The chiefs of the Vakingr, or Scandinavian pirates, as- | The gory bridal bed, the plunder'd shrine, The murder'd Surrey's blood, the tears of Geraldine! XXI. Both Scots, and Southern chiefs, prolong XXII. And much of wild and wonderful With war and wonder all on flame, To Roslin's bowers young Harold came, XXIII. HAROLD.1 O listen, listen, ladies gay! No haughty feat of arms I tell; Soft is the note, and sad the lay, That mourns the lovely Rosabelle." -"Moor, moor the barge, ye gallant crew! And, gentle ladye, deign to stay! Rest thee in Castle Ravensheuch, Nor tempt the stormy firth to-day. "The blackening wave is edged with white: "Last night the gifted Seer did view A wet shroud swathed' round ladye gay; Then stay thee, Fair, in Ravensheuch: Why cross the gloomy firth to-day ?”— ""Tis not because Lord Lindesay's heir ""Tis not because the ring they ride, And Lindesay at the ring rides well, But that my sire the wine will chide, If 'tis not fill'd by Rosabelle." O'er Roslin all that dreary night, A wondrous blaze was seen to gleam; "Twas broader than the watch-fire's light, And redder than the bright moon-beam. 1 "The third song is intended to represent that wild style of composition which prevailed among the bards of the Northern Continent, somewhat softened and adorned by the Minstrel's residence in the south. We prefer it, upon the whole, to either of the two former, and shall give it entire to our readers, who will probably be struck with the poetical effect of the dramatic form into which it is thrown, and of the indirect description by which every thing is most expressively told, without one word of distinct narrative."-JEFFREY. 2 This was a family name in the house of St. Clair. Henry St. Clair, the second of the line, married Rosabelle, fourth daughter of the Earl of Stratherne. It glared on Roslin's castled rock, Seem'd all on fire that chapel proud, Where Roslin's chiefs uncoffin'd lie, Each Baron, for a sable shroud, Sheathed in his iron panoply. Seem'd all on fire within, around, And glimmer'd all the dead men's mail. Blazed battlement and pinnet high, The lordly line of high St. Clair. There are twenty of Roslin's barons bold Lie buried within that proud chapelle ; Each one the holy vault doth hold But the sea holds lovely Rosabelle ! And each St. Clair was buried there, With candle, with book, and with knell; But the sea-caves rung, and the wild winds sung, The dirge of lovely Rosabelle. XXIV. So sweet was Harold's piteous lay," Scarce mark'd the guests the darken'd hall, Though, long before the sinking day, A wondrous shade involved them all: It was not eddying mist or fog, And yet, as it came on apace, Each one could scarce his neighbor's face, Could scarce his own stretch'd hand behold. A secret horror check'd the feast, 10❝I observe a great poetic climax, designed, doubtless, in the two last of these songs from the first."-ANNA SEWARD. "We (G. Ellis and J. H. Frere) entertain some doubts about the propriety of dwelling so long on the minstrel songs in the last canto. I say we doubt, because we are not aware of your having ancient authority for such a practice; but though the attempt was a bold one, inasmuch as it is not usual to add a whole canto to a story which is already finished, we are far from wishing that you had left it unattempted.” Ellis to Scott. "The sixth canto is altogether redundant; for the poem should certainly have closed with the union of the lovers, when the interest, if any, was at an end. But what could I do? I had my book and my page still on my hands, and must get rid of them at all events. Manage them as I would, their catastrophe must have been insufficient to occupy an entire canto; so I was fain to eke it out with the songs of the minstrels."-Scott to Miss Seward—Life, vol. ii. pp. 218, 222. And chill'd the soul of every guest; Even the high Dame stood half aghast, She knew some evil on the blast; The elvish page fell to the ground, And, shuddering, mutter'd, "Found! found! found!" XXV. Then sudden, through the darken'd air So broad, so bright, so red the glare, It broke, with thunder long and loud, XXVL Some heard a voice in Branksome Hall, 1 "The Goblin Page is, in our opinion, the capital deformity of the poem. We have already said the whole machinery is useless; but the magic studies of the lady, and the rifled tomb of Michael Scott, give occasion to so much admirable poetry, that we can, on no account, consent to part with them. The page, on the other hand, is a perpetual burden to the poet and to the readers; it is an undignified and improbable fiction, which excites neither terror, admiration, nor astonishment, but needlessly debases the strain of the whole work, and excites at once our incredulity and contempt. He is not a tricksy spirit,' like Ariel, with