was applied to this department of poetry; and, in deed, if the question be considered on its own merits, we must be satisfied that narrative poetry, if strictly confined to the great occurrences of history, would be deprived of the individual interest which it is so well calculated to excite. individual, so long will individual history and individual virtue be the readier and more accessible road to general interest and attention; and, perhaps, we may add, that it is the more useful, as well as the more accessible, inasmuch as it affords an example capable of being easily imitated. According to the author's idea of Romantic Poetry, as distinguished from Epic, the former comprehends a fictitious narrative, framed and combined at the Modern poets may therefore be pardoned in seeking simpler subjects of verse, more interesting in proportion to their simplicity. Two or three figures, well grouped, suit the artist better than a crowd, for what-pleasure of the writer; beginning and ending as he ever purpose assembled. For the same reason, a may judge best: which neither exacts nor refuses scene immediately presented to the imagination, and the use of supernatural machinery; which is free directly brought home to the feelings, though involv- from the technical rules of the Epée; and is subing the fate of but one or two persons, is more fa-ject only to those which good sense, good taste, and vourable for poetry than the political struggles and good morals, apply to every species of poetry withconvulsions which influence the fate of kingdoms. out exception. The date may be in a remote age, The former are within the reach and comprehen- or in the present; the story may detail the advension of all, and, if depicted with vigour, seldom fail tures of a prince or of a peasant. In a word, the to fix attention: The other, if more sublime, are author is absolute master of his country and its inmore vague and distant, less capable of being dis- habitants, and every thing is permitted to him, extinctly understood, and infinitely less capable of ex- cepting to be heavy or prosaic, for which, free and citing those sentiments which it is the very purpose unembarrassed as he is, he has no manner of apoof poetry to inspire. To generalize is always to logy. Those, it is probable, will be found the pedestroy effect. We would, for example, be more culiarities of this species of composition; and before interested in the fate of an individual soldier in com-joining the outcry against the vitiated taste that bat, than in the grand event of a general action; fosters and encourages it, the justice and grounds with the happiness of two lovers raised from misery of it ought to be made perfectly apparent. If the want and anxiety to peace and union, than with the suc- of sieges, and battles, and great military evolutions, in cessful exertions of a whole nation. From what causes our poetry, is complained of, let us reflect, that the this may originate, is a separate and obviously an im- campaigns and heroes of our days are perpetuated in material consideration. Before ascribing this pecu- a record that neither requires nor admits of the aid of liarity to causes decidedly and odiously selfish, it is fiction; and if the complaint refers to the inferiority proper to recollect, that while men see only a limited of our bards, let us pay a just tribute to their modesty, space, and while their affections and conduct are re-limiting them, as it does, to subjects which, however gulated, not by aspiring to an universal good, but by exerting their power of making themselves and others happy within the limited scale alloted to each this than any thing else. Hebraisms and Grecisms are to be found in him without the trouble of learning the languages. I knew a painter, who (like our poet) had no genius, make his daubings to be thought originals, by setting them in the smoke. You may, in the same manner, give the venerable air of antiquity to your piece, by darkening up and down ike Old English. With this you may be easily furnished upon any occasion, by the Dictionary commonly printed at the end of Chaucer." "I must not conclude without cautioning all writers without genius in one material point, which is, never to be afraid of having too much fire in their works. I should advise rather to take their warmest thoughts, and spread them abroad upon paper; for they are observed to cool before they are read."-POPE. The Guardian, No. 78. compo 1" In all this we cheerfully acquiesce, without abating any thing of our former hostility to the modern Romaunt style, which is founded on very different principles. Nothing is, in our opinion, so dangerous to the very existence of poetry as the extreme laxity of rule and consequent facility of sition, which are its principal characteristics. Our very admission in favour of that license of plot and conduct which is claimed by the Romance writers, ought to render us so much the more guarded in extending the privilege to the minor poets of composition and versification. The removal of all technical bars and impediments sets wide open the gates of indifferently treated have still the interest and charm of novelty, and which thus prevents them from adding insipidity to their other more insuperable defects. We dislike mystery Parnassus; and so much the better. "In the same letter in which William Erskine acknowledges the receipt of the first four pages of Rokeby, he adverts also to the Bridal of Triermain as being already in rapid progress. The fragments of this second poem, inserted in the Register of the preceding year, had attracted considerable notice; the secret of their authorship had been well kept; and by some means, even in the shrewdest circles of Edinburgh, the belief had become prevalent that they proceeded not from Scott but from Erskine. Scott had no sooner completed his bargain as to the copyright of the unwritten Rokeby, than he resolved to pause from time to time in its composition, and weave those fragments into a shorter and lighter romance, executed in a different metre, and to be published anonymously in a small pocket volume, as nearly as possible on the same day with the avowed quarto. He expected great amusement from the comparisons which the critics would no doubt indulge themselves in drawing between himself and this humble candidate; and Erskine good-humouredly entered into the scheme, undertaking to do nothing which should effectually suppress the notion of his having set himself up as a modest rival to his friend."