Names that to fear were never known, And Oxford's famed De Vere. Ross, Montague, and Mauley, came,1 Firmly they kept their ground; And Slaughter revell'd round. This Knight his youthful strength to prove, The noble and the slave, XXVII. The tug of strife to flag begins, Sinks, Argentine, thy battle-word, "Carrick, press on-they fail, they fail ! Press on, brave sons of Innisgail, The foe is fainting fast! Each strike for parent, child, and wife, XXIX. The fresh and desperate onset bore Alone, De Argentine Yet bears on high his red-cross shield, To hem the Islesmen round; XXX. The multitude that watch'd afar, When strove the Bruce for Scotland's right; To us, as to our lords, are given The vengeance for our nation's wrongs; And, like a banner'd host afar, XXXI. Already scatter'd o'er the plain, O give their hapless prince his due !5 Cried, "Fight!" to terror and despair, And cursed their caitiff fears; I know his banner well. XXXII. Again he faced the battle-field, Wildly they fly, are slain, or yield.7 "Now then," he said, and couch'd his spear, "My course is run, the goal is near; One effort more, one brave career, Must close this race of mine." "Saint James for Argentine!" 1 MS. "of lead or stone." 2 MS.-" To us, as well as them, belongs." 8 See Appendix, Note 4 D. MS." And rode in bands away." 5 See Appendix, Note 4 E. 6 MS." And bade them hope amid despair." 7 The MS. has not the seven lines which follow. -Stirrup, steel-boot, and cuish gave way, Beneath that blow's tremendous sway, The blood gush'd from the wound; And the grim Lord of Colonsay Hath turn'd him on the ground, And laugh'd in death-pang, that his blade The mortal thrust so well repaid. XXXIII. Now toil'd the Bruce, the battle done, Fell faintly on his ear; "Save, save his life," he cried, "O save The kind, the noble, and the brave!" The squadrons round free passage gave, The wounded knight drew near; He raised his red-cross shield no more, Helm, cuish, and breastplate stream'd with gore, Yet, as he saw the King advance, He strove even then to couch his lance- The spur-stroke fail'd to rouse the horse; He stumbled on the plain. "Lord Earl, the day is thine! As boon from ancient comrade, crave-- XXXIV. Bruce press'd his dying hand-its grasp Kindly replied; but, in his clasp, 1 MS.-"Now toil'd the Bruce as leaders ought, To use his conquest boldly bought." 2 See Appendix, Note 4 F. 3 MS." And the best names that England owns Swell the sad death-prayer's dismal tones." 4 MS.-" When for her rights her sword was bare, Rights dear to all who freedom share." 5 "The fictitious part of the story is, on the whole, the least interesting-though we think that the author has hazarded rather too little embellishment in recording the adventures of the Bruce. There are many places, at least, in which he has evidently given an air of heaviness and flatness to his narration, by adhering too closely to the authentic history; and has lowered down the tone of his poetry to the tame level of the rude chroniclers by whom the incidents were originally recorded. There is a more serious and general fault, however, in the conduct of all this part of the story,-and that is, that it is not sufficiently national-and breathes nothing either of that animosity towards England, or that exultation over her defeat, which must have animated all Scotland at the period to which he refers; and ought, consequently, to have been the ruling passion of his poem. Mr. Scott, however, not only i It stiffen'd and grew cold"And, O farewell!" the victor cried, "Of chivalry the flower and pride, The arm in battle bold, The courteous mien, the noble race, XXXV. Nor for De Argentine alone, Through Ninian's church these torches shone. And rose the death-prayer's awful tone. That yellow lustre glimmer'd pale, On broken plate and bloodied mail, Since Norman William came. Grudge not her victory, When for her freeborn rights she strove; dwells fondly on the valour and generosity of the invaders, but actually makes an elaborate apology to the English for having ventured to select for his theme a story which records their disasters. We hope this extreme courtesy is not intended merely to appease critics, and attract readers in the southern part of the island-and yet it is difficult to see for what other purposes it could be assumed. Mr. Scott certainly need not have been afraid either of exciting rebellion among his countrymen, or of bringing his own liberality and loyalty into question, although, in speaking of the events of that remote period, where an overbearing conqueror was overthrown in a lawless attempt to subdue an independent kingdom, he had given full expression to the hatred and exultation which must have prevailed among the victors, and are indeed the only passions which can be supposed to be excited by the story of their exploits. It is not natural, and we are sure it is not poetical, to represent the agents in such tremendous scenes as calm and indulgent judges of the motives or merits of their opponents; and, by lending such a character to the leaders of his host, the author has actually lessened the interest of the mighty fight of Bannockburn, to that which might be supposed to belong to a wellregulated tournament among friendly rivals."