Iir. % «a0e & (50.'is (Stf^islt <§>fln»ot (filnsvn Introduction, written in 1830, he mentions this fact as an apology for the haste with which the poem was originally pub- llsbed. • Edinburgh He view, April 1808, t English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. ESTIMATE OF MARMION. Xl The indictment against this poem has a fourfold count : — 1. It is irregular ; 2. It is affected ; 3. It is inaccurate ; 4. The character of the hero is unsuited to the age in which he is placed. • Aiiswer to Charges.— The first of these charges, that he huilt his poem upon Gothic models, that he has intro- duced into an epic poem all the irregularities of a hallad, is an accusation which the poet would not have cared to meet, because he offended with his eyes open. Perhaps he did not feel equal to an epic poem — perhaps the age would have been impatient of it. How many readers has the "Excursion"? What has been the success of " Festus" ? Tennyson has not produced an " Arthuriad," but the '^ Idylls of the King." The affectations are twofold — of allusions, needing notes ; of languago, needing a glossary. The first are the result of the placing of the scene in days not our own : all the details of the life of the Middle Ages, the clothes and the castle ceremonies, the kirtlea and the wimples, the seneschals and sewers, against whith Jeffrey is very angry, are intended to transport the reader more com- pletely to the earlier times. The affectations of lan- guage are due partly to the same cause ; but in some measure they are caused by the author's carelessness. The inaccuracies are chiefly to be found in the "host's story in Canto III., and are probably intended to re- | present the inaccuracy of an uneducated man. There are some also for which he has an excuse in poetic license, as well as in the example of Shakespeare, who in the play of "Henry VIII." introduces the Earl of Surrey and his father the Duke of Norfolk, although at the time his father was dead. In this poem of " Mar- mion " there are at least foi^r such inaccuracies, for each of which the author makes apology in his notes : — (1.) The substitution of Lady Ford for her husband ns a hostage at the Scottish Court, and the alteration of his name iiovt William to Hugh. Xll , . INTRODUCTION. (2.) Placing nuns at "Whitby, Tynemouth, and Holy Island in the reigu of Henry VIII. ; also at Holy Island placing them in a house dedicated to St. Cuthbert, who hated women. (3.) Making Sir David Lindesay Lion-Herald, sixteen years before he attained that office; in this Scott followed the poem of ** Flodden Field." (4.) Introducing Gawain Douglas as Bishop of Dun- keld, before he succeeded to the see. On the last count of the indictment, no other has used such strong language as the author. In his Introduction (1830) he says :— *'The nature of Marmion's guilt, although similar instances were found, and might be quoted, as existing in feudal times, was nevertheless not sufficiently peculiar to be indicative of the character of the period, forgery being the crime of a commercial rather than of a proud and warlike age. This gross defect ought to have been remedied or palliated. Yet I suffered the tree to lie as it had fallen."* We have not, however, finished with fault-findinf?. There is yet another accuser. This poem has been made the basis of an historical drama, published anonymously in thd year 1812, written especially with a design, ac- cording to the Preface, to introduce two alterations : '* the first bringing the supposed guilt of Wilton nearer to the time of his unjust punishment ; the other softening a little the dreadfi'l doom of Constance, that the Abbess of Whitby (a gooQ character, though tinged with profes- sional prejudices) might no longer concur in a direct murder." The dramatist, therefore, makes Clara and the Abbess go to release Constance. On the second point the reader is referred to the note on II. xxv. 4. On the former, it may be observed that though the time is cer- • Another point to be noticed In Marmion's character is his combloii- tion of religiouB unbelief (IV. xxi. 23 and IH. xxx. 7) with such creiu- Mij ds made him issue forth at night to meet a spirit. Jl ESTIMATE OF MARMION. Xlll tainly long, twenty-fire years from Stokefield to Flod- den* — and this is probably due to the hurry — guilt fre- quently remains long undiscovered ; and there is, there- fore, no inherent improbability that a charge should be trumped up many years after the time to which it alluded. * - '^ / We have dwelt too long on the faults ; but when they are all told, and every necessary deduction made from the merits of the poem, how much remains upon the other side ? A friend of the author said that he should assign to it the very highest shelf of English poetry. This is not, however, the ^lace for the language of eulogy, rather for that of discrimination. When a teacher puts a book into his pupil's hands, it is because, having himself learned to appreciate its ex- cellences, he would give his pupil an opportimity of doing the same. But the pupil, as yet untrained in taste, may easily fail to discover these without assist- ance; while, at the same time, it is certain that the points of excellence, in any work, are by none so keenly appreciated as by those who have found them for them- selves. Some help then must be given with the oppor- tunity, in order to secure its being improved, but not too much; enough only to direct the judgment, not enough to rob it of its independence. What is wanted is not a complete system of labelling, in the fashion of a botanical garden ; but something more like the presentation of a nosegay, gathered at random and offered at the entrance, suggesting the kinds of flowers in some of their numerous varieties which may be found within, and stimulating search for them. W^ith this conviction the following sentences are written. Perhaps the best ideal standard by which to measure a work of art is given in the word harmony — that is, • Marmion was engaged at. Bosworth Fiel(! ; and thto would be con- sistent with his being of the same age m Wiltun. XiV lA .'RODUCTTON. such a well-ordered relation of all the parts to one another, that the whole work shall give the impression of being one thing and not man^ things. " Marmion " is a series of pictures. Therefore, while, in the first place, as most essential, the student must look to see if the series form one harmonious group, he must also notice how the successive pictures are related to each other ; how some are intended to afford contrast with others — the scene at the inn in Canto III., with the scene going on at the same time at the convent in Canto II. ; how one prepares the way for the next — the haughtiness ot the Palmer at his first appearance, and his treatment of the apparition at Edinburgh, for the later revelation of himself; how figures or incidents in one scene are foreshadowings of their more perfect representation in others— the first mention, for instance, of Lady Heron. Again, the student must notice how far each picture is in itself a whole — whether it is clear or dim : this will open a study of epithets ; whether the language, whether the rhythm of the verse, is in keeping with the thought intended to be conveyed. He must notice also the background — whether thB scenery of nature, or architec- ture, with which the actors are surrounded, brings into due relief the spirit of the particular action. But in music and in nature, difference is essential to harmony. There is a " discord dear to the musician," to the artist, to the poet. Let it be nQticed, then, that variety is a sensible feature of Scott's longer poems. Here is a description of nature — Edinburgh, IV. xxx. : there a character drawn out — Sir David Lindesay, IV, vii. : presently a battle scene — Flodden Field, VI. : again, a picture of human action, where two or three figures fill the canvas — the Convent Trial, II. Some are simple, others more or less complex: here a cha- racter is sketched — Marmion's, Lindesay 's. King James's; there merely suggested — Blount's, Lady Heron's. Tba METRE OF MARMION. XT etudent sbi,uld try to detennine in which kind the artist best succeeds bj pleasing most. Furthermore, it would be well that the student should exercise his faculty of comparison. Let him compare or contrast Scott with any other poet whose works he knows : with Shakespeare for knowledge of life and por- trayal of character, with Homer for his battlefield, with Macaulay for his easy flow of verse, or with Tennyson for his nature-painting. i Metre. — As there is no recognised work on English Prosody, it may be as well to add a few words on the metre of " Marmion." One is obliged to employ the clas- sical names for feet with a somewhat different sense. Greek and Latin verses are scanned by quantity, English verses by accent. Yet, as it has no other name, an English foot of two syllables, in which the accent is laid on the second, must be called an iambus, on the first a irochee. " Marmion" is chiefly written in iambic lines of eight syllables (i.e. four feet), each couplet rhyming.* This is a very rapid metre, and excellently suited for rapid nar- rative. Scott described it as " a sort of light horseman stanza." Its fault, however, is that when applied to a long poem it is monotonous : and Scott, recognising this fault, introduced occasional variations, the nature and use of which it will be well to notice. The monotony is re- lieved — ,' -i (1). By variation of the metre, (a). In the feet em- ployed. Substitution of a trochee for an iambus, gene- rally at the beginning, as Raised the portcullie'- ponderous guard.— I. iv, 13. or of some other foot, an anapaest for instance— that ia, a foot of three syllables, with the accent on the last, aa in the second foot of I. iv. 1 : Now broach— ye a pipe— of MalvoLsIe. • The most perfect form of this metre is to be found in Coleridge's •*ChriflUbeL" Xvi INTRODUCTION. (b). Ill the number of feet employed. The most re- markable variation is in the employment of two half- lines, four-syllabled, in II. xxviii. — ; ' ? Their oathg are said, ^; r /- Their praj'ers are prayed, M ' • " v^? , - Their lances in the rest are laid. .-. ..,4; But the ordinary variation is to the six-syllabled iambic line, vrhich is generally introduced to mark a fall in the sense, a full stop. Of this instances can easily be foimd. (2). By variation of the rhyme, (a). In the use of triplets instead of couplets. See I. iii. (6). In the rhyming of alternate lines, most commonly though not exclusively used, with the change to the six- syllabled line. The best instance is still is thy name in high account, ,^ And still thy verse has charms, *: Sir David Lindesay of the Mount, Lord Lion King-at-Arms.— IV. vii. 28. (c). In the introduction of double or feminine rhymes. These are generally hypermetric, i.e., a syllable beyond the usual number ; and are attached either to the eight or the six-syllabled line : While chafed the impatient squire like thnnder, Old Hubert shouts, iu fear and wonder. — IV. i. 19. Of all the palaces so fair, "^ Built for the royal dwelling. In Scotland, far beyond compare Linlithgow is excelling.— IV. xv. 1. This was the passage which Jeffrey described as evi- dently formed in the school of Sternhold and Hopkins. (3). By the introduction of songs, (a). The fragment of a ballad in I. xiii. 11, of an anapcestic metre : How the fierce Thirl walls, and Rid leys all, Stout Wil|limondswick, And Hard i riding Dick, And Hugh jie of Haw] don, and Will o' the WaU Have set on SirAl bany Feat herstonhaugh. And talkeo his life! at the Dead|man'8-shaw. "• . SIETRE OF MABMION. XVII The anappestic metre consists of two or four feet, and each foot either an anapa3st, a dactyl, or a spondee. (h). Constance's song", in III. x. xi., has a distinctly dactylic movement, which is happily varied : (<»), by the fact that the second lines in each couplet are catalectic, or deficient of the final syllable (»carfi Xr/yw, to stop short); (3), by the occasional introduction of one hypermetric syllable: ^ ; > .