whom the imagination is irresistibly enamored, nor a tiny menarch, like Oberon, disposing of the destinies of mortals; he rather appears to us to be an awkward sort of a mongrel between Puck and Caliban, of a servile and brutal nature, and limited in his powers to the indulgence of petty malignity, and the infliction of despicable injuries. Besides this objection to his character, his existence has no support from any general or established superstition. Fairies and devils, ghosts, angels, and witches, are creatures with whom we are all familiar, and who excite in all classes of mankind emotions with which But none of all the astonish'd train Like pilgrim from beyond the sea; we can easily be made to sympathize. But the story of Gilpin Horner was never believed out of the village where he is said to have made his appearance, and has no claims upon the credulity of those who were not originally of his acquaintance. There is nothing at all interesting or elegant in the scenes of which he is the hero; and in reading these passages we really could not help suspecting that they did not stand in the romance when the aged minstrel recited it to the royal Charles and his mighty earls, but were inserted afterwards to suit the taste of the cottagers among whom he begged his bread on the border. We entreat Mr. Scott to inquire into the grounds of this suspicion, and to take advantage of any decent pretext he can lay hold of for purging the Lay' of this ungraceful intruder. We would also move for a quo warranto against the Spirits of the River and the Mountain; for though they are come of a very high lineage, we do not know what lawful business they could have at Branksome Castle in the year 1550."-JEFFREY. XXVIII. Naught of the bridal will I tell, Which after in short space befell; Nor how brave sons and daughters fair XXIX. With naked foot, and sackcloth vest, Did every pilgrim go; Through all the lengthen'd row: Forgotten their renown; And there they knelt them down: XXX. And slow up the dim aisle afar, In long procession came; With the Redeemer's name. With holy cross he sign'd them all, Then mass was sung, and prayers were said, And solemn requiem for the dead; SOLVET SÆCLUM IN FAVILLA; Were it meet with sacred strain To close my lay, so light and vain, Thus the holy Fathers sung. XXXI. HYMN FOR THE DEAD. That day of wrath, that dreadful day, When heaven and earth shall pass away, What power shall be the sinner's stay? How shall he meet that dreadful day ? When, shrivelling like a parched scroll Oh! on that day, that wrathful day, HUSH'D is the harp-the Minstrel gone. And did he wander forth alone? Alone, in indigence and age, To linger out his pilgrimage? No; close beneath proud Newark's tower,' A simple hut; but there was seen For manhood to enjoy his strength; WORDSWORTH's Yarrow Visited. 2 Bowhill is now, as has been mentioned already, a seat of the Duke of Buccleuch. It stands immediately below Newark Hill, and above the junction of the Yarrow and the Ettrick. For the other places named in the text, the reader is referred to various notes on the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border.— ED. And July's eve, with balmy breath, Waved the blue-bells on Newark heath; When throstles sung in Harehead-shaw, And corn was green on Carterhaugh;1 And flourish'd, broad, Blackandro's oak, The aged Harper's soul awoke! Then would he sing achievements high, 1 Orig.—" And grain waved green on Carterhaugh.” * The arch allusions which run through all these Introductions, without in the least interrupting the truth and graceful pathos of their main impression, seem to me exquisitely characteristic of Scott, whose delight and pride was to play with the genius which nevertheless mastered him at will. For, in truth, what is it that gives to all his works their unique and marking ebarm, except the matchless effect which sudden effusions of the purest heart-blood of nature derive from their being poured out, to all appearance involuntarily, amidst diction and sentiment cast equally in the mould of the busy world, and the seemingly habitual desire to dwell on nothing bet what might be likely to excite curiosity, without too much disturbing deeper feelings, in the saloons of polished life? Such outbursts come forth dramatically in all his writings; but in the interlades and passionate parentheses of the Lay of the Last Minstrel we have the poet's own inner soul and temperament laid bare and throbbing before us. Even here, indeed, he has a mask, and he trusts it—but fortunately it is a transparent one. Many minor personal allusions have been explained in the notes to the last edition of the Lay.' It was hardly necessary even then to say that the choice of the hero had been dictated by the poet's affection for the living descendants of the Baron of Cranstoun; and now-none who have perused the preceding pages can doubt that he had dressed out his Margaret of Branksome in the form and features of his own first love. This poem may be considered as the bright consummate flower' in which all the dearest dreams of his youthfal fancy had at length found expansion for their strength, spirit, tenderness, and beauty. "In the closing lines Hush'd is the harp-the Minstrel gone; Alone, in indigence and age, To linger out his pilgrimage? No!