—JEFFREY. Even upon Bannock's bloody plain, Let him array, besides, such state, CONCLUSION. Go forth, my Song, upon thy venturous way; Go boldly forth; nor yet thy master blame, Who chose no patron for his humble lay, And graced thy numbers with no friendly name, Whose partial zeal might smooth thy path to fame. There was-and O! how many sorrows crowd Into these two brief words!-there was a claim By generous friendship given--had fate allow'd, It well had bid thee rank the proudest of the proud! All angel now-yet little less than all, While still a pilgrim in our world below! What 'vails it us that patience to recall, Which hid its own to soothe all other woe; What 'vails to tell, how Virtue's purest glow Shone yet more lovely in a form so fair:5 And, least of all, what 'vails the world should know, That one poor garland, twined to deck thy hair, Is hung upon thy hearse, to droop and wither there!" 1 MS.-" Excepted to the Island Lord, When turning," &c. 2 MS." Some mingled sounds of joy and woe." 3 The MS. adds: "That priests and choir, with morning beams, Prepare, with reverence as beseems, To pay," &c. 4 "Bruce issues orders for the celebration of the nuptials; whether they were ever solemnized, it is impossible to say. As critics, we should certainly have forbidden the banns; because, although it is conceivable that the mere lapse of time might not have eradicated the passion of Edith, yet how such a circumstance alone, without even the assistance of an interview, could have created one in the bosom of Ronald, is altogether inconceivable. He must have proposed to marry her merely from compassion, or for the sake of her lands; and, upon either supposition, it would have comported with the delicacy of Edith to refuse his proffered hand."—Quarterly Review. 6 The reader is referred to Mr. Hogg's "Pilgrims of the Sun" for some beautiful lines, and a highly interesting note, on the death of the Duchess of Buccleuch. See ante, p. 407. 6 The Edinburgh Reviewer (Mr. Jeffrey) says, "The story of the Lord of the Isles, in so far as it is fictitious, is palpably deficient both in interest and probability; and, in so far as it is founded on historical truth, seems to us to be objectionable, both for want of incident, and want of variety and connexion in the incidents that occur. There is a romantic grandeur, however, in the scenery, and a sort of savage greatness and rude antiquity in many of the characters and events, which relieves the insipidity of the narrative, and atones for many defects in the execution." After giving copious citations from what he considers as "the better parts of the poem," the critic says, “to give a complete and impartial idea of it, we ought to subjoin some from its more faulty passages. But this is but an irksome task at all times, and, with such an author as Mr. Scott, is both invidious and unnecessary. His faults are nearly as notorious as his beauties; and we have announced in the outset, that they are equally conspicuous in this as in his other productions. There are innumerable harsh lines and uncouth expressions,-passages of a coarse and heavy diction,-and details of uninteresting minuteness and oppressive explanation. It is needless, after this, to quote such couplets as -10 A damsel tired of midnight bark, 'Tis a kind youth, but fanciful, Unfit against the tide to pull;' or to recite the many weary pages which contain the colloquies of Isabel and Edith, and set forth the unintelligible reasons of their unreasonable conduct. The concerns of these two young ladies, indeed, form the heaviest part of the poem The mawkish generosity of the one, and the piteous fidelity of the other, are equally oppressive to the reader, and do not tend at all to put him in good humour with Lord Ronald,who, though the beloved of both, and the nominal hero of the work, is certainly as far as possible from an interesting person. The lovers of poetry have a particular aversion to the description; and, as to the language and versification, the poem is in its general course as inferior to Rokeby' (by much the most correct and the least justly appreciated of the author's works) as it is in the construction and conduct of its fable. It supplies whole pages of the most prosaic narrative; but, as we conclude by recollecting, it displays also whole mconstancy of other lovers,-and especially to that sort of in- The Monthly Reviewer thus assails the title of the poem :"The Lord of the Isles himself, selon les règles of Mr. Scott's compositions, being the hero, is not the first person in the poem. The attendant here is always in white muslin, and Tilburina herself in white linen. Still, among the Deuteroprotoi (or second best) of the author, Lord Ronald holds a respectable rank. He is not so mere a magic-lantern figure, once seen in bower and once in field, as Lord Cranstoun; he far exceeds that tame rabbit boiled to rags without onion or other sauce, De Wilton; and although he certainly falls infinitely short of that accomplished swimmer Malcolm Græme, yet he rises proportionably above the red-haired Redmond. Lord Ronald, indeed, bating his intended marriage with one woman while he loves another, is a very noble fellow; and, were he not so totally eclipsed by 'The Bruce,' he would have served very well to give a title to any octosyllabic epic, were it even as vigorous and poetical as the present. Nevertheless, it would have been just as proper to call Virgil's divine poem The Anchiseid,' as it is to call this The Lord of the Isles.' To all intents and purposes the aforesaid quarto is, and ought to be, 'The Bruce.' "" The British