> -. Her!wingshall the! eaple flap, :.': a variation which will be made perfectly harmonious by judicious reading; and (7), by an anticipation of the rhyme in two coses, the effect of which is to throw the final syllable of the first line into the second line of the couplet: In thelost'6artfe ^ ' ; ;. ' -:■<;." 5om# down by the I flying, .. •> ; Where mingles war's | rattle ' ' ' ' ' IFiYAI groans of thel dying. »» (c). Lady Heron's song- in V. xii. — " Lochinvar. This also is an anapaestic metre, of four feet — the first a spondee, and the rest pure anapaests : ■ -., O young Loch invar is come ont' of the west. ^ '-' '^'^ One touch to her hand j and ot^v word , in her ear, y : ,, r One peculiarity of this edition will be noted at once — the omission of the Introductory Epistles. The poet himself originally intended to have published them separately, as ** Six Epistles from Ettrick Forest.'* Southey " wished them at the end of the volume, or at the beginning — anywhere except where they were." Mr. (Jeorge Ellis, t«o whom one was addressed, said that, " though excellent in themselves, they are in fact only interruptions to the fable, and accordingly nin* readers out of ten have perused them separately, either before or after the poem." Lockhart also concurs in this wish for a change ot their position. It is from no lack of belief in their intrinsic beauty that they are omitted here; even the fact that they disturb the flow of the stoiy would a XVIU INTRODUCTION. jot have "been a suiEcient excuse for omitting them, and altering the poet's own decision on the subject. Their omission is defended only by the special object of the present edition. It is not right to tamper with a poem : it is allowed to make extracts for the purposes of education. The distinction between the Notes and the Glossary was intended to be that, all account of words should go into the Glossary, and aU other information into the Notes. It has not, however, been found always possible to ob- serve this distinction ; but where the account of a word occurs in a note, a reference to the note is given in the Glossary. Th?s edition wag at first meant for the use of lower forms in schools, as an introduction to English for those for whom the Clarendon editions would be too hard. It has grown under my hands to be somewhat, in parts at least, more ambitious, but I hope that I have nowhere lost sight of my original object. I cannot conclude wdthout acknowledging my obliga- tions to Mr. J. S. Phillpotts, of Rugby, for kind assistance in the compilation of Notes and Glossary. ;= V E« £• M. Badijet Collbor, Abkohox : " V i^r ^ v ADVERTISEMENT THE FIRST EDITION. It is hardly to be expected, that an Author whom the Public hove honoured with some degree of applause, should not be again a trespasser on their kindness. Yet the Author of Marmion must be supposed to feel some anxiety concerning its success, since he is sensible that he hazards, by this second intrusion, any reputation which his first poem may have procured him. The present story turns upon the private adventures of a fictitious character; but is called a Tale of Flodden Field, because the hero's fate is connected with that memorable defeat, and the causes which led to it. Tho design of the Author was, if possible, to apprise his readers, at the outset, of the date of his story, and to prepare them for the manners of the age in which it is laid. Any historical narrative, far more an attempt at Epic composition, exceeded his plan of a Romantic Tale ; yet he may be permitted to hope, from the popularity of The Lay of the Last Mh^stbel, that an attempt to paint the manners of the feudal times, upon a broader scale, and in the course of a more interesting story, will not be unacceptable to the Public. The Poem opens about the commencement of August, and concludes with the defeat of Flodden, September 9, 1613. ASHESTUL, 1608. <'''.' ^i-!y-.-i,.- 1 ft-*" j!..^>,. MARMION. -•o*- CANTO I. THE CASTLE, Bat set on Norham's castled steep, 1 And Tweed's fair river, broad and deep, And Cheviot's mountains lone : The battled towers, the Donjon keep. The loophole grates where ca ptiv es weep, 5 The flanking walls that round it sweep, In yellow lustre shone. The warriors on the turrets high, Moving athwart the evening sky, Seemed forms of giant height : 10 Theii' armour, as it caught the rays, Flashed back again the western blaze. In lines of dazzling light Saint George's banner, broad and gay, ii Now faded, as the fading ray Less bright, and less, was flung ; The evening gale had scarce the power To wave it on the Donjon tower, d So heavily it himg. The scouts had parted on their search, The Castle gates were barred ; fi MARMION. Above the gloomy portal arch, Timing his footsteps to a march, 10 The warder kept his guard ; Low humming, as he paced along, Some ancient Border gathering-sorg. A DISTANT trampling sound he hears — fi He looks abroad, and soon appears O'er HomclifF Hill a plump of spears, Beneath a pennon gay j A horseman, darting from the crowd, . j| Like lightning from a summer cloud. Spurs on his mettled courser proud, ' \ , : >> Before the dark array. ^ . ' Beneath the sable palisade. That closed the Castle barricade, itf His bugle-horn he blew; - : ♦ The warder hasted from the wall. And warned the Captain in the hall, For well the blast he knew ; And joyfully that Knight did call, 15 To sewer, squire, and seneschal : — ** Now broach ye a pipe of Malvoisie^ iy Bring pasties of the doe. And quickly make the entrance free, And bid my heralds ready be. And every minstrel sound his glee, 5 And all our trumpets blow ; And, from the platform, spare ye not To fire a noble salvo-shot : Lord Marmion waits below." — Then to the Castle's lower ward 10 Sped forty yeomen tall, The iron-studded gates unbarred, Kaised the portcullis' ponderous guard. The lofty palisade unsparred. And let the drawbridge fall. 15 CANTO I. 3 Along the bridge Lord Mnrmion rode, ▼ Proudly his red-roan chartrer trod, His hehn hung at the saddlebow ; Well, by his visage, you might know He was a stalworth knight, and keen, 5 And had in many a battle been ; The scar on his brown cheek revealed A token true of Bosworth field j ""* His eyebrow dark, and eye of fire, Shewed spirit proud, and prompt to ire ; 10 Yet lines of thought upon his cheek, , Did deep design and counsel speak. His forehead, by his casque worn bare. His thick moustache, and cuily hair. Coal-black, and grizzled here and there, 15 But more through toil than age ; His square-turned joints, and strength of limb. Shewed him no carpet knight so trim, But, in dole fight, a champion grim ; In camps, a leader sage. 20 Well armed was he from head to heel, yi In mail and plate of Milan steel ; But his strong helm, of mighty cost, Was all with burnished gold embossed ; Amid the plumage of the crest, 6 A falcon hovered on her nest, With wings outspread, and forward breast ; E'en such a falcon, on his shield, Soared sable in an azure field : The golden legend bore aright, 10 " Who checks at me, to death is dight." Blue was the chaiger's broidered rein ; Blue ribbons decked his arching mane ; The knightly housing's ample fold Was velvet blue, and tra^d with gold. 16 b2 MARMION. ' Behin^d him rode two gallant squires, tH Of noble name and knightly sires ; They burned the gilded spurs to claim ; ^ For well could each a war-horse tame, Could draw the bow, the sword could sway, 5 And lightly bear the ring away ; Nor less with courteous precepts stored, Could dance in hall, and cafTe at board j ^ And frame love ditties passing rare, ^ '^ • And sing them to a lady fair. 10 Four men-at-arms came at their backs, " viii "With halbert, bijL and battleaxe: _'_. They bore Lord Marmion's fance so strong. And led his sumpt^r mules along, And ambling palnBV, when at need 6 Ilim liaj^ ease his battle-steed. ^ The last, and trustiest of the four. On high his forky pennon bore ; Like swallow's tail, in shape and hue, ^ - Fluttered the streamer glossy blue, 10 "Where, blazoned sable, as before. The towering falcon seemed to soar. Last, twenty yeomen, two and two, In hosen black, and jerkins blue, "With falcons broidered on each breast, 16 Attended on their lord's behest. EacfiTchosen for an archer good, ICnew hunting-craft by lake or wood j Each one a six-foot bow could bend. And far a cloth-yard shaft could send ; 20 Each held a boar-spear tough and strong, And at their belts their quivers rung. Their dusty palfreys, and array, Shewed they had marched a weary way. 'Tis meet that I should tell you now, ix How fairly armed, and ordered how, *. 4 CANTO I. 5 The soldiere of the guard, ' ' ?, ;. With musket, pike, and morion, , \ ' To welcome noble Marmion, 6 Stood in the Castle-yard ; Minstrels and trumpeters were there, The gunner held his linstock yare, : , For welcome-shot prepared : ' • Entered the train, and such a clang, ;- - « 10 As then through all his turrets rang, - Old Norham never heard. ; *.h j? The guards their morrice-pikes advanced, x The trumpets flourished brave, "^ , - The cannon from the ramparts glanced, And thundering welcome gave. A blythe salute, in martial sort, 6 The minstrels well might sound, For, as Lord Marmion crossed the coui-t, lie scattered angels round. '* Welcome to Norham, Marmion ! Stout heart, and open hand ! 10 Well dost thou brook thy gallant roan, Thou flower of English land UL Two pursuivants, whom tabarts deck, xi With silvl^scutcheon round their neck, Stood on the steps of stone, By which you reach the Donjon gate, And there, with herald pomp and state, 5 They hailed Lord Mai'mion : They hailed him Lord of Fontenaye, Of Lutterward, and Scrivelbaye, Of Tamworth tower and town ; And he, their courtesy to requite, 10 Gave them a chain of twelve marks weight, All as he lighted down. '* Now largesse, largesse. Lord Marmion, Knight of the crest of gold I MARMION. A blazoned shield, in battle won, 15 Ne'er guarded heart so bold." — They marshalled him to the Castle-hall, xii Where the guests stood all aside. And loudly flourished the trumpet-call, And the heralds loudly cried : — '* Room, lordings, room for Lord Marmion, 5 With the crest and helm of gold ! Full well we know the trophies won In the lists at Cottiswold : There, vainly, Halph de Wilton strove 'Gainst Marmion's force to stand j 10 To him he lost his lady-love, ^v: And to the King his land. ^^ ' Ourselves beheld the listed field, ■/ '"->■ : - * \ A sight both sad and fair; v, ■ i ; fr ., We saw Lord Marmion pierce his shield, * 16 And saw his saddle bare ; We saw the victor win the crest, :\ * " f He wears with worthy pride ; ^ "'1^ / "^ And on the gibbet-tree, rev^raed, M ^ 'P^^^^ His foeman's scutcheon tied. 20 Place, nobles, for the Falcon-Knight I Room, room, ye gentles gay. For him who conquered in the right, i^^"^ V V^i^ : : Marmion of Fontenaye I " Then stepped to meet that noble lord xiii Sir Hugh the Heron bold, Baron of Twisell and of Ford, And Captain of the Hold, r ■ He led Lord Marmion to the deas, 5 Raised o'er the pavement high, And placed him in the upper place — They feasted full and high : The whiles a northern harper rude Chanted a rhyme of deadly feud, — 10 CANTO I. 7 *' Hoto the Jierce Thirlwalh. and Ridley» ally Stout Willimondswick, And Hard-riding Dicky And Htf^hie of Hawdon, and Will o' the Wall, Have set on Sir Albany Featherstonlmuffhj 15 And taken his life at the Deadmans-shaw.^^ Scan tly Lord Marmion's ear could brook The harper's barbarous lay ; - Yet much he praised the pains he took, And well those pains did pay ; r = ^ 20 For lady's suit, and minstrel's strain, r ; ; :^ By knight should ne'er be heard in vain. ** Now, good Lord Marmion," Heron says, xiv '' Of your fair courtesy, r I pray you bide some little space, Li this poor tower with me. Here may you keep your arms from rust, 5 May breathe your war-horse well ; Seldom hath passed a week but giust Or feat of arms befell : The Scots can rein a mettled steed. And love to couch a spear j — 10 Saint George ! a stirring life they lead. That have such neijrhbours near. Then stay with us a little sgace. Our northern wars to learn ; I pray you for your lady's grace." — 16 Lord Marmion's brow grew stem. a , " ^ /%*** The Captain marked his altered look, '-^^■"^KK^ xv J And gave a squire the sig^ " [^.