART. Life of Scott, vol. iv. pp. 53–52. APPENDIX. NOTE A. On Barnard's towers, and Tees's stream, &c.—P. 280. "The uttermost walles were lime and brick; By the suppression of this rebellion, and the consequent forfeiture of the Earl of Westmoreland, Barnard Castle re of Somerset, the guilty and unhappy favourite 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 Honourable Earl of Darlington. "BARNARD CASTLE," saith old Leland, "standeth stately upon Tees." It is founded upon a very high bank, and its ruins impend over the river, including within the area a cir-verted to the crown, and was sold or leased out to Car, Earl cuit of six acres and upwards. This once magnificent fortress derives its name from its founder, Barnard Baliol, the ancester 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 north▸rn 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 neighbourhood, 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 upon honourable 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: it "Then Sir George Bowes he straight way rose, "That baron he to his castle fled; To Barnard Castle then filed he; The uttermost walles were eathe to won, NOTE B. -no human ear, Unsharpen'd by revenge and fear, Could e'er distinguish horse's clank.-P. 290. 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 operations of human passion, has not omitted this remarkable circumstance: "De Montfort. (Off his guard.) 'Tis Rezenvelt: I heard From the first staircase mounting step by step. (De Montford looks embarrassed, and is silent.") NOTE C. The morion's plumes his visage nide, And the buff-coat, in ample fold, The use of complete suits of armour 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 armour, 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 armour being still used among the heavy horse. Buff-coats continued to be worn by the city trained-bands till within the memory of persons now living, so that defensive armour 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. NOTE D. On his dark face a scorching clime, Death had he seen by sudden blow, By wasting plague, by tortures slow.-P. 291. In this character, I have attempted to sketch one of those West Indian adventurers, who, during the course of the seventeenth century, were popularly known by the name of Bucaniers. The successes of the English in the predatory incur. Of the buff-coats, which were worn over the corslets, several are yet preserved; and Captain Grose has given an engra-sions upon Spanish America, during the reign of Elizabeth, ving of one which was used in the time of Charles I. by Sir had never been forgotten; and, from that period downward, Francis Rhodes, Bart. of Balbrough-Hall, Derbyshire. They the exploits of Drake and Raleigh were imitated, upon a were usually lined with silk or linen, secured before by but- smaller scale indeed, but with equally desperate valour, by tons, or by a lace, and often richly decorated with gold or sil- small bands of pirates, gathered from all nations, but chiefly ver embroidery. From the following curious account of a dis- French and English. The engrossing policy of the Spaniards pute respecting a buff-coat between an old roundhead captain tended greatly to increase the number of these freebooters, and a justice of peace, by whom his arms were seized after from whom their commerce and colonies suffered, in the issue, the Restoration, we learn, that the value and importance of dreadful calamity. The Windward Islands. which the Spanthis defensive garment were considerable:-"A party of horse iards did not deem worthy their own occupation, had been came to my house, commanded by Mr. Peebles; and he told gradually settled by adventurers of the French and English me he was come for my arms, and that I must deliver them. nations. But Frederic of Toledo, who was despatched in I asked him for his order. He told me he had a better order 1630, with a powerful fleet against the Dutch, had orders from than Oliver used to give; and, clapping his hand upon his the Court of Madrid to destroy these colonies, whose vicinity sword-hilt, he said, that was his order. I told him, if he had at once offended the pride and excited the jealous suspicions none but that, it was not sufficient to take my arms; and of their Spanish neighbours. This order the Spanish Admiral then he pulled out his warrant, and I read it. It was signed executed with sufficient rigour; but the only consequence was, by Wentworth Armitage, a general warrant to search all per- that the planters, being rendered desperate by persecution, sons they suspected, and so left the power to the soldiers at began, under the well-known name of Bucaniers, to commence their pleasure. They came to us at Coalley-Hall, about sun- a retaliation so horridly savage, that the perusal makes the Betting; and I caused a candle to be lighted, and conveyed reader shudder. When they carried on their depredations at Peebles into the room where my arms were. My arms were sea, they boarded, without respect to disparity of number, near the kitchen fire; and there they took away fowling- every Spanish vessel that came in their way; and, demeaning pieces, pistols, muskets, carbines, and such like, better than themselves, both in the battle and after the conquest, more £20. Then Mr. Peebles asked me for my buff-coat; and I like demons than human beings, they succeeded in impresstold him they had no order to take away my apparel. He ing their enemies with a sort of superstitious terror, which told me I was not to dispute their orders; but if I would not rendered them incapable of offering effectual resistance deliver it, he would carry me away prisoner, and had me out From piracy at sea, they advanced to making predatory deof doors. Yet he let me alone unto the next morning, that I scents on the Spanish territories; in which they displayed the must wait upon Sir John, at Halifax; and, coming before him, same furious and irresistible valour, the same thirst of spoil, he threatened me, and said, if I did not send the coat, for it and the same brutal inhumanity to their captives. The large was too good for me to keep. I told him it was not in his treasures which they acquired in their adventures, they dissipower to demand my apparel; and he, growing into a fit, pated by the most unbounded licentiousness in gaming, wocalled me rebel and traitor, and said, if I did not send the coat men, wine, and debauchery of every species. When their with all speed, he would send me where I did not like well. spoils were thus wasted, they entered into some new associa I told him I was no rebel, and he did not well to call me so tion, and undertook new adventures. For farther particulars before these soldiers and gentlemen, to make me the mark concerning these extraordinary banditti, the reader may confor every one to shoot at. I departed the room; yet, notwith-sult Raynal, or the common and popular book called the Hisstanding all the threatenings, did not send the coat. But the tory of the Bucaniers. 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 arms 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, be kept hoth sides, and I had never satisfaction."