Scott undoubtedly lay in the prolific richness of his fancy, in his fine healthy moral feeling, and in the abundant stores of his memory, that could create, collect, and arrange such a multitude of scenes and adventures; that could find materials for stirring and romantic poetry in the most minute and barren antiquarian details; and that could reanimate the past, and paint the present, in scenery and manners, with a vividness and energy unknown since the period of Homer.

The Lay of the Last Minstrel is a Border story of the sixteenth century, related by a minstrel, the last of his race. The character of the aged minstrel, and that of Margaret of Branksome, are very finely drawn; Deloraine, a coarse Border chief or moss-trooper, is also a vigorous portrait; and in the description of the march of the English army, the personal combat with Musgrave, and the other feudal accessories of the piece, we have finished pictures of the olden time. The goblin page is no favourite of ours, except in so far as it makes the story more accordant with the times in which it is placed. The introductory lines to each canto form an exquisite setting to the dark feudal tale, and tended greatly to cause the popularity of the poem. The minstrel is thus described:

The Aged Minstrel.

The way was long, the wind was cold,
The minstrel was infirm and old;
His withered cheek, and tresses gray,
Seemed to have known a better day;
The harp, his sole remaining joy,
Was carried by an orphan boy.
The last of all the bards was he
Who sung of Border chivalry;

For, well-a-day! their date was fled;
His tuneful brethren all were dead;
And he, neglected and oppressed,
Wished to be with them, and at rest.
No more, on prancing palfrey borne,
He caroled, light as lark at morn;
No longer, courted and caressed,
High placed in hall, a welcome guest,
He poured, to lord and lady gay,
The unpremeditated lay:

Old times were changed, old manners gone;

A stranger filled the Stuarts' throne;

The bigots of the iron time

Had called his harmless art a crime.

A wandering harper, scorned and poor,

He begged his bread from door to door,
And tuned, to please a peasant's ear,
The harp a king had loved to hear.

Not less picturesque are the following passages, which instantly became popular :

Description of Melrose Abbey.

If thou wouldst view fair Melrose aright,
Go visit it by the pale moonlight;
For the gay beams of lightsome day
Gild, but to flout, the ruins gray.

When the broken arches are black in night,
And each shafted oriel glimmers white;
When the cold light's uncertain shower
Streams on the ruined central tower;
When buttress and buttress, alternately,
Seem framed of ebon and ivory;
When silver edges the imagery,

And the scrolls that teach thee to live and die;
When distant Tweed is heard to rave,

And the owlet to hoot o'er the dead man's grave,

Then go-but go alone the while-
Then view St David's ruined pile;
And, home returning, soothly swear,
Was never scene so sad and fair! . . .
The moon on the east oriel shone,
Through slender shafts of shapely stone,

By foliaged tracery combined; Thou wouldst have thought some fairy's hand 'Twixt poplars straight the osier wand,

In many a freakish knot, had twined; Then framed a spell, when the work was done, And changed the willow wreaths to stone. The silver light, so pale and faint, Shewed many a prophet and many a saint, Whose image on the glass was dyed : Full in the midst, his cross of red Triumphant Michael brandished,

And trampled the Apostate's pride. The moonbeam kissed the holy pane, And threw on the pavement a bloody stain.

Love of Country.

Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,

This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned,
As home his footsteps he hath turned

From wandering on a foreign strand!
If such there breathe, go, mark him well:
For him no minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust, from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonoured, and unsung.

O Caledonia! stern and wild,
Meet nurse for a poetic child!
Land of brown heath and shaggy wood,
Land of the mountain and the flood,
Land of my sires! what mortal hand
Can e'er untie the filial band

That knits me to thy rugged strand!
Still as I view each well-known scene,

Think what is now, and what hath been,

Seems as, to me, of all bereft,

Sole friends thy woods and streams were left;
And thus I love them better still,
Even in extremity of ill.

By Yarrow's streams still let me stray,
Though none should guide my feeble way;

Still feel the breeze down Ettrick break,
Although it chill my withered cheek;

Still lay my head by Teviot stone,
Though there, forgotten and alone,
The bard may draw his parting groan.