(^^/^'^f t "^ ^' A mighty w^assail-bowl he took. And croAf^edit high with wine. ''Now p ^dg e me here, Lord Marmion: 5 But^rst I pray thee fair. Where hast thou left t hat pa^ of thine, TJlat used to serve thy cup of wme, "' ■ hm-^^^ ^^Mi'L o^'lf^"-. J ^■- ; 8 MARMION. "WTiose beauty was so rare ? X -^^XAAA^^i^ "When last in Raby towers we met, 10 The boy I cloaely eyed, And often marked his cheeks were wet Zy^. With tears he fain would hide : His was no ruprged horse-boy's hand. i J ♦ To burnish shield, or sharpen brand, 15 /r^MA'^M Or saddle battle-steed; But meeter seemed for lady fair, To fan her cheek, or curl her hair, » ' . Or through embroidery, rich and rare, ^u ^4^> jff/ : : The slender sHli to lead : ' ^" 20 ' ■'■ His skin was fair, his ringlets gold, ^ ■? r>; His bosom — when he sighed, ^^7 i^i- - The russet doublet's rugged fold . ,■> j . Could scarce repel its pride I 4jJJ^"^^\A^fA^^ Say, hast thou given that lovely youth 25 To serve in lady's bower ? Or was the gentle page, in sooth, A gentle paramour ? " — /?V 7^ Lord Marmion ill could brook such' jest ; xvi He rolled his kindling eye, CJi ^.^ ^ U^c^' ' "With pain his rising wrath suppressed, f Yet made a calm reply : [^ ^c«<*«^. *' That boy thou thought' st so goodly fair, 5 He might not brook the northern air. More of his fate if thou wouldst learn, I left him sick in Lindisfarne : Enough of him. — But, Heron, say, Why does thy lovely lady gay 10 Disdain to grace the hall to-day ? Or has that dame, so fair and sage, * 4 Gone on some pio us pil grimage H "-j*^.- „ ' He spoke in covert scorn, for fame x '' Wliispered light tales of Heron's dame. 15 CANTO I. 9 Unmarked, at least unrecked, the taunt, ' xvii Careless the Knight replied : *' No bird, whose feather^aily flaunt, Delights in cage to bide: ,i y- Norham is grim, and grated close, 5 Hemmed in by battlement and fosse, ; - ^- ^ip And many a darksome tower ; . ^ % And better loves my lady bright, I To sit in lib^ty and light, - * In fair Queen Margaret's bower. .' . 10 We hold our greyhound in our hand, ;. Our falcon on our glove ; "'^^' But where shall we find leash or band. For dame that loves to rove ? Let the wild falcon soar her swing, 15 She'll stoop when she has tired her wing." — " Nat, if with Eoyal James's bride, XA'iii xhe lovely Lady Hert5nT)ide,. r Behold me here a messenger, - • * Your tender greetingrprojnpt to bear ; / For, to the Scottish Court addressed, u-u j^ J ^ I journey at our King's behe< :'^*'^-^ ^^^-^Ad^l^-i^ And pray you, of your grace, provide For me and mine a trusty guide. I have not ridden in Scotland since James backed the cause of that mock prince, 10 Warbeck, that Flemish counterfeit," ' "WTio°on the gibbet paid" thereat. Then did I marct with Surrey's power, "VVTiat time we razed old Ayton Tower." — " For suchlike n^d, my Loi^,"*T'tro;2, xix Norham can find you guides enow ; For here be some have pricked as far On Scottish ground, as to Imnbar ; Have drunk the monks of Saint Bothan's ale, 5 And driven the beeves of Laudei^flaTe j .:--^-t 10 MARMION. Harried the wives of Greenlaw's goods, And given them light to seT their hoods." *' Now, in good sooth," Lord Marmion cried, xx '* Were I in warlike wise to ride, A better guard I wouTd not lack, ; / Than your stout forayers at my back : ?^ ''^« But, as in form of^peace I go, 6 A friendly messenger, to know Why through all Scotland, near and far, Their King is musteriDg troops for war. The sight of pl un^ nng Border speara ^ Might justify suspicious fears; *f' i4*f 10 And deadly feud, or thirst of spoil, Break out in some unseemly broil : A herald were my fitting guide ; -;■■'■ Or fiiar, sworn in peace to bide ; i-- Orp^doner^ or travelling priest, 16 Or strolling pi lgrim , at the least." — r; v The Captain mused a little space, xxi And passed, his hand across his face: i*^ " Fain would I find the guide you want, BuFill may spare a pursuivant. The only men that safe can ride d Mine errands on the Scottish side : And, though a bishop built this fort. Few holy brethi^bere resort ; Even our good chaplain, as I ween, Sin(» our last siege, we have not seen : 10 The mass he might not sirig or say, Upon one stinted meal a day ; So, safe he sat in Durham aisle, And prayed for our success TtTe while. Our Norham vicar, woe betide, 15 Is all too well in case to ride. The priest of Shoreswood — he could rein The wildest war-horse, in your train j CANTO I. 11 But then, no Bpearman in the hall Will sooner swear, or stab, or brawl. 20 Friar John of Tillmouth were the man, A blythesome brother at the can, A welcome guest in hall and bower, He knows each castle, town, and tower, In which the wine and ale is good, 25 'Twixt Newcastle and Holy-Rood. But that go'od man, as ill befals, ^ Hath seldom left our Castle walls, ' '■-' ,; '■ , . Since, on the vigil of Saint Bede, ^ ' In evil hoar, he crdssed the Tweed, 30 To teach Dame Alison her creed. ^ Old Bughtrig found him with his wifej And John, an enemy to strife, v Sans frock and hood fled for his life. w'-: X The jealous churl hath deeply swore, " 35 That, if again he ventures o'er, He shall shrive penitent no more. '^''- "^ ' ^ Little he ioves such risks, I know ; ^- •-:. Yet, in your guard, perchance will go." — YoxTifG Selbt, at the fair hall-board xxii Carved to his uncle, and that lord, AncTreverently took up the word: "Kmd uncle, woe were we each one, If harm should nap to brother John. 6 He is a man of mirthful speech. Can many a game and gambol teach ; Full well at tables can he play. And sweep at bowls the stake away. «^ None can a lustfer carol bawl, 10 The needfullest among us all, When time hangs heavy in the hall, And snow comes thick at Christmas-tide, And we can neither hunt, nor rido A foray on the Scottish side. 16 12 MAllMIOX. The vowe d reY enge of Bughtrig rude, '; ^■ May eud in worse than loss of hood. Let Friar John, in safety, still ';' ; In chimney-comer snore his fill, Itoast hi§sing crabs, or flagons swill: ... / -* 20 Last night to Norham there came one, ir:,-; '/^ A Will better guide Lord Marmion.'V- " Nephew," quoth Heron, " by myTiij', Well hast thou spoke ; say forth thy say.' — T *'Here is a holy Pa lm^: come, " ' ' :; xxiii From Salem, first, andlast from Rome ; One, that hath kissed the blessed tomb, And visited each holy shrine, , v- In Araby and Palestine ; 'i |jj< ^ _ 5 On hills of Armenie hath been, ,. Where Noah's ark may yet be seen ; By that Red Sea, too, hath he trod, Which parted at the prophet's rod ; In Sinai's wilderness he saw 10 The Mount, where Israel heard the law. Mid thunder-dint^ and flashing le vyi , And shadows, mists, and darkness, given. He shews Saint James's coc kle- shell, Of fair Montserra't, too, can tell; 15 And of that Grot where Olives nod. Where, dai'ling of each heart and eye, From all the youth of Sicilv, Saint Rosalie retired to God. To stout Saint George of Norwich merry, xxiv Saint Thomas, too, of Canterbury, Cuthbert of Durham and Saint Bede, For his sins' pardon hath he prayed. He knows the passes of the North, 6 And seeks far shrines beyond the Forth ; little he eats, and long will wake. And drinks but of the stream or lake. CANTO I. 13 This were a gui.le o'er moor and dab; But, when our John hath quaffed Lis ale, 10 As little as the v/ind that Blows, « - And warms itself against his nose, - Kens he, or cares, which way he goes.'* — "^KAMERCY ! " quoth Lord Marmion, / xxv " FulfT)th were I that Friar John, . ' • That venerable man, for me, -: -* /^ Were placed in fear or j eopardy. ., ; If this same Palmer will me lead 6 From hence to Holy-Rood, Like his good saint, I'll pay his meed, '; Instead of cockle-shell, or bead, . ; , , - With angels fair and good. I love such holy ramblers ; still 10 They know to chas^ a weary hill. With song, romance, or lay : V Some jovial tale, or glee, or jest,' Some lying legend at the least, ^ v They bring fo cheer the way." — ,, 15 "Ah ! noble sir," young Selby said, xxvi And finger on his lip he laid, ** This man knows much, perchance e'en more ** ^,. Than he could learn by holy lore. Still to himself he's muttering, 5 And shrinks as at some unseen thing. Last night we listened at his cell ; Strange soiinds we heard, and sooth to tell, He murn-uredon till morn, howe'er No living mortal could be near. 10 Sometimes I thought I heard it plain, As other voices spoke again. I cannot tell — I like it not — ..__i Friar John hath told us it is wrote, No conscience clear, and void of wrong, 15 Can rest awake, and pray sj long. 14 MARMIGN. Himself still sleeps before his beads, Have marked ten aves, and two creeds," — " Let pass," quoth Marmion ; " by my fay, xxvii This man shall guide nie on my way, Although the great archfiend and he Had sworn themselves of company ; So please you, gentle youth, to call 5 This Palmer to the Castle-hall."— The summoned Palmer came in place ; His sable cowl o'erhung his face j >- In hia black mantle was he clad, - - - With Peter's keys, in cloth of red, • 10 On his broad shoulders wrought j , The scallop-shell his cap did deckj - }, ^- ^ he crjjjgifix around his neck .- v '' His sandals were with travel tore, ■ V' ^16 • Staff, budget, bottle, scrip, he wore. " **- The faded palm-branch in his hand, ^v Shewed pilgrim from the Holy Land. Whenas the Palmer came in hall, xxviii Nor lord, nor knight, was there more tall, Or had a statelier step withal, Or looked more high and keen ; For no salu^ng did he wait, 6 But strode across the hall of state, And fronted Marmion where he sate, As he his peer had been. But his gaunt frame was worn -with toil; His cheek "was sunk, alas the while ! 10 And when he struggled at a smile, B^s eye looked haggard wild : Poor wretch ! the mother that him bare, If she had been in presence there, In his wan face and sunburnt hair, 15 She had not known her child. CANTO I. 15 D ange r, long travel, want, or woe, Soon change the forai that best we know — For deadly fear can time outgo, And blanch at once the hair ; Hard toil can roughen form and face, And want can quench the eye's bright grace, Nor does old age a wrinkle trace, More deeply than despair. Happy whom none of tnese befal, But this poor Palmer knew them all. . ^ Lord Makjiion then h's boou did &sk; The Palmer took on him the task, So he would march with morning tide. To Scottish Court to be his guide. — '* But I have solemn vows to pay, And may not linger by the way, C-' To fair Saint Andrews bound, -- ^ Within the ocean-cave to proy, "Where good Saint Rule his holy lay, From midnight t/O the dawn of day, Sang to the billow's sound ; Thence to Saint Fillan's blessed well, Whose spiing can frenzied dreams dispel, And the crazed brain restore : ''' Saint Mary grant that cave or spring Could back to peace my bosom bring, Or bid it throb no more ! " — And now the midnight draught of sleep, Where wine and spices richly steep. In massive bowl of silver deep. The page presents on knee. Lord Marmion drank a fair good rest. The Captain pledged his noble guest. The cup went through among the rest, Who drained it merrily ; Alone the Palmer passed it by, 20 f?r> XXIX 10 15 sxx b 16 MAllMION. Tliougli Selby pressed him coui-teously, 10 This was the sign the feast was o'erj It hushed the merry wassail roar, The minstrels ceased to sound. S^ 18 MARMION. * Onft eyed the sbroiida and swelling sail, • With many a benedicite ; •. 4.. f uLC-(2^ One at the rippling surge grew pale, 10 And would for terror pray J - Then shrieked, because the sea-dog, nigh, His round black head and sparkling eye, | Reared o'er the foaming spray : And one would still adjust her Teil, ' W Disordered by the summer gale, PercKance lest some more worldly eye Her dedicated charms might smr; Perchance, because such action graced lX^^ Her fair-turned arm and slender waist. ^ 20 Light was each simple bosom there, Save two, who ill might pleasure share, — ' ^ The Abbess, and the Novice Clare. • ' ■ HE Abbess was of noble blood, ^ iii But early took the veil and hood, Ere upon life she cast a look, "^ ' Or knew the world that she forsook. ":^"" : Fair too she was, and kind had been * 6 As she was fair, but ne'er had seen For her a timid lover sigh, Kor knew the influepce of her eye; Love, to her ear, was but a name, Combined with vanity and shame ; 10 Her hopes, her fears, her joys, were all Bounded within the cloister wall : The deadliest sin her mind could reach xb^^^ Was of monastic rule the breach ; » , And her amT>ition's highest aim, • 4J*'/w jg i/'Tr, ^u;^ rp^ emulate ^int Hilda's fame. ** For this she gave her ainple dower, To raise the Convent's eastern lower ; For this, with carvino rare and quaint. She decked the chapel of the Saint. 