-Life of Scott, vol. iv. p. 12. The Bridal of Triermain. INTRODUCTION. I. COME, LUCY! while 'tis morning hour, Though vanish'd from the velvet grass. For here compell'd to disunite, Round petty isles the runnels glide, And chafing off their puny spite, The shallow murmurers waste their might, Yielding to footstep free and light A dry-shod pass from side to side. II. Nay, why this hesitating pause? Titania's foot without a slip, Like thine, though timid, light, and slim, That this same stalwart arm of mine, Which could yon oak's prone trunk uprear,. Shall shrink beneath the burden dear Of form so slender, light, and fine So, now, the danger dared at last, Look back, and smile at perils past! III. And now we reach the favourite glade, Paled in by copsewood, cliff, and stone, Where never harsher sounds invade, To break affection's whispering tone, Than the deep breeze that waves the shade, Than the small brooklet s feeble moan. 1 MS.-"Ilaughty eye." Come! rest thee on thy wonted seat, Who would that not their love be seen. That fain would spread the invidious tale, How Lucy of the lofty eye,1 Noble in birth, in fortunes high, She for whom lords and barons sigh, Meets her poor Arthur in the dale. IV. How deep that blush !-how deep that sigh! Pride mingled in the sigh her voice, And shared with Love the crimson glow; Well pleased that thou art Arthur's choice, Yet shamed thine own is placed so low: For Love, too, has his hours of schooling. Too oft my anxious eye has spied .with wings as swift As meditation or the thoughts of love."-Hamlet. Thou wouldst not yield, for wealth or rank, The heart thy worth and beauty won, To meet a rival on a throne: VI. My sword- -its master must be dumb; That boasts a pulse so warm as mine ?1 I might have learn'd their choice unwise, VII. My lyre-it is an idle toy, That borrows accents not its own, Like warbler of Colombian sky, That sings but in a mimic tone. 3 Ne'er did it sound o'er sainted well, Nor boasts it aught of Border spell; 1 MS.-"That boasts so warm a heart as mine." 2 MS.-" And Lucy's gems before her eyes." 3 The Mocking Bird. MS.-"Perchance, because it sung their praise." 5 See Appendix, Note A. The Introduction, though by no means destitute of beauties, is decidedly inferior to the Poem: its plan or conception, is neither very ingenious nor very striking. The best passages are those in which the author adheres most strictly to his original: in those which are composed without having his eyes fixed on his model, there is a sort of affectation and straining at humour that will probably excite some feeling of disappointment, either because the effort is not altogether successful, or because it does not perfectly harmonize with the tone and colouring of the whole piece. “The Bridal' itself is purely a tale of chivalry; a tale of • Britain's isle, and Arthur's days, when midnight fairies daunced the maze.' The author never gives us a glance of ordinary life, or of ordinary personages. From the splendid court of Arthur, we are conveyed to the halls of enchantment, and, of course, are introduced to a system of manners, perfectly decided and appropriate, but altogether remote Its strings no feudal slogan pour, VIII. But, if thou bid'st, these tones shall tell That best may charm romantic ear. For Lucy loves,-like COLLINS, ill-starred name. Whose lay's requital, was that tardy fame, Who bound no laurel round his living head, Should hang it o'er his monument when dead,— For Lucy loves to tread enchanted strand, And thread, like him, the maze of fairy land; Of golden battlements to view the gleam, And slumber soft by some Elysian stream; Such lays she loves,-and, such my Lucy's choice, What other song can claim her Poet's voice 16 The Bridal of Triermain. CANTO FIRST. I. WHERE is the Maiden of mortal strain, from those of this vulgar world.”—Quarterly Review, July, 1813. "The poem now before us consists properly of two distinct subjects, interwoven together something in the manner of the Last Minstrel and his Lay, in the first and most enchanting of Walter Scott's romances.. The first is the history (real or imaginary, we persume not to guess which) of the author's passion, courtship, and marriage, with a young lady, his supe. rior in rank and circumstances, to whom he relates at intervals the story which may be considered as the principal design of the work, to which it gives its title. This is a mode of introducing romantic and fabulous narratives which we ve. y much approve, though there may be reason to fear that too frequent repetition may wear out its effect. It attaches a degree of dramatic interest to the work, and at the same time softens the absurdity of a Gothic legend, by throwing it to a greater distance from the relation and auditor, by representing it, not as a train of facts which actually took place, but as a mere fable, either adopted by the credulity of former times. or invented for the purposes of amusement, and the exercise of the imagination.”—Critical Review, 1813. 7 See Appendix, Note. B She must be lovely, and constant, and kind, When it breaks the clouds of an April day; Gentle as breeze that but whispers and dies, Yet blithe as the light leaves that dance in its sighs; Courteous as monarch the morn he is crown'd, Generous as spring-dews that bless the glad ground; Noble her blood as the currents that met In the vains of the noblest Plantagenet-Such must her form be, her mood, and her strain, That shall match with Sir Roland of Triermain. II. Sir Roland de Vaux he hath laid him to sleep, His blood it was fever'd, his breathing was deep. He had been pricking against the Scot, All in the castle must hold them still, III. It was the dawn of an autumn day; When that Baron bold awoke. IV. "Hearken, my minstrels! Which of ye all Touch'd his harp with that dying fall, So sweet, so soft, so faint, It seem'd an angel s whisper d call And hearken, my merry-men! What time or where Did she pass, that maid with her heavenly With her look so sweet and her eyes so fair, V. Have sat since midnight close, When such lulling sounds as the brooklet sings, Murmur'd from our melting strings, And hush'd you to repose. When she thinks her lover near."- Else had I heard the steps, though low And light they fell, as when earth receives, In morn of frost, the wither'd leaves, That drop when no winds blow."_ VI. "Then come thou hither, Henry, my page, And redden'd all the Nine stane Hill, The trustiest thou of all my train, He the characters can trace, Upon Hellvellyn's cliffs sublime ; 1 Dunmailraise is one of the grand passes from Cumberland into Westmoreland. It takes its name from a cairn, or pile of stones, erected, it is said, to the memory of Dunmail, the last King of Cumberland. |