-close beneath proud Newark's tower -in these charming lines he has embodied what was, at the time when he penned them, the chief day-dream of Ashestiel. From the moment that his uncle's death placed a considerable sum of ready money at his command, he pleased himself, as we have seen, with the idea of buying a mountain farm, and becoming not only the sheriff' (as he had in former days delighted to call himself), but the laird of the cairn and the scaur.'"-LOCKHART. Life of Scott, vol. ii. p. 212. The large quotations we have made from this singular poem must have convinced our readers that it abounds equally with poetical description, and with circumstance curious to the antiquary. These are farther illustrated in copious and very entertaining notes: they, as well as the poem, must be particularly interesting to those who are connected with Scottish families, or conversant in their history. The author has managed the versification of the poem with great judgment, and the most happy effect. If he had aimed at the grave and stately cadence of the epic, or any of our more regular And circumstance of chivalry, measures, it would have been impossible for him to have brought in such names as Watt Tinlinn, Black John, Priesthaugh, Scrogg, and other Scottish names, or to have spoken of the lyke-wake, and the slogan, and driving of cattle, which Pope and Gray would have thought as impossible to introduce into serious poetry, as Boileau did the names of towns in the campaigns of Louis IV. Mr. Scott has, therefore, very judiciously thrown in a great mixture of the familiar, and varied the measure; and if it has not the finished harmony, which, in such a subject, it were in vain to have attempted, it has great ease and spirit, and never tires the reader. Indeed we think we see a tendency in the public taste to go back to the more varied measures and familiar style of our earlier poets; a natural consequence of having been satiated with the regular harmony of Pope and his school, and somewhat wearied with the stiffness of lofty poetic language. We now know what can be done in that way, and we seek entertainment and variety, rather than finished modulation and uniform dignity. We now take our leave of this very elegant, spirited, and striking poem."-Annual Review, 1804. "From the various extracts we have given, our readers will be enabled to form a tolerably correct judgment of the poem; and, if they are pleased with those portions of it which have now been exhibited, we may venture to assure them that they will not be disappointed by the perusal of the whole. The whole night journey of Deloraine-the opening of the Wizard's tomb-the march of the English battle-and the parley before the walls of the castle, are all executed with the same spirit and poetical energy, which we think is conspicuous in the specimens we have already extracted; and a great variety of short passages occur in every part of the poem, which are still more striking and meritorious, though it is impossible to detach them, without injury, in the form of a quotation. It is but fair to apprize the reader, on the other hand, that he will meet with very heavy passages, and with a variety of details which are not likely to interest any one but à Borderer or an antiquary. We like very well to hear of the gallant Chief of Otterburne,' or the Dark Knight of Liddesdale,' and feel the elevating power of great names, when we read of the tribes that mustered to the war, beneath the crest of Old Dunbar and Hepburn's mingled banners.' But we really cannot so far sympathize with the local partialities of the author, as to feel any glow of patriotism or ancient virtue in hearing of the Todrig or Johnston clans, or of Elliots, Armstrongs, and Tinlinns; still less can we relish the introduction of Black Jock of Athelstane, Whitslade the Hawk, Arthur Fire-theBraes, Red Roland Forster, or any other of those worthies, who 'Sought the beeves that made their broth, into a poem which has any pretensions to seriousness or dignity. The ancient metrical romance might have admitted these homely personalities; but the present age will not endure them; and Mr. Scott must either sacrifice his Border prejudices, or offend all his readers in the other part of the empire."-JEFFREY. |