20 \ CANTO II. 19 And gave the relic-shrine of cost,, * ^ si* ^ / . i ^ With ivory and gems embossed. ^: Hv6-4H*eA/ t If /i*Mm. The poor her Convent's bounty blest, CtH I'^'iii*^^ The pilgrim in its Ealls found reat. C?«>\ i^ tXJL^ Black was her garb, her rigid rule *~^ hr ^ f Reformed on Ben edict ine' school; ttc*^ XA^^ Her cheek was pale, her form was spare ; , y Vjt^ls, and pe niten ce a uster e, /t Had early quenched the light of yotrtij^ '--^^//£^But gentle was the dajiie in sooth ; Though vain of her religious sway, She loved to see her maids obey ; Y< t nothing stern waa she in cell, And the nuns loved their Abbess welL Sad was this voyage to the dame; . - Summoned to Lindisfarne, she came, There, with Saint Cuthbert's Abbot old, And Tynemouth's Prioress, to hold A ch^jiter of Saint Benedict, . ^ ^ '^"^^ " 16 For inquisition stern and strict, P^ "^ If ^i^-^^tMf^'^ On two apostates from the faith, yC^ ^/ -«•>• And, if neecT were, to doom to deaftr. ^L/l^\^C Cc f ^x 10 Nought say I here of Sister Clare, Save this, that she was young and fair; As yet a novice unprofessed. Lovely and gentle, but distressed. ' She w^as betiyjthed to one now dead, Oi' worse, who had dishonoured fled. Her kinsmen bade her give her hand To one who loved her for her land: Hei-self, almost heart-broken now, / y^AjL (JlMO!> Was bent to take the vestal vow, ' | 10 And shroud, within Saint Hilda's Q:loom, Her blasted hopes and withered bloom. She sate upon the galley's prow, / vi And seemed to mark the waves below j V 2U MARMIOX. -. "». Nay seemed, so fixed her look and eye, To count them as they glided by. ^ She saw them not — 'twas seeming all — ,6 Far other scene her thoughts recal — A sun-scorched desert, waste and bare, Kor wave, nor breezes, murmured there; There saw she, where some careless hand O'er a dead corpse had heaped the sand, ; - 10 To hide it till the jackals come, To tear it from the scanty tomb. — See what a woful look was given. As she raised up her eyes to heaven ! - ; # Lovely, and gentle, and distressed — vii ; Til ese charms might tame the fiercest breast: Harpers have sung, and poets told, That he, in fury uncontrolled, h^^^i^^ 4^(i>X The shaggy monarch of the wooa, / 6 Before a virgin,'!air and good, diA^t'dt ts-^ Ahame: / ' y, ' -*j And jealousy, by d;irk intrigue, ' -J ^x'/^tC'y^ With sordid avarice in league, * Had practised with their bow^l and knife Against the mourner's harmless life. This crime was charged 'gainst those who lay Prisoned in Cuthbert's islet grey. 15 And now the vessel skirts the strand \iii Of mountainous Northumberland ; Towns, towers, and halls successive rise, And catch the nuns' delighted eyes. Monk-Wearmouth soon behind them lay, 5 And Tynemouth's priory and bay ; They marked, amid her trees, the hall Of lofty Seaton-Delaval ; They saw the Blythe and Wansbeck floods Rush to the sea through sounding woods j 10 CANTO II. 21 * Tliey passed the tower of Widderington, Mother of many a ^•alij^nt son ; At Coquet Isle their beads they tell • . To the good Saint who owned the jell; ' Then did the Alne attention claim, ' -15 And Warkworth, proud of Percy's name ; ^ And next, they crossed themselves, to hear , ' The whitening breakers sound so near. Where, boiling through the rocks, they roar, On Dunstanborough's caverned shore ; ■20 Thy tower, proud Bamborough, marked they there, King Ida's castle, huge and square, From its tall rock look grimly down^ And on the swelling ocean frown ; Then from the coast they bore away, -^ And reached the Holy Island's bay. s/ The tide did now its flood-mark gain, ix And girdled in the Saint's domain : ' *' For, with the flow and ebb, its style ^ ' -' : Varies from continent to isle ; Dry-shod, o'er sands, twice every dny, ' '^^* 6, The pilgiims to the shrine find way j TAvice "^Tery day, the waves efiace Of staves and sandaled feet the trace. As to the port the galley flew, Higher and higher rose to view 10 The Castle with its battled walls, ' ';' The ancient Monastery's halls, ' A solemn, huge, and dark-red pile, Placed on the margin of the isle. In Saxon strength that Abbey frowned, x With massive arches broad and round, ^^y^ That rose alternate, row and row. On ponderous columns, short and low, JiuilCSre the art was known, 5 ra MARMION. * By pointed aisle, and shafted stalk, The arcades of an allej''d walk • To emulate in stone. '" }tU4j^-y On the deep walls the heathen Dane I ■. Had poured his impious rage ir vain ; , 10 And needful was such strength to these, .. Exposed to the tempestuous seas, ,- i : Scourged by the winds' eternal sway, , ^ Z Open to rovers tierce as they, Which could twelve hundred years withstand 15 Winds, waves, and northern pirates' hand. Not but that portions of the pile, Ilebuilded in a later style, Sliewed where the spoiler's hand had been ; Not but the Wiisting sea-breeze keen 20 Had worn the pillar's carving quaint, And mouldered in his niche the Saint, And rounded, with consuming power, ■ . The pointed ang'es of each tower: Yet still entire the Abbey stood, 25 Like veteran, worn, but unsubdued. ::,'-' Soon as they neared his turrets strong, ■ ; xi The maidens raised Saint Hilda's song, i, '?| ; And with the sea- wave and the wind, * • s-i Their voices, sweetly shrill, combined, And made harmonious close ; 6 Then, answering from the sandy shore, Half-drowned amid the breakers' roar, ^ According chorus rose : ;i ||[\ ^-^ Down to the haven of the Isle, The monks and nuns in order file, • 10 From Cuthbert's cloisters grim ; Banner, and cross, and relics there, To meet Saint Hilda's maids, they bare ; And, as they caught the sounds on air, They echoed back the hymn. 16 CANTO II. 23 The islanders, in joyous mood, * # * Rushed emulouslj through the flood, ^ t] {^fjQ^titJf^^ To hale theibark to land ; .. v ^ Jl Conspicuous by her veil and hood, Signing the cross, the Abbess stood, ' -20 And blessed them with her hand. * • Suppose we now the welcome said, . xii Suppose the Convent banquet made : , All through the holy dome, Through cloister, aisle, and gallery, ^ Wherever vestal maid might pry, - 5 rsor risk to meet unhallowed eye. The stranger sisters roam : Till fell the evening damp with dew, . . And the sharp sea-breeze coldly 'blew, • For there e'en summer night is chill. • 10 Then, having strayed and gazed their fill, ^ v ;! They closed around the fire ; And all, in turn, essayed to paint , - ' i The rival merits of their Saint, .; s A theme that ne'er can tire 15 A holy maid ; for, be it known, That their Saint's honour is their own. Then Whitby's nuns exulting told, xili How to their house three barons bold - ■ Must menial service do ; . While horns blow out a note of shame, And monks cry, " Fye upon your name I , : « Ai In wrath, for loss of sylvan game, Saint Hilda's priest ye slew." — ** This, on Asce: sion Day, each year, While labouring on our harbour-pier. Must Herb'ert, Bruce, and Percy hear." 10 They told, how in their convent-cell A Saxon princess once did dwell, The lovely Edelfled; 24 MARMION. And how, of thousand snakes, each one Was changed into a coil of stone, 15 When holy Hilda prayed ; Themselves, within their holy bound, Their stony folds had often found. ^r They told, how sea-fowls' pinions fail, As over Whitby's towers they sail, 20 And, sinking down, with flutterings faint, They do their homage to the Saint. Jf Nor did Saint Cuthbert's daughters fail, xiv j^ To vie with these in holy tale j His body's restingplace of old, ^ >^^ How oft their patron changed, they told ; How, when the rude Dane burned their pile, 5 The monks fled forth from Holy Isle ; O'er northern mountain, marsh, and moor, ii From sea to sea, from shore to shore, .i 'f-'- Seven years Saint Cuthbert's corpse they bore. Tbey rested them in fair Melrose ; 10 But though, alive, he loved it well. Not there his relics might repose j ^ . ^ . For, wondrous tale to tell ! ' ;^f?r In his stone-coffin forth he rides, A pondg;*ous bark for river-tides, 16 Yet light as gossamer it glides, Downward to Tilmouth cell. Nor long was his abiding there. For southward did the Saint repair ; Chester-le-Street and Rippon saw ^ His holy corpse, ere Wardilaw Hailed him with ''oy and fear; And, after many wanderings past, lie chose his lordly seat at last. Where his catheclral, huge and vast, ' 25 Looks down upon the Wear : CANTO II. 25 There, deep in Durham's Gothic shade, His relics are in secret laid ; But none may know the place, Save of his holiest servants three, 30 Deep sworn to solemn secrecy, ^ ■ * Who share that wondrous grace. Jt' Who may his miracles declare I xv Even Scotland's dauntless king, and heir, (Although with them they led Galwegians, wild as ocean's gale, And Lodon's knights, all sheathed in mail, " , 5 And the bold men of Teviotdale,) ^ / ♦ ' Before his standard fled. • ' 'Twas he, to vindicate his reign. Edged Alfred's falchion on the Dane, And turned the Conqueror back again, 10 When, with his Norman bowyer band, He ce me to waste Northumberland. But fain Saint Hilda's nuns would learn, x\ i If, on a rock, by Lindisfame, Saint Cuthbert sits, and toils to frame The sea-bom beads that bear his name : Suchtaleshad Whitby's fishers told, * 6 And said they might his shape behold, And hear his anvil sound ; A deadened clang, — a huge dim form. Seen but, and heard, when gathering storm, And night were closing round. 10 But this, as tale of idle fame. The nuns of Lindisfarne disclaim. While round the fire such legends go,' xvii Far different was the scene of woe. Where, in a secret aisle beneath. Council was held of life and death. It was more dark and lone that vault, 6 Than the worst dungeon- cell ; ■■«S«^*' 26 MARMIO^i. Old Colwulf built it, for his fault In penitence to dwell, . When he, for cowl and beads, laid down .^ The Saxon battle-axe and crown. 10 This den, which, chilling' every sense Of feeling, hearing, sight, ra Was called the Vault of Penitence, ' Excluding air and light, Was, by the prelate Sexhelm, made 16 A place of burial, for such dead, As, having died in mortal sin, Might not be laid the church within. 'T was now a place of punishment ; -: " ' Whence if so loud a shriek were sent, - 20 , As reached the upper air, ^ - .-^ The hearers blessed themselves, and said, The spirits of the sinful dead Bemoaned their torments there. , . But though, in the monastic pile, . xviii Did of this penitential aisle ^ v '; u : . - . Some vague tradition go, / M:t V Few only, save the Abbot, knew ^ Where the place lay ; and still more few 6 Were those, who had from him the clue To that dread vault to go. Victim and executioner Were blindfold when transported there. In low dark rounds the arches hung, 10 From the rude rock the side-walls sprung ; The gravestones, rudely sculptured o'er, Half sunk in earth, by time half wore. Were all the pavement of the floor j The mildew- drops fell one by one, 16 With tinkling plash, upon the stone. A cresset, in an iron chain. Which served to light this drear domain. ca:sto II. 27 With damp and darkness seemed to strive, As if it scarce might keep alive : ^ 20 And yet it dimly served to shew . : , The awful conclave met below. .. ... There, met to doom in secrecy, ., ; ^ , xLx Were placed the heads of convents three : v All servants of Saint Benedict, The statutes of whose order strict , ^ v ^ > * ' On iron table lay ; I? In long black dress, on seats of stone, Behind were these three judges shewn, By the pale cresset's ray : The Abbess of Saint Hilda, there, ^ , ;^ Sate for a space with visage bare, v 10 Until, to hide her bosom's swell, , : > And tear-drops that for pity fell. She closely drew her veil : Yon shrouded figure, as I guess. By her proud mien and flowing dre^s, 15 Is Tynemouth's haughty Prioress, And she with awe locks pale : And he, that Ancient Man, whose sight r . /j ^^ Has long been quenched by age's night, , Upon whose wrinkled brow alone > 20 Nor ruth nor mercy's trace is shewn, . ~ "VV^ose look is hard and stem, — Saint Cuthbert's Abbot is his style ; For sanctity called, through the isle, . The Saint of Lindisfarne. , . . ,, 25 Before them stood a guilty pair ; xx But, though an equal fate they share. Yet one alone deserves our care. . j ■ ! ' , Her sex a page's dress belied ; , • The cloak and doublet, loosely ^j^jj^^— ^''"-**"^ |^- Obscured her charms, but could not hide. 28 MARMION. Her cap down o'er her face she drew; And, on her doublet breast, ], She tried to hide the badge of blue, Lord Marmion's falcon crest. 