Marmion is a tale of Flodden Field, the fate of the hero being connected with that memorable engagement. The poem does not possess the unity and completeness of the Lay, but if it has greater faults, it has also greater beauties. Nothing can be more strikingly picturesque than the two opening stanzas of this romance:

Norham Castle at Sunset.

Day set on Norham's castled steep,
And Tweed's fair river, broad and deep,
And Cheviot's mountains lone :
The battled towers, the donjon keep,
The loophole grates where captives weep,
The flanking walls that round it sweep,
In yellow lustre shone.

The scouts had parted on their search,
The castle gates were barred;
Above the gloomy portal arch,
Timing his footsteps to a march,
The warder kept his guard,
Low humming, as he paced along,
Some ancient Border gathering-song.

The same minute painting of feudal times characterises both poems, but by a strange oversight— soon seen and regretted by the author-the hero is made to commit the crime of forgery, a crime unsuited to a chivalrous and half-civilised age. The battle of Flodden, and the death of Marmion, are among Scott's most spirited descriptions. The former is related as seen from a neighbouring hill; and the progress of the action-the hurry, impetuosity, and confusion of the fight below, as the different armies rally or are repulsed-is given with such animation, that the whole scene is brought before the reader with the vividness of reality. The first tremendous onset is thus dashed off, with inimitable power, by the mighty minstrel :

Battle of Flodden.

'But see! look up-on Flodden bent, The Scottish foe has fired his tent.'

And sudden, as he spoke,
From the sharp ridges of the hill,
All downward to the banks of Till,
Was wreathed in sable smoke;
Volumed and fast, and rolling far,
The cloud enveloped Scotland's war,
As down the hill they broke;
Nor martial shout, nor minstrel tone,
Announced their march; their tread alone,
At times one warning trumpet blown,
At times a stifled hum,

Told England, from his mountain-throne
King James did rushing come.
Scarce could they hear or see their foes,
Until at weapon-point they close.
They close in clouds of smoke and dust,
With sword-sway and with lance's thrust;
And such a yell was there,
Of sudden and portentous birth,
As if men fought upon the earth,

And fiends in upper air. . .

Long looked the anxious squires; their eye
Could in the darkness nought descry.
At length the freshening western blast
Aside the shroud of battle cast;
And, first, the ridge of mingled spears
Above the brightening cloud appears;
And in the smoke the pennons flew,
As in the storm the white sea-mew.
Then marked they, dashing broad and far,
The broken billows of the war,
And plumèd crests of chieftains brave,
Floating like foam upon the wave ;
But nought distinct they see:

Wide raged the battle on the plain;

Spears shook, and falchions flashed amain;
Fell England's arrow-flight like rain;

Crests rose, and stooped, and rose again,
Wild and disorderly.

Evening fell on the deadly struggle, and the spectators were forced from the agitating scene.

But as they left the darkening heath,
More desperate grew the strife of death.
The English shafts in volleys hailed,
In headlong charge their horse assailed:
Front, flank, and rear, the squadrons sweep,
To break the Scottish circle deep,

That fought around their king.
But yet, though thick the shafts as snow,
Though charging knights like whirlwinds go,
Though bill-men ply the ghastly blow,
Unbroken was the ring;

The stubborn spearmen still made good
Their dark impenetrable wood,

Each stepping where his comrade stood,
The instant that he fell.

No thought was there of dastard flight;
Linked in the serried phalanx tight,
Groom fought like noble, squire like knight,
As fearlessly and well;

Till utter darkness closed her wing
O'er their thin host and wounded king.
Then skilful Surrey's sage commands
Led back from strife his shattered bands;
And from the charge they drew,

As mountain-waves from wasted lands
Sweep back to ocean blue.

Then did their loss his foemen know;
Their king, their lords, their mightiest low,
They melted from the field as snow,

When streams are swoln and south winds blow,
Dissolves in silent dew.

Tweed's echoes heard the ceaseless plash,
While many a broken band,

Disordered, through her currents dash,

To gain the Scottish land;

To town and tower, to down and dale,
To tell red Flodden's dismal tale,
And raise the universal wail.
Tradition, legend, tune, and song,
Shall many an age that wail prolong :
Still from the sire the son shall hear
Of the stern strife and carnage drear
Of Flodden's fatal field,

Where shivered was fair Scotland's spear,
And broken was her shield!