Critic says: "No poem of Mr. Scott has yet appeared with fairer claims to the public attention. If it have less pathos than the Lady of the Lake, or less display of character than Marmion, it surpasses them both in grandeur of conception, and dignity of versification. It is in every respect decidedly superior to Rokeby; and though it may not reach the Lay of the Last Minstrel in a few splendid passages, it is far more perfect as a whole. The fame of Mr. Scott, among those who are capable of distinguishing the rich ore of poetry from the dross which surrounds it, will receive no small advancement by this last effort of his genius. We discover in it a brilliancy in detached expressions, and a power of language in the combination of images, which has never yet ap. peared in any of his previous publications. "We would also believe that as his strength has increased, so his glaring errors have been diminished. But so embedded and engrained are these in the gems of his excellence, that no blindness can overlook, no art can divide or destroy their con nexion. They must be tried together at the ordeal of time, and descend unseparated to posterity. Could Mr. Scott but ' endow his purposes with words'-could he but decorate the justice and the splendour of his conceptions with more unalloyed aptness of expression, and more uniform strength and harmony of numbers, he would claim a place in the highest rank among the poets of natural feeling and natural imagery. Even as it is, with all his faults, we love him still; and when he shall cease to write, we shall find it difficult to supply his place with a better." The Quarterly Reviewer, after giving his outline of the story of The Lord of the Isles, thus proceeds :-" In whatever point of view it be regarded, whether with reference to the incidents it contains, or the agents by whom it is carried on, we think that one less calculated to keep alive the interest and curiosity of the reader could not easily have been conceived. Of the characters, we cannot say much; they are not conceived with any great degree of originality, nor delineated with any particular spirit. Neither are we disposed to criticise with minuteness the incidents of the story; but we conceive that the whole poem, considering it as a narrative poem, is pro The Monthly Reviewer thus concludes his article: "In some detached passages, the present poem may challenge any of Mr. Scott's compositions; and perhaps in the Abbot's involuntary blessing it excels any single part of any one of them. The battle, too, and many dispersed lines besides, have transcendant merit. In point of fable, however, it has not the grace and elegance of 'The Lady of the Lake,' nor the general clearness and vivacity of its narrative; nor the unexpected happiness of its catastrophe; and still less does it aspire to the praise of the complicated, but very proper and well-managed story of 'Rokeby.' It has nothing so pathetic as 'The Cypress Wreath;' nothing so sweetly touching as the last evening scene at Rokeby, before it is broken by Bertram; nothing (with the exception of the Abbot) so awfully melancholy as much of Mor-jected upon wrong principles. tham's history, or so powerful as Bertram's farewell to Edmund. It vies, as we have already said, with Marmion,' in the generally favourite part of that poem; but what has it (with the exception before stated) equal to the immurement of Constance? On the whole, however, we prefer it to Marmion;' which, in spite of much merit, always had a sort of noisy royal-circus air with it; a clap-trappery, if we may venture on such a word. ⚫ Marmion,' in short, has become quite identified with Mr. Braham in our minds; and we are therefore not perhaps unbiassed judges of its perfections. Finally, we do not hesitate to place 'The Lord of the Isles' below both of Mr. Scott's remaining longer works; and as to The Lay of the Last Minstrel,' for numerous commonplaces and separate beauties, that poem, we believe, still constitutes one of the highest steps, if not the very highest, in the ladder of the author's reputation. The characters of the present tale (with the exception of The Bruce,' who is vividly painted from history-and of some minor sketches) are certainly, in point of invention, of the most novel, that is, of the most Minerva-press "The story is obviously composed of two independent plots, connected with each other merely by the accidental circumstances of time and place. The liberation of Scotland by Bruce has not naturally any more connexion with the loves of Ronald and the Maid of Lorn, than with those of Dido and Eneas; nor are we able to conceive any possible motive which should have induced Mr. Scott to weave them as he has done into the same narrative, except the desire of combining the advantages of a heroical, with what we may call, for want of an appropriate word, an ethical subject; an attempt which we feel assured he never would have made, had he duly weighed the very different principles upon which these dissimilar sorts of poetry are founded. Thus, had Mr. Scott introduced the loves of Ronald and the Maid of Lorn as an episode of an epic poem upon the subject of the battle of Bannockburn, its want of connexion with the main action might have been excused, in favour of its intrinsic merit; but, by a great singularity of judgment, he has introduced the battle of Bannockburn as an episode, in the loves of Ronald and the |