10 But, at the Prioress' command, A monk undid the silken band, • That tied her tresses fair, And raised the bonnet from her head, And down her slender form they spread, 15 In ringlets rich and rare. Constance de Beverley they know, ' Sister professed of Fontevraud, Wliom the Church numbered with the dead, For broken vows, and convent fled. 20 "VVnEN thus her face was given to view, ' ixi (Although so pallid was her hue. It did a ghastly contrast bear To those bright ringlets glistering fair,) Her look composed, and steady eye, 6 Bespoke a matchless constancy ; And there she stood so calm and pale, vj' That, but her breathing did not fail, And motion slight of eye and head, And of her bosom, warranted r ' 10 That neither sense nor pulse she lacks, You might have thought a form of wax, * Wrought to the very life, was there j r ; So still she was, so pale, so fair. Her comrade was a sordid soul, v ixii Such as does murder for a meed ; . Who, but of fear, knows no control, Because his conscience, seared and foul, Feels not the import of his deed ; 6 One, whose brute-feeling ne'er aspires - Beyond his own more brute desires. ^ CANTO II. 29 Such tools the Tempter ever needs, To do the savap'est of deeds ; For them no visioned terrors daunt, 10 Their nights no fancied spectres haimt ; One fear with them, of all most base, The fear of death, — alone finds place. This wretch was clad in frock and cowl, And shamed not loud to moan and howl, ,18 His body on the floor to dash, "^ And crouch, like hound beneath the lash, "While his mute partner, standing near, Waited her doom without a tear. ' - . Yet well the luckless wretch might shriek, xxiii Well might her paleness terror speaJc ! For there were seen, in that dark wall, Two niches, narrow, deep, and tallj — Who enters at such gi'isly door, . ' , B^ Shall ne'er, I ween, find exit more. ^ In each a slender meal was laid. Of roots, of water, and of bread : By each, in, Benedictine dress, . '^ Two haggard monks stood motionless J ' ' 10 Who, holding high a blazing torch. Shewed the grim entrance of the porch : Eeflecting back the smoky beam, '" The dark-red walls and arches gleam. =■ Hewn stones and cement were displayed, ^ }$ And building tools in order laid. TnESE executioners were chose, • xxiv As men who were with mankind foes, And, with despite and envy fired, ' ' > Into the cloister had retired; Or who, in desperate doubt of grace, ^-^-^^-^-y^^ Strove, by deep penance, to efface i^*c^l Of some foul crime the stain j 30 MARMION. For, as the vassals of her will, ' Such men the Church selected still, ' As either joyed in doing ill, 10 Ur thought more grace to gain, If, in her cause, they wrestled down Feelings their nature strove to own. *■ l^y strange device were they brought there, ; They knew not how, and knew not where. 15 And now that blind old Abbot rose, xxv To speak the Chapter's doom, : On those the wall was to inclose, Alive, within the tomb ; But stopped, because that woful maid, ,. 5 Gathering her powers, to speak essayed. Twice she essayed, and twice in vain ; . . v: Her accents might no utterance gain; ^, Nought but imperfect murmurs slip From her convulsed and quivering lip : IQ 'Twixt each attempt all was so still, You seemed to hear a distant lill — .. 'Twas ocean's swells and falls ; • •. ; For though this vault of sin and fear "Was to the sounding surge so near, 1ft A tempest there you scarce could hetir, So massive were the walls. At length, an effort sent apart xxvi The blood that curdled to her, heart, - ■ And li'rht came to her eye, And colour dawned upon her cheek, A hectic and a fluttered streak, 6 Like that left on the Cheviot peak By Autumn's stormy sky ; And when her silence broke at length, Still as she spoke, she gathered strength. And armed herself to bear. 10 CANTO IT. 31 It was a fearful sight to see Such high re3olve and constancy, In form so soft and fair. *' I SPEAK not to implore your grace j xxvii Well know I, for one minute's space Successless might I sue : Nor do I speak your prayers to gain; For if a death of lingering pain, 6 To cleanse my sins, be penance vain, Vain are your masses too. — - 1 listened to a traitor's tale, 1 left the convent and the veil ; For three long years I bowed my pride, S^ A horse-boy in his train to ride ; And well my folly's meed he gave. Who forfeited, to be his slave. All here, and all beyond the grave. — He saw young Clara's face more fair, ^ tB He knew her of broad lands the heir. Forgot his vows, his faith forswore. And Constance was beloved no more. — *Tis an old tale, and often told ; But, did my fate and wish agree, Ne'er had been read, in story old, Of maiden true betrayed for gold. That loved, or was avenged, like me ! The KmG approved his favourite's aim ; xxviii In vain a rival barred his claim, Whose faith with Clare's was plight, . Pbr he attaints that rival's fame . . ^^ .. With treason's charge — and on they came, 5 In mortal lists to fight. Their oaths are said, - '"" -••«-?- --s^y- , Their prayers are prayed, . . ,. Their lances in the rest are laid, Tht'y meet in mortal shock ; 10 N 32 MAIIMION. And liark ! the throng", with thundering cry, ' Shout ' Marmion ! Marmion ! ' to the sky, < De Wilton to the block !' , , Say yo, who preach Heaven .shall decide, When in the lists two champions ride, 16 Say, was Heaven's justice here ? ~ When, loyal in his love and faith, Wilton found overthrow or death. Beneath a traitor's spear ? How false the charge, how true he fell, . 20 This guilty packet best can tell." — Then drew a packet from her breast. Paused, gathered voice, and spoke the rest : *' Still was false Marmion's bridal staid -j xxix To Whitby's convent fled the maid, ' The hated match to shun. ^ * Ho ! shifts she thus ? ' King Henry cried. * Sir Marmion, she shall be thy bride, 5 if she were sworn a nun.' One way remained — the King's command Sent Marmion to the Scottish Luid : . I lingered here, and rescue planned *- '2 For Clara and for me : 10 This caiiiif monk, for gold did swear, -' • He would to Whitby's shrine repair, ; : And, by his drugs, my rival fair .,, 'c " A saint in heaven should be. ^_ - ; But ill the dastard kept his oath,, /; > /j^ {^J Mi^V^' H Whose cowardice hath undone us both. / / And now my tongue the secret tells, xxx Not that remorse mv bosom jwells, v >- -^ . t i^ Bat to assure my soul, that none * Shall ever wed with Marmion. Had fortune my last hope betrpved, 6 This packet, to the King conveyed. Had given him to the headsman's 8tr">ke, A]tbou:fh my heart that instant broke - I CANTO IT. 33 Kow, men of deafb, work forth your will, For I can sulFer, and l>e still ; 10 , And come he slow, or come he fast, It is but Death who comes at last. < Yet dread me, from my living- tomb, . xxxi \ Te vassal slaves of bloody Rome ! If Marmion's Late remorse should waJfe, i^ Full soon such vengeance will he take. That you shall wish the fiery Dane ft Had rather been your guest again. liehind, a darker hour ascends ! The altars quake, the crosier bends, The ire of a despotic King liides forth upon destruction's wing. 10 Then shall these vaults, so strong and deep, Burst open to the sea- wind's sweep ; Some traveller then shall find ray bones. Whitening amid disjointed stones, , And, ignorant of priests' cruelty, irii^JQJjJk ^^CUj^YcM Marvel such relics here should be.^- * | ; . - Fixed was her look, and stem her air ; xxxii Ikck from her shoulders streamed her hair; " The locks, that wont her brow to shade, Stared up erectly irom her head; Her figure seemed to rise more high ; 1^ Her voice, despair's wild energy v yi^ Had given a tone of prophecy. ^^ / Appalled the astonished conclave sate ; CL^y^J^^it^U*y6A4 With stupid eyes, the men of fate Gazed on the light inspired form, 10 And listened for the avenging storm j • i / / The judges felt the victim's dread ; '^rXju^ 6t'^^>^\'^tu\* No hand was moved, no word was said. Till thus the Abbot's doom was given, Raising his sightless balls to heaven :— 16 9 34 MAKillON. " Sister, let thy sorrows cease ; \ Sinful brother, part in peace ! '* From that dire dungeon, place of doom, Of execution too, and tomb, Paced forth the judges three ; 20 Sorrow it were, and shame, to tell The butcher-wprk that there "befell, When they had glided from the cell . . Of sin and misery. An hundred winding steps convey xxxiii That conclax e to the upper day ; But, ere they breathed the fresher air, They heard the shriekings of despair, And many a stifled groan : 5 With speed their upward way they take, (Such speed as age and fear can make,) And crossed themselves for teiTor's sake, r As hurrying, tottering on : Even in the vesper's heavenly tone, "' 10 They seemed to hear a dying groan, ^ And bade the passing knell to toll For welfare of a parting soul. Slow o'er the midnight wave it swung, Northumbrian rocks in answer rung ; » 15 To Warkworth cell the echoes rolled, I lis beads the wakeful hemiit told ; The Bamborough peasant raised his head. But slept ere half a prayer he said ; So far was heard the mighty knell, 20 The stag sprung up on Cheviot Fell, Spread his broad nostril to the wind. Listed before, aside, behind, Then couched him down beside the hind ; And quaked among the mountain fern, 25 To hear that sound, so dull and stem. 35 CANTO III. THE HOSTEL, OR INN, ' i_ The livelong day Lord Marmion rode : ' i The mountain pa,th the l*almer shewed; By glen and streamlet winded still, Where stunted birches hid the rill. . They might not choose the lowland road, . H For the Merse forayers were abroad, AVho, fired with hate and thirst of prey, Had scarcely failed to bar their way. , Oft on the trampling band, from crown Of Fome tall cliff, the deer looked down ; 10 On wing of jet, from his repose ^., .^ - • v- In the deep heath, the black-cock rose ; Sprung from the gorse the timid roQ, *• Nor waited for the bending bow ; And when the stony path began, ;-, ^^ 1$ By which the naked peak they wan, - ,, . ^ Up flew the snowy ptarmigan. , .