The hero receives his death-wound, and is borne off the field. The description, detached from the context, loses much of its interest; but the mingled effects of mental agony and physical suffering, of remorse and death, on a bad but brave spirit trained to war, is described with true sublimity:

Death of Marmion.

When, doffed his casque, he felt free air,
Around 'gan Marmion wildly stare :

'Where's Harry Blount? Fitz-Eustace, where? Linger ye here, ye hearts of hare!

Redeem my pennon-charge again!

Cry-" Marmion to the rescue!"-Vain!

Last of my race, on battle plain

That shout shall ne'er be heard again!
Yet my last thought is England's :-fly;
To Dacre bear my signet-ring;
Tell him his squadrons up to bring.
Fitz-Eustace, to Lord Surrey hie:

Tunstall lies dead upon the field;
His life-blood stains the spotless shield:
Edmund is down--my life is reft;
The Admiral alone is left.

Let Stanley charge with spur of fire-
With Chester charge, and Lancashire,
Full upon Scotland's central host,
Or victory and England's lost.

Must I bid twice? Hence, varlets! fly!
Leave Marmion here alone-to die.'
They parted, and alone he lay;
Clare drew her from the sight away,
Till pain wrung forth a lowly moan,
And half he murmured: 'Is there none,
Of all my halls have nursed,

Page, squire, or groom, one cup to bring
Of blessed water from the spring,

To slake my dying thirst!'

O woman! in our hours of ease,
Uncertain, coy, and hard to please,
And variable as the shade

By the light quivering aspen made;
When pain and anguish wring the brow,
A ministering angel thou !—
Scarce were the piteous accents said,
When, with the baron's casque, the maid
To the nigh streamlet ran :
Forgot were hatred, wrongs, and fears;
The plaintive voice alone she hears,
Sees but the dying man.

She stooped her by the runnel's side,

But in abhorrence backward drew;
For, oozing from the mountain side,
Where raged the war, a dark red tide
Was curdling in the streamlet blue.
Where shall she turn?-behold her mark
A little fountain-cell,

Where water, clear as diamond spark,
In a stone basin fell.

Above, some half-worn letters say,

Drink. weary. pilgrim. drink. and . pray, For. the. kind, soul. of. Sybil. Grey. Tho. built, this. cross, and, well.

She filled the helm, and back she hied,
And with surprise and joy espied

A monk supporting Marmion's head;
A pious man, whom duty brought
To dubious verge of battle fought,

To shrieve the dying, bless the dead.
Deep drank Lord Marmion of the wave,
And, as she stooped his brow to lave-
'Is it the hand of Clare,' he said,
'Or injured Constance, bathes my head ?'
Then as remembrance rose-
'Speak not to me of shrift or prayer!
I must redress her woes.

Short space, few words, are mine to spare;
Forgive and listen, gentle Clare!'

'Alas!' she said, 'the while-
O think of your immortal weal!
In vain for Constance is your zeal ;

She died at Holy Isle.'

Lord Marmion started from the ground,
As light as if he felt no wound;
Though in the action burst the tide,
In torrents, from his wounded side.
Then it was truth!'-he said-'I knew
That the dark presage must be true.

I would the Fiend, to whom belongs
The vengeance due to all her wrongs,
Would spare me but a day!
For wasting fire, and dying groan,
And priests slain on the altar-stone,
Might bribe him for delay.

'Avoid thee, Fiend!-with cruel hand,

Shake not the dying sinner's sand !—

O look, my son, upon yon sign
Of the Redeemer's grace divine;

O think on faith and bliss!

By many a death-bed I have been,
And many a sinner's parting seen,

1

But never aught like this.'
The war, that for a space did fail,
Now trebly thundering, swelled the gale,
And Stanley!' was the cry;

A light on Marmion's visage spread,
And fired his glazing eye :

With dying hand, above his head
He shook the fragment of his blade,

And shouted 'Victory !-

Charge, Chester, charge! On, Stanley, on !'
Were the last words of Marmion.

We may contrast with this the silent and appalling death-scene of Roderick Dhu, in the Lady of the Lake. The savage chief expires while listening to a tale chanted by the bard or minstrel of his clan:

At first, the chieftain to his chime,
With lifted hand, kept feeble time;
That motion ceased; yet feeling strong,
Varied his look as changed the song:
At length no more his deafened ear
The minstrel's melody can hear;

His face grows sharp; his hands are clenched,
As if some pang his heart-strings wrenched;
Set are his teeth, his fading eye

Is sternly fixed on vacancy.

Thus, motionless and moanless, drew
His parting breath, stout Roderick Dhu.

The Lady of the Lake is more richly picturesque than either of the former poems, and the plot is more regular and interesting. 'The subject,' says Sir James Mackintosh, is a common Highland irruption; but at a point where the neighbourhood of the Lowlands affords the best contrast of manners-where the scenery affords the noblest subject of description-and where the wild clan is so near to the court, that their robberies can be connected with the romantic adventures of a disguised king, an exiled lord, and a high-born beauty. The whole narrative is very fine.' It was the most popular of the author's poems: in a few months twenty thousand copies were sold, and the district where the action of the poem lay was visited by countless thousands of tourists. With this work closed the great popularity of Scott as a poet. Rokeby, a tale of the English Cavaliers and Roundheads, was considered a failure, though displaying

the utmost art and talent in the delineation of character and passion. Don Roderick is vastly inferior to Rokeby; and Harold and Triermain are but faint copies of the Gothic epics, however finely finished in some of the tender passages. The Lord of the Isles is of a higher mood. It is a Scottish story of the days of Bruce, and has the characteristic fire and animation of the minstrel, when, like Rob Roy, he has his foot on his native heath. Bannockburn may be compared with Flodden Field in energy of description, though the poet is sometimes lost in the chronicler and antiquary. The interest of the tale is not well sustained throughout, and its chief attraction consists in the descriptive powers of the author, who, besides his feudal halls and battles, has drawn the magnificent scenery of the West Highlandsthe cave of Staffa, and the dark desolate grandeur of the Coriusk lakes and mountains-with equal truth and sublimity. The lyrical pieces of Scott are often very happy. The old ballad strains may be said to have been his original nutriment as a poet, and he is consequently often warlike and romantic in his songs. But he has also gaiety, archness, and tenderness, and if he does not touch deeply the heart, he never fails to paint to the eye and imagination.

The Sun upon the Weirdlaw Hill.
The sun upon the Weirdlaw Hill,
In Ettrick's vale is sinking sweet;
The westland wind is hush and still,
The lake lies sleeping at my feet.
Yet not the landscape to mine eye

Bears those bright hues that once it bore; Though evening, with her richest dye, Flames o'er the hills of Ettrick's shore.

With listless look along the plain,

I see Tweed's silver current glide, And coldly mark the holy fane

Of Melrose rise in ruined pride.

The quiet lake, the balmy air,

The hill, the stream, the tower, the treeAre they still such as once they were, Or is the dreary change in me?

Alas, the warped and broken board,

How can it bear the painter's dye?
The harp of strained and tuneless chord,
How to the minstrel's skill reply?
To aching eyes each landscape lowers,

To feverish pulse each gale blows chill; And Araby's or Eden's bowers

Were barren as this moorland hill.

Coronach. From the Lady of the Lake?
He is gone on the mountain,
He is lost to the forest,
Like a summer-dried fountain,
When our need was the sorest.
The font, reappearing,

From the rain-drops shall borrow,
But to us comes no cheering,
To Duncan no morrow!

The hand of the reaper

Takes the ears that are hoary,
But the voice of the weeper
Wails manhood in glory.
The autumn winds rushing,

Waft the leaves that are searest,
But our flower was in flushing
When blighting was nearest.

Hymn of the Hebrew Maid.-From ' Ivanhoe When Israel, of the Lord beloved,

Out from the land of bondage came,
Her father's God before her moved,
An awful guide in smoke and flame.
By day, along the astonished lands

The cloudy pillar glided slow;
By night, Arabia's crimsoned sands
Returned the fiery column's glow.
There rose the choral hymn of praise,

And trump and timbrel answered keen; And Zion's daughters poured their lays, With priest's and warrior's voice between. No portents now our foes amaze,

Forsaken Israel wanders lone;
Our fathers would not know Thy ways,
And Thou hast left them to their own.

But, present still, though now unseen!
When brightly shines the prosperous day,
Be thoughts of Thee a cloudy screen,
To temper the deceitful ray.

1 Or corri, the hollow side of the hill where game usually lies.