-Memoirs of Captain Hodgson. Edin. 1806, p. 178. NOTE E. On Marston heath Met, front to front, the ranks of death.-P. 292. The well-known and desperate battle of Long-Marston 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 anited 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, and Major-General Porter. Thus were both sides drawn up into battalia. "July 3d, 1644. In this posture both armies faced each other, and about seven o'clock in the morning the fight began between them. The Prince, with his left wing, fell on the Parliament's right wing, routed them, and pursued them a great way; the like did General Goring, Lucas, and Porter, upon the Parliament's main body. The three generals, giving all for lost, hasted out of the field, and many of their soldiers fled, and threw down their arms; the King's forces too eagerly following them, the victory, now almost achieved by them, was again snatched out of their hands. For Colonel Cromwell, with the brave regiment of his countrymen, and Sir Thomas Fairfax, having rallied some of his horse, fell upon the Prince's right wing, where the Earl of Newcastle was, and routed them; and the rest of their companions rallying, they fell altogether upon the divided bodies of Rupert and Goring, and totally dispersed them, and obtained a complete victory, after three hours' fight. "From this battle and the pursuit, some reckon were buried 7000 Englishmen; all agree that above 3000 of the Prince's men were slain in the battle, besides those in the chase, and 3000 prisoners taken, many of their chief officers, twenty-five pieces of ordnance, forty-seven colours, 10,000 arms, two waggons of carabins and pistols, 130 barrels of powder, and all their bag and baggage.”—WHITELOCKE's Memoirs, fol. p. 89. Lond. 1682. Lord Clarendon informs us, that the King, previous to receiving the true account of the battle, had been informed, by an express from Oxford, "that Prince Rupert had not only relieved York, but totally defeated the Scots, with many particulars to confirm it, all which was so much believed there, that they had made public fires of joy for the victory." NOTE F. Afonckton and Mitton told the news, How troops of Roundheads choked the Ouse, First lured their Lesley o'er the Tweed.-P. 295. Monckton and Mitton are villages near the river Ouse, and not very distant from the field of battle. The particulars of the action were violently disputed at the time; but the following extract, from the Manuscript History of the Baronial House of Somerville, is decisive as to the flight of the Scottish general, the Earl of Leven. The particulars are given by the author of the history on the authority of his father, then the representative of the family. This curious manuscript has been published by consent of my noble friend, the present Lord Somerville. "The order of this great battell, wherin both armies was neer of ane equall number, consisting, to the best calculatione, neer to three score thousand men upon both sydes, I shall not take upon me to discryve; albeit, from the draughts then taken upon the place, and information I receaved from this gentleman, who being then a volunteer, as having no command, had opportunitie and libertie to ryde from the one wing of the armie to the other, to view all ther several squadrons of horse and battallions of foot, how formed, and in what manner drawn up, with every other circumstance relating to the fight, and that both as to the King's armies and that of the Parliament's, amongst whom, untill the engadgment, he went from statione to statione to observe ther order and forme; but that the descriptione of this battell, with the various success on both sides at the beginning, with the loss of the royal armie, and the sad effects that followed that misfortune as to his Majestie's interest, hes been so often dono already by English authors, little to our commendatione, how justly 1 shall not dispute, seing the truth is, as our principal. generall fled that night neer fourtie mylles from the place of the fight, that part of the armie where he commanded being totallie routed; but it is as true, that much of the victorie is attributed to the good conduct of David Lesselic, lievetennentgenerall of our horse. Cromwell himself, that minione of fortune, but the rod of God's wrath, to punish eftirward three rebellious nations, disdained not to take orders from him, albeit then in the same qualitie of command for the Parliament, as being lievetennent-general to the Earl of Manchester's horse, whom, with the assistance of the Scots horse, haveing routed the Prince's right wing, as he had done that of the Parliament's. These two commanders of the horse upon that wing wisely restrained the great bodies of their horse from persuing these brocken troups, but, wheelling to the left-hand, falls in upon the naked flanks of the Prince's main battallion of foot, carying them doune with great violence; nether mett they with any great resistance untill they came to the Marques of Newcastle his bat. tallione of White Coats, who, first peppering them soundiy with ther shott, when they came to charge, stoutly bore them up with their picks that they could not enter to break them. Here the Parliament's horse of that wing receaved ther greatest losse, and a stop for sometyme putt to ther hopedfor victorie; and that only by the stout resistance of this gal lant battallione, which consisted neer of four thousand foot, until at length a Scots regiment of dragouns, commanded by Collonell Frizeall, with other two, was brought to open them upon some hand, which at length they did, when all the ammunitione was spent. Having refused quarters, every man fell in the same order and ranke wherein he had foughten. "Be this execution was done, the Prince returned from the persuite of the right wing of the Parliament's horse, which he had beatten and followed too farre, to the losse of the battell, which certanely, in all men's opinions, he might have caryed if he had not been too violent upon the pursuite; which gave his enemies upon the left-hand opportunitie to disperse and cut doune his infantric, who, haveing cleared the field of all the standing bodies of foot, wer now, with many of their oune, standing ready to receave the charge of his allmost spent horses, if he should attempt it; which the Prince observeing, and seeing all lost, he retreated to Yorke with two thousand horse. Notwithstanding of this, ther was that night such a consternatione in the Parliament armies, that it's believed by most of those that wer there present, that if the Prince, haveing so great a body of horse inteire, had made ane onfall that night, or the ensueing morning be-tyme, he had carryed the victorie out of ther hands; for it's certane, by the morning's light, he had rallyed a body of ten thousand men, wherof ther was neer three thousand gallant borse. These, with the assistance of the toune and garrisoune of Yorke, might have done much to have recovered the victory, for the loss of this battell in effect lost the King and his interest in the three kingdomes; his Majestic never being |