^j £ The noon had long been passed, before They gained the height of Lammermoor ; Thence winding down the northern way, 20 Before them, at the close of day. Old GifFord's towers and hamlet lay. No SUMMONS calls them to the tower, fi To spend the hospitable hour. To Scotland's camp the Lord was gone j His cautious dame in bower alone, d2 3G MAitMlON. Dreaded her castle to unclose, 5 80 late, to unknown friends or foes. On through the hamlet as they paced, Before a porch, whose front was jrraced "With bush and flag-on trimly placed, Lord Marmion drew his rein : 10 The village inn seemed large, tliough rude ; Its cheerful fire and hearty food Might well relieve his train. Down from their seats the horsemen pprung, With jingling spurs the courtyard rung ; 15 Thev bind their horses to the stall, For forage, food, and firing ?all, And various clamour fills the hall; AVeighing the labour with the cost, Toils everywhere the bustling host. ' ' 20 Soon, by the chimney's merry blaze, iii Through the rude hostel jnight you gaze j flight see, where, in dark nook aloof, The rafters of the sooty roof Bore wealth of winter cheer ; 5 Of sea-fowl dried, and solands store, ' And gammons of the tusky boar, • 1 And savourv haunch of deer. The chimney arch projected wide; * '■ . Above, around it, and beside, ' 10 Were tools for housewives' hand: c * ii ,: Nor wanted, in that martial day, The implements of Scottish fray^ • . > The buckler, Jance, and brand. Beneath its shade, the place of state, 16 On oaken settle Marmion sate, And viewed, around the blazing hearth. His followers mix in noisy mirth ; Whom with brown ale, in jolly tide. From ancient vessels ranged aside, 20 Full actively their host supplied. CANTO III. - 37 Theirs was the glee of mai-tial breast, iv And laughter theirs at little jest ; And oft Lord Marmion deigned to aid, And mingle in the mirth they made : For though, with, men of high degree, S The proudest of the proud was he, Yet, trained in camps, he knew the art To win the soldier's hardy heart. They love a captain to obey, Boisterous as March, yet fresh as May j 10 With open hand, and brow as free, Lover of wine and minstrelsy ; . ' Ever the first to scale a tower. As venturous in a lady's bower : Such buxom chief shall lead his host 15 From India's tires to Zembla's frost. Resting upon his pilgrim staflf, . . * ▼ Right opposite the Palmer stood ; His thin dark visage seen but half, Half hidden by his hood. Still fixed on Marmion was his look, \ $ Which he, who ill such gaze could brook. Strove by a frown to quell ; But not for that, though more than once ' Full met their stern encountering glance ' The Palmer's visage fell. 10 By fits less frequent from the crowd vi Was heard the burst of laughter loud ; For still, as squire and archer stared * On that dark face and matted beard, Their glee and game declined. ,f^ All gazed at length in silence drear, IJnbroke, save when in comrade's ear __ Some yeoman, wondering in his fear, Thus whispered forth his mind : — ** Saint Mary ! saw'st tliou e'er such sight P 10 23 MARMION. ITow pale his cheek, liis eye how bright, AVliene'er the firebrand's fickle light Glances beneath his cowl ! Full on our Lord he sets his eye; For his best palfrey would not I ^15 Endure that sullen scowl." — But Marmion, as to chase the awe vii Which thus had quelled their hearts, who saw The ever-varying firelight shew That figure stern and face of woe, Now called upon a squire : — 6 .. *^ Fitz-Eustace, know'st thou not some lay, To speed the lingering night away ? We slumber by the fire." — " So PLEASE YOU," thus the youth rejoined, viii '* Our choicest minstrel's left behind. Ill may we hope to please your ear, Accustomed Constant's strains to hear, . The harp full deftly can he strike, 5 And wake the lover's lute alike ; ^-- ■^ To dear Saint Yalentine no thrush Sings livelier from a springtide bush ; Tso nightingale her love-lorn tune . More sweetly warbles to the moon. * 10 W^oe to the cause, whate'er it be, Detains from us his melody, - Lavished on rocks, and billows stem, Or duller monies of Lindisfame ! 'Kow must I venture, as I mav, ; ^ 15 To sing his favorite roundelay." — < A MELLOW VOICE Fitz-Eustace had, ix The air he chose was wild and sad ; Such have I heard, in Scottish land, • L*ise from the busy harvest band, — When falls before the mountaineer, 6 On lowland plains, the ripened etir. CAKTO III. .39 Now one shrill voice fbe notes prolong-, Now a wild chorus swells the son(omore of virgin teiTor speaks 5 The blood that mantles in her cheeks ; . Fierce, and unfeminine, are there. Frenzy for joy, for grief despair ; And I the caifse — for whom were given Her peace on earth, her hopes in heaven ! — 10 , Would," thought he, h3 the picture grows, - ; " I on its stalk had left the rose ! '^ Oh, why should man's success remove ■ The very charms that wake his love ! — Her convent's peaceful solitude , - - ^ Is now a prison harsh and rude ; And, pent within the narrow cell, How will her spirit chafe and swell ! . ;f^ c ^ How brook the stern monastic laws ! ^— - .- The penance how — and I the cause ! — ^ -L:_ 20 V^igil and scourge — perchance e'en worse I* And twice he rose to cry, " To horse I" 44 MARMION. And twice bis Sovert;i;^n'3 mandate came, Like damp upon a kindiiuj^ flame : And twice he thought, *' Gave I not charge '25 Slie should be safe, though not at large ? They durst not, for their island, shred One golden ringlet from her head." — While thus in Marmion's bosom strove xviii Repentance and reviving love, * ■ ' Like whirlwinds, whose contending sway I've seen Loch Vennachar obey, Their Host the Palmer's speech had heai'd, 6 And, talkative, took up the word : — " Aye, reverend Pilgrim, you, who stray From Scotland's simple land away, To visit realms afar, . Full often learn the art to know, 10 Of future weal, or future woe. By word, or sign, or star ; Yet might a knight his fortune hear, If, knight-like, he despises fear. Not far from hence ; — if fathers old - 15 'Aright our hamlet legend told." — These broken words the menials move, (For marvels still the vulgar love, ) And, Marmion giving license cold, ' w His tale the Host thus gladly told : — 20 THE host's TALE. ^ A CLERK could tell what years have flown xix Since Alexander filled our throne, (Third monarch of that warlike name,) And eke the time when here he came To seek Sir Hugo, then our lord : 6 A braver never drew a sword ; A wiser never, at the hour Of midnight, spoke the word of power : CANTO ill. 45 The same, -whom ancient records call ^^r The founder of the Goblin Hall. 10 I would, Sir Knigh^^ your longer stay * Gave you that cavern to survey. *, . Of lofty roof, and ample size, , - ^& Beneath the cftstle deep it lies : • :'■-■■'■ j.y^.:'' To hew the living rock profound, 16 The floor to pave, the arch to round, There never toiled a mortal arm, It all was wrought by word and charm ; And I have heard my grandsire say, That the wild clamour and affi'ay 20 Of those dread artisans of hell, Who laboured under Hugo's spell, Sounded as loud as ocean's war. Among the caverns of Dunbar. - The King Lord Giflford's castle sought, r xx Deep-labouring with uncertain thought : - Even then he mustered all his host, I To meet upon the western coast ; For Noi-se and Danish galleys plied , 5 Their oars within the frith of Clyde. There floated Haco's banner trim, Above Norweyan warriors grim, Savage of heart, and large of limb ; Threatening both continent and isle, 10 Bute, AiTan, Cunninghame, and Kyle. Lord Giffbi'd, deep beneath the ground, .. - Heard Alexander's bugle sound, And tarried not his garb to change. But, ia his wizard habit strange, 15 Came forth, — a quaint and fearful si^ht His mantle lined with fox-skins white i^ His high and wrinkled forehead bore ---^ A pointed cap, such as of yore Clerks say that Pharaoh's Magi wore ; 20 46 MARMION. His shoes were marked with cross and spell ; Upon his breast a peutacle ; His zone, of virgin parchment thin, . Or, as some tell, of dead man's skin, Bore many a planetary sign, Combust, and retrograde, and trine ; . .^ And in his hand he held prepared, '■ ' A naked sword without a guard. ' ' Dire dealings with the fiendish race ' xxi Had marked strange lines upon his face ; Vigil and fast had worn him grim, His eyesight dazzled seemed, and dim, As one unused to upper day; 6 Even his own menials with dismay / * Beheld, Sir Knight, the grisly Sire, In this unwonted wild attire ; — '^ ^ • Unwonted, for traditions run, He seldom thus beheld the sun. ' v ; • ^ }0 *< I know," he said, — ^his voice was hoarse, " ' And broken seemed its hollow force, — " I know the cause, although untold, "Why the King seeks his vassal's hold : • Vainly from me my liege would know 15 His kingdom's future weal or woe ; I^t yet, if strong his anu and heart, '-^^ ^ ' His courage may do more than art. - Of middle air the demons proud, ' xxii AVho ride upon the racking cloud, ' Can read, in fixed or wandering star, The issue of events afar J ? But still their sullen aid withhold, . 6 Save when bv mijrhtier force controlled. Such late I summoned to my hall ; And though so potent was the call, That scarce tlie deepest nook of hell I deemed a refuge from the spt»]l, 10 .■^i CANTO III. 47 » Yet, obstinate in silence still, The haughty demon mocks my skill. But thou, — ''vho little know'st thy might . As bom upon that blessed night, When yawning graves, and dying groan, • 15 I^roclaimed hell's empire overthrown, — "With untaught valour shalt compel llesponse denied to magic spell." — " Gramercy ! " quoth our Monarch free, " Place him but front to front with me, 20 Ai)d, by this good and honoured brand, The gift of Coeur-de-Lion's hand, Soothly I swear, that, tide what tide, The demon shall a buffet bide ! "— ^ . His bearing bold the wizard viewed, - 25 And thus, well pleased, his speech renewed : — " There spoke the blood of Malcolm ! — mark : Forth pacing hence, at midnight dark. The rampart seek, w^hose circling cro'v^-n Crests the ascent of yonder down : 30 A southern entrance shalt thou find ; There halt, and there thy bugle wind, And trust thine elfin foe to see, • ^ - In guise of thy worst enemy : Couch then thy lance, and spur thy steed — 35 Upon him! and Saint George to speed! If he go down, thou soon shalt know Whate'er these airy sprites can shew ;— • '■ If thy heart fail ttiee in the strife, , - ^^^ I am no warrant for thy life." — - ^ 40 Soon as the midnight bell did ring, xxiii Alone, and armed, rode forth the King • "^ To that eld camp's deserted round : — ^~ - ^ Sir Knight, you well might mark the mound, Left-hand the town, — the I'ictish race 5 The trench, long since^ in blood did trace; :;-:;-%■ »• -i? 48 MARMION. The moor arounc'. is brown and bare, . -' The space within is g/een and fair : The spot our village children know, For there the earliest wild flowers grow ; 10 But woe betide the wandering wight, ^ That treads its circle in the night ! The breadth across, a bowshot clear, - Gives ample space for full career ; Opposed to the four points of heaven, 15 By four deep gaps are entrance given. The southernmost our Monarch past, Halted, and blew a gallant blast; And on the north, within the ring, Appeared the form of England's king ; i 20 "Who then, a thousand leagues afar, ^ In Palestine waged holy war • Yet arms like England's did he wield, Alike the leopards in the shield, Alike his Syrian courser's frame, 25 i The rider's length of liii b the same: Long afterwards did Scotland know, ' . Fell Edward was her deadliest foe. The vision made our Monarch start, xxiv But soon he manned his noble heart, And in the first career they ran, The elfin knight fell, horse and manj . ; Yet did a splinter of his lance 6 Through Alexander's visor glance, And razed the skin — a puny wound. - * The King, light leaping to the ground, With naked blade his phantom foe Compelled the future war to show. 10 Of Largs he saw the glorious plain, Where still gigantic bones remain. Memorial of the Danish war ; .#«ii CANTO III. 49 Himself he saw, amid the field, On high his brandished war-axe wield, 15 And strike proud Haco from his car, "VMiile, all around the shadowy kings, Denmark's grim ravens cowered their wings. ' Tis said, that, in that awful night, Remoter yisions met his sight, 20 Foreshe wing future conquests far, When our son's sons wage northern w;ar j " A royal city, tower and spire. Reddened the midnight sky with fire; «> And shouting crews her navy bore, ' " ' 25 Triumphant, to the victor shore. Such signs may learned clerks explain, They pass the wit of simple swain. The joyful King turned home again, xxv Headed his host, and quelled the Dane; But yearly, when returned the night \ Of his strange combat with the sprite, His wound must bleed and smart; $ Lord Gifford then would gibing say, "Bold as ye were, my liege, ye pay The penance of your start." Long since, beneath Dunfermline's nave, King Alexander fills his grave, 10 Our Lady give him rest ! Yet still the nightly spear and shield ' The elfin warrior doth wield, ■...■■- ^^ . Upon the brown hill's breast ; And many a knight hath proved his chance, 16 In the charmed ring to break a lance, But all have foully sped ; __ Save two, as legends tell, and they Were Wallace wight, and Gilbert Hay.— Gentles, my tale is said. • 20 50 MARMIOy. The quai^'Ls were deep, tlie liquors strong, xxvi And on the tale the yeomau tliiong Had made a comment sage and long, But Marmion gave a sign ; >" And, with their lord, the squires retire ; - 5 The rest, around the hostel fire, . ' - Their drowsy limbs recline ; For pillow, underneath each head, The quiver and the targe were laid : ^ Deep slumbering on the hostel floor, - ^ ' 10 Oppressed with toil and ale, they snore : ■;' ;, The dying flame, in fitful change. Threw on the group its shadows strange. Apart, and nestling in the hay xxvii Of a waste loft, Fitz-Eustace lay; Scarce, by the pale moonlight, were seen , The foldings of liis mantle green ; Lightly he dreamt, as youth will dream, 6 Of sport by thicket, or by stream, ' :i. Of hawk or hound, of ring or glove, >■, - Or, lighter yet, of lady's love. ; ..^ -, . [ , A cautious tread his slumber broke, " And, close beside him, when he woke, 10 In moonbeam half, and half in gloom. Stood a tall form, with nodding plume; But, ere his dagger Eustace drew, His master Marmion's voice he knew. — " FiTz-EusTACE ! rise, — I cannot rest ; xxviii Yon churl's wild legend haunts my breast. And graver thoughts have chafed my mood ; The air must cool my feverish blood ; And fain would I ride forth, to see 5 The scene of elfin chivalry. Arise, and saddle me my steed ; And, gentle Eustace, take good h eed CANTO III. 51 Thou dost not rouse these drowsy slaves ; I would not that the prating knaves 10 Had cause for saying, o'er their ale, That I could credit such a tale." — Then softly down the steps they slid, Eustace the stable-door undid, And, darkling, Marmion's steed arrayed, 15 While, whispering, thus the Baron said : — . - * *' Did'st never, good my youth, hear tell, xxix That on the hour when I was born, Saint George, who graced my sire's chapelle, Down from his steed of marble fell, A weary wight forlorn ? .. . ^ $ The flattering chaplains all agi'ee, \ The champion left his steed to me. . ' , I would, the omen's truth to show, : ■' That I could meet this elfin foe ! Blithe would I battle for the right ;, 10 To ask one question at the sprite : — Vain thought ! for elves, if elves there be, r • An empty race, by fount or sea, , To dashing waters dance and sing, • Or round the green oak wheel their ring." — 15 Thus speaking, he his steed bestrode, And from the hostel slowly rt»de. - FiTZ-EusTACE followed him abroad, > ttt And marked him pace the village road, And listened to his horse's tramp, - , \v Till, by the lessening sound, : , ;^. He judged that of the Pictish camp ;., ;> 5 Lord Marmion sought the round. "Wonder it seemed, in the squire's eyes, That one, so wary held, and wise, — Of whom 'twns said, he scarce received For gospel, what the Church believed, — 10 E 2 52 MAEMIOX. Should, stirred by idle tale, Ride forth in silence of the night, ^ As hoping- half to meet a sprite, Ar ayed in pl.ite .iiid mail. For little did Fitz-Eu.stace know, 15 That passions, in conteuding tlow, UnKx the strongest mind ; "Wearied from doubt to doubt to flee, We welcome fond credulity, Guide confident, though blind. 20 Little for this Fitz-Eustace cared, xxxi But, patient, waited till he heard, ■ X At distance, pricked to utmost speed, The foot-tramp of a flying steed. Come town- ward rushing on : " fi First, dead, as if on earth it trode, > • Then, clattering on the Tillage road,— ' In other pace than forth ho yode, Returned Lord Marmion. Down hastily he sprung from selle, ' 10 And, in his haste, wellnigh he fell ; To the squire's hand the rein he threw, - " And spoke no word f.s he withdrew: But yet the moonligat did betray, The falcon crest was soiled with clay ; 15 And plainly might Fitz-Eustace see By stains upon the charger's knee, And his left side, that on the moor He had not kept his footing sure. Ijong musing on these wondrous signs, 20 At length to rest the squire reclines, Broken and short ; for still, between. Would dreams of terror interyene : Eustace did ne'er so blithely mark The first notes of the morning lark. 25 53 CANTO rv. THE CAMP. EiTSTACF^ I said, did blithely mark The first notes of the meixy lark. The lark sung shrill, the cock he crew, And loudly Marmion's bugles blew, And, with their light and lively call, 5 Brought groom and yeoman to the stall. "^ Whistling they came, and free of heart J But soon their mood waa changed : Complaint was heard on every part, ' ^ Of something disarTEiiged. 10 Some clamoured loud for armour lost ; ' Some brawled and wrangled with the host j "By Becket's bones," cried one, ^* I fear, That some false Scot has stol'n my spear ! " — Young Blount, Lord Marmion's second squire, 15 Found his steed wet with sweat and mire j Although the rated horse-boy sware, - T Last night he dressed him sleek and fair. While chafed the impatient squire like thunder, Old Hubert shouts, in fear and wonder, — 20 "Help, gentle Blount ! help, comrades all I Bevis lies dying in his stall : To Marmion who the plight dare tell, Of the good steed he loves so well ? " Gaping for fear and ruth, they saw 25 The charger panting on his straw j M MARMION. ' Till one, who would seem wisest, cried, — *' What else but evil could betide, "With that curst Palmer for our guide ? Better we had through mire and bush SO Bein lantern-led by Friar Rush." FiTZ-EusTACE, who the cause but guessed, ii Nor wholly understood, His comrades' clamorous plaints suppressed ; He knew Lord Marmion's mood. Him, ere he issued forth, he sought, 5 And found deep plunged in gloomy thought, And did his tale display ^ Simply, as if he knew of nought To cause such disarray. , , Lord Marmion gave attention cold, 10 Nor marvelled at the wonders told, — :, > Passed them as accidents of course, . .; And bade his clarions sc •• A, " To horse! " Young Henry Blount, jv^anwhile, the cost ill Had reckoned witli their Scottish host j >,-. - And, as the charge he cast and paid, ... .. -,.;-. *' 111 thou deserv'st thy hire," he said ; '' Dost see, thou knave-, my horse's plight? 5 Fairies have ridden him all the night, - And left him in a foam ! I trust that soon a conjuring band, AVith English cross and blazing brand, Shall drive the devils from this lanil, 10 To their infernal home : ' For in this haunted den, I trow, All night they trampled to and fro." The laughing host lookc d on the hire, — ** Gramercy, gentle southern squire, 15 And if thou com'st among the rest, With Scottish broadsword to be blest, CANTO IV. 55 Shai'p be the brand, and sure the blow, Aud abort the pang to undergo." — Here sta ^ed their talk, — for Marmion 20 Gave now the signal to set on. The Palmer shewing forth the way, They journeyed all the morning day. ' The greensward way was smooth and good, iv Through Humbie's and through Saltouu's wood; A forest glade, which, varying still. Here gave a view of dale and hill; There narrower closed, till overhead ; 6 A vaulted screen the branches made. " A pleasant path," Fitz-Eustace said ; " Such as where errant-knights might see Adventures of high chivalry ; ■ • Might meet some damsel flying fast, ^ 10 With hair unbound, and looks aghast ; And smooth and level course were here, In her defence to br6ak a spear. Here, too, are twilight nooks and dells; And oft, in such, the story tells, 15 The damsel kind, from danger freed, Did grateful pay her champion's meed." — He spoke to cheer Lord Marmion's mind ; Perchance to shew his lore designed ; For Eustace much had pored 20 Upon a huge romantic tome, In the hall-window of his home, - Imprinted at the antique dome - n- j^ Of Caxton or De Worde. Therefore he spoke, — but spoke in vain, 25 For Marmion answered nought again. Now sudden, distant trumpets shrill, -.- -^ In notes prolonged by wood and hill. Were heard to echo far ; 5G MABMION. Euch ready archer grasped his b'^-vr, But by the flourish soon they know, They breathed no point of war. Yet cautious, as in foeinan's land, Lord Marmion's order speeds the band, Some opener ground to gain ; And scarce a furlong had they rode, - 10 When thinner trees, receding, shewed A little woodland plain. Just in that advantageous glade. The halting troop a line had made, As forth from the opposing shade 15 Issued a gallant train. * i-i ■ First came the trumpets, at whose clang ti So late the forest echoes rang ; On prancing steeds they forward pressed, With scarlet mantle, azure vest ; ^ Each at his trump a banner wore, B W^hich Scotland's royal scutcheon bore : Heralds and pursuivants, by name Bute, Islay, Marehmount, Rothesay, came, In painted tabards, proudly showing Gules, Argent, Or, and Azure glowing, , 10 Attendant on a King-at-arms, Whose hand the armorial truncheon held. That feudal strife had often quelled. When wildest its alarms. i. IIe was a man of middle age ; ' vii In aspect manly, grave, and sagei ' : t As on king's errand come ; But in the glances of his eye, -r^r _S ; ^ * A penetrating, keen, and sly ; .:' ^ Expression found its home ; The flash of that satiric rage, Which, bursting on the early stage, Branded the vices of the age, And broke the keys of Home. 10 ^ i-f CANTO IV. 57 On milk-white palfrey forth he paced ; His cap of maintenance was graced • With the proud heron-plume. From his steed's shoulder, loin, and breast, Silk housings swept the ground, • ^6 With Scotland's arms, device, and crest, Embroidered round and round. The double tressure might you see, First by Achaius borne, The thistle and the fleur-de-lis, 20 And gallant unicorn. So blight the king's armorial coat. That scarce the dazzled eye could note, In living colours blazoned brave. The Lion, which his title gave. . 25 A train, which well beseemed his state, But all unarmed, around him w.ait. : ^ Still is thy name in high account, -. : A And still thy verse has charms — j .- Sir David Lindesay of the Mount, . ; i 30 Lord Lion King-at-arms I Down from his horse did Marmion spring, viii Soon as he saw the Lion-King, For well the stately Baron knew, , /u, ' ^^j- To him such courtesy was due, •- "Whom Roval James himself had crowned, 5 And on his temples placed the round Of Scotland's ancient diadem; And wet his brow w'ith hallowed "wine, ' ' , And on his finger given to shine . ^ ~^' The emblematic gem. . ; ^ 10 Their mutual greetings duly made, i ■ * Tlie Lion thus his message said : — ** Though Scotland's King hath deeply swore. Ne'er to knit faith with Henry more. And strictly hath forbid resort 16 From England to his royal court; 58 ' mahmion. Yet, for he knows Lord Marmioif a name, And honours much his warlike fame, My liege hath deemed it shame, and lack Of courtesy, to turn him back ; 20 And, by his order, I, your guide, s Must lodging fit and fair provide. Till finds King James meet time to see I'he flower of English chivalry." Though inly chafed at this delay, ix Lord Marmion bears it as he may. The Palmer, his mysterious guide, Beholding thus his place supplied, Sought to take leave in vain: 5 Strict was the Lion-King's command. That none who rode in Marmion's band. Should sever from the train : *' England has here enow of spies In Lady Heron's witching eyes ;" 10 To Marchmount thus, apart, he said, But fair pretext to Marmion made. . The right-hand path they now decline, And trace against the stream the Tyne. At length up that wild dale they wind, % ' Where Criehtoim Castlo crowns the bank i For there the Lion's care asj^igned A lodging meet for Marmion's rank. That castle rises on the steep 5 Of the green vale of Tyne ; v ■ > And far beneath, where slow they creep From pool to eddy, dark and deep, 1 "Where alders moist, and willows weep, 4 You hear her streams repine. • 10 The towers in different ages rose ;. Their various architecture shows The builders' various hands j CANTO IV. 59 A mighty mass, that could oppose, When deadliest hatred fired its foes, 15 The Tengeful Douglas bands. . Crichtoun I though now thy miry court xi But pens the lazy steer and sheep, Thy turrets rude, and tottered keep ' Have been the minstrel's loved resort. Oft have I traced, within thy fort, 5 Of mouldering shields the mystic sense, Scutcheons of honour, or pretence, Quartered in old armorial sort, Remains of rude maemificence : ' Nor wholly yet hath time defaced ; 10 Thy lordly gallery fair ; Nor yet the stony cord unbraced, \ . Whose twisted knots, with roses laced, Adorn thy ruined stair. Still rises unimpaired, below, ^ , 15 Tl;e courtyard's graceful portico; •» Above its cornice, row and row ■ .!_ Of fair hewn facets richly shew ^ - - .^ " Their pointed diamond form, ■ . : 1' Though there but houseless cattle go, -- 20 To shield them from the storm. -/^ And, shuddering, still may we explore, h W^here oft whilom were captives pent, ;.'l The darkness of thy Massy More ; i . ■: v I Or, from thy grass-grown battlement, 25 May trace, in undulating line, The sluggish mazes of the Tyne. Another aspect Crichtoun shewed, xU As through its portal Marmion rode ; But yet 'twas melancholy state Received him at the outer gate ; For none were in the castle then, 6 But women, boys, or aged men. 60 MARMION. With eyes scarce dried, the sorrowing dame, To welcome noble Marmion came ; Her son, a stripling twelve years old, ' * ' Proffered the Baron's rein to hold ; 10 For each man, that could draw a sword, Had marched that morning with their lord, Earl Adam Hepburn,— he who died On Flodden, bv his sovereign's side. * ' .& Long may his Lady look in vain ! J||| She ne'er shall see his gallant train Come sweeping back through Crichtoun-Dean. *Twas a brave race, before the name Of hated Both well stained their fame. And here two days did Marmion rest, xiii With every rite that honour claims. Attended as the King's own guest, — Such the command of Royal James, Who marshalled then bis land's array, > -' ; I- 6 - Upon the Borough Moor that lay. Perchance he would not foeman's eye Upon his gathering host should pry. Till full prepared was every band * To march against the English land. " ' 10 Here while they dwelt, did Lindesay's wit Oft cheer the Baron's moodier fit ; And, in his turn, he knew to prize Lord Marmion's powerful mind, and wise, — - Trained in the lore of Rome and Greece, If And policies of war and peace. It chanced, as fell the second night, xiv That on the battlements they walJked, And, by the slowly-fading light. Of varying topics talked ; And, unaware the Herald-bard fl Said, Marmion might his toil have spared. In travelling so far; CANTO IV. 6t For that a messenger from heaven In vain to James had counsel given Against the English war : * 10 And, closer questioned, thus he told A tale, which chronicles of old In Scottish story have enrolled: — SIR DAVID LINDESAY's TALB. Of all the palaces so fair, xv Built for the royal dwelling, In Scotland, far beyond compare Linlithgow is excelling ; And in its park, in jovial June, 5 How sweet the merry linnet's tune, How hlithe the blackbird's lay ! The wild-buck bells from ferny brake, The coot dives merry on the lake. The saddest heart might pleasure take 10 To see all nature gay. But June is, to our Sovereign dear, . The heaviest month in all the year : Too well his cause of grief you know, — June saw his father's overthrow. 15 Woe to the traitors, who could bring The princely boy against his King I Still in his conscience bums the sting. In offices as strict as Lent, King Jame's June is ever spent. 20 When last this ruthful month was come, xvi And in Linlithgow's holy dome The King, as wont, was praying j While, for his royal father's soul, The chaunters sung, the bells did toll, 5 The Bishop mass was saying, — 62 MAEMION. For now the year brouGrht round iipmin The day the luckless King was slain. In Katharine's aisle the Monarch knelt, With sackcloth-shirt, and iron belt, Itl - And eyes with sorrow streaming ; Around hira, in their stalks of state, - r The Thistle's Knight-Companions sate, Their banners o'er them beaming. I too was there, and, sooth to tell, jHfe .Bedeafened with the jangling knell, ' Was watching where the sunbeams fell, . -•; Through the stained casement gleaming ; But, while I marked what next befel. It seemed as I were dreaming. • .^ . - $& Stepped from the crowd a ghostly wight, ^ ,, In azure gown, with cincture white ; ., ,:,.•* His forehead bald, his head was bare, . ; :r - Down himg at length his yellow hair. — . ■ Now mock me not, when, good my Lord, : • $1^ I pledge to you my knightly word, .»" i That, when I saw his placid grace, y f ♦ His simple majesty of face, His solemn bearicg, and his pace So stately gliding on, — £ Seemed to me ne'er did limner paint So just an iiiiage of the Saint, Who propped the Virgin in her faint, — ■ The loved Apostle John ! ; , He stepped before the Monarch's chair, xtM And stood with rustic plamnesa there, . / And little reverence made , Is of head, nor body, bowaO nor bent, ■ /[ But on the desk his arm he leant, . s5 And words like these he said, In a low voice, — but never tone ' So thrilled through vein, and nerve, and bone: — r I CANTO IV. 63 " My mother sent me from afar, Sir King, to warn thee not to war, — 10 Woe waits on thine array; ' If war thou wilt, of woman fair, , * Her witching wiles and w^anton snare, ' I - - James Stuart, doubly warned, beware : God keep thee as he may ! " — ; • 15 The wondering Monarch seemed to seek v - For answer, and found none ; ; ^ ' And when he raised his head to speak, The monitor was gone. The Marshal and mvself had cast 20 To stop him as he outward past ; But, lighter than the whirlwind's blast, He vanished from our eyes, * I>ike sunbppm on the billow cast, That glances ]but, and dies. — 25 While Lindesay told this marvel strange, xviii The tw^ilight was so pale, He marked not Marmiou's colour change. While listening to the tale : But, after a suspended pause, 5 The Baron spoke': — " Of NatiU'e'a laws So strong I held the force. That never superhuman cause Could e'er control their course ; And, three days since, had judged your aim 10 Was but to make your guest your game. But I have seen, since past the Tweed, What much has changed my sceptic creed, And made me credit aught." — He staid, And seemed to wish his words unsaid : 16 •But, by that strong emotion pressed, Which prompts us to unload our breast, Even When discovery's pain, > " ■ ' . \ \ \ \ fi MARMION* To Lindesay did at length unfold The tale his village host had told, 20 At Gifford, to his train. — : Nought of the Palmer says he there, And nought of Constance, or of Clare : The thoughts, which broke his sleep, he seems V? To mention but a.s feverish dreams. 25 ''In vain," said he, " to rest I spread : . xix My burning limbs, and couched my head: Fantastic thoughts returned ; _■■> _ And, by their wild dominion led, My heart within me burned. . > 5 So sore was the delirious goad, , I took my steed, and forth I rode, / And, as the moon shone bright and cold, ,' Soon reached the camp upon the wold. The southern entrance I passed through, 10 And halted, and my bugle blew. ; , Me thought an answer met my ear, — Yet was the blast so low and drear. So hollow, and so faintly blown, - ■-■ It might be echo of my own. 15 Tnus judging, for a little space xx I listened, ere I left the place ; But scarce could trust my eyes, Nor yet can think they served me true, When sudden in the ring I view, 6 In form distinct of shape and hue, A mounted champion rise. — IVe fought, Lord-Lion, many a day, In single fight, and mixed affray, And ever I myself may say, 10 Have borne me as a knight ; But when this unexpected foe Seemed starting from the gulf below, — I care not though the truth I show, — I trembled with affright j 15 / • X \ >l § \ CANTO IV. 65 And as I placed in rest my spear, My hand so shook for very fear, I scarce could couch it right. Why need my tongue the issue tell ? xxi , We ran our course, — my charger fell ; — What could he 'gainst the shock of hell ? — I rolled upon the plain. High o'er my head, with threatening hand, 6 The spectre shook his naked brand, — Yet did the worst remain ; My dazzled eyes I upward cast, — Not opening hell itself could blast Their sight, like what I saw I lt> Full on his face the moonbeams strook, — A face could never be mistook I I knew the stern vindictive look, >• And held my breath for awe. I saw the face of one who, fled IS To foreign climes, has long been dead, — c":, y I well believe the last; For ne'er, from viso • raised, did stare = ;.- A human warrior, with a glare \ So grimly and so ghast. 20 Thrice o'er my head he shook the blade ; But when to good Saint George I prayt d, . (T^e first time e'er I asked his aid,) Be plunged it in the sheath ; And, on his courser mounting light, 25 He setmed to vanish from my sight : The moonbeam drooped, and deepest night Sunk down upon the heath. — 'Twere Icng to tell what cause I have To know his face, that met me there, 90 Called by his hatred from the grave To cuu^er upper air : \ 6§ MARMIOX. Dead or alive, good cause had lie uV To be my mortal enemy."— .. . r-i Marvelled Sir David of the Mount J - T xxii Then, learned in story, 'gan recount •• : Such chance had happ'd of old, i ' V? "When once, near Norham, there did fight A spectre fell of fiendish might, : ' 5 In likeness of a Scottish knight, ; - -v "With Brian Bulmer bold, ' And trained LiDi nigh to disallow / The aid of bin baptismal vow. *' And such a phantom, too, 'tis said, 10 With Highland broadsword, targe, and plaid, And fingors red with gore, Is seen in Kothiemurciis glade, / Or where the sable pine-trees shade Dark Tomantoul, and Auchnaslaid 35 Dromouchty, or Glenmore. And yet, whate'er such legends say, Of warlike demon, ghost, or fay, On mountain, moor, or plain, Spotless in faith, in bosom bold, ■ 20 True son of cliivalry should hold These midnight terrors vain ; For seldoAi have such spirits power To harm, save in the evil hour When guilt we meditate within, 25 Or harbour unrepented sin." — Lord Marmion turned him ' ilf aside. And wice to clear his voice he tried, Then pressed Sir David's hand, — But nought, at length, in answer said ; 80 And here their farther converse staid. Each ordering that his band Should bowne them with the rising (iay. To Scotland's camp to tiike their war, — Such was the King's command. CANTO IV. . . 67 Eaklt thev took Dun-Edin's road, xxiii And I could trace each step they trode; Hill, brook, nor dell, nor rock, nor stone, Lies on the path to me unknown. Much might it boast of storied lorej " 5 But, passing such digression o'er, v . : Suffice it that their route was laid - Across the furzy hills of Braid. ■•■". ; . ' They passed the glen and scanty lill, -; ^^^ And climbed the opposing bank, until : ^ - ( Kl They gained the top of Blackford Hill. r.:i Blackfoed ! on whose uncultured breast, xxiv Among the broom, and thorn, and whin, A truant-boy, I sought the nest, Or listed, as I lay at rest, While rose, on breezes thin, 6 The murmur of the city crowd, And, from his steeple jangling loud, Saint Giles's mingling din. Now from the summit to the plain. Waves all the hill with yellow grain ; 10 And o'er the landscape as I look. Nought do I see unchanged remain. Save the rude cliffs and chiming brook. To me they make a heavy moan Of early friendships past and gone. 15 But different far the change has been, xxv Since Marmion, from the crown Of Blackford, saw that martial scene Upon the bent so brown : Thousand pavilions, white as snow, 5 Spread all the Borough Moor below, Upland, and dale, and down : A thousand did I say ? I ween. Thousands on thousands there were peen, That chequered all the heath betvv ?en 10 F 2 68 MARMION. The streamlet and the town ; lu crossing ranks extending far, Forming a camp irregular ; Oft giving way, where still there stood Some relics of the old oak-wood, i VS^ That darkly huge did intervene, - < And tamed the glaring -w hite with green : In these extended lines there lay » A martial kingdom's vast array. ^^ ^^-v For from Hebudes, dark with rain, ' xxvi To eastern Lodon's fertile plain, . ; ;' And from the southern Redswire edge, . . To farthest Rosse's rocky ledge ; From west to east, from south to north, $- Scotland sent all her warriors forth. Marmion might hear the mingled hum ^r > Of myriads up the mountain come; The horses' tramp, and tingling clank, Where chiefs reviewed their vassal rank, < 10 And charger's shrilling neigh ; -« And see the shifting lines advance, While frequent flashed, from shield and lance, The sun's reflected ray. Thin curling in the morning air, xxvii The wrt iths of failing smoke declare, To embers now the brands decayed. Where the night-watch their fires had made. , They saw, slow rolling on the plain, 5 Full many a baggage-cart and wain, And dire artilleiy's clumsy car, By sluggish oxen tugged to war ; And there were Borth wick's Sisters Seven, And culverins which France had given. 10 Ill-omened gift ! the guns remain The conqueror's spoil on Flodden plain. CANTO IV. 69 Nor marked they less, where in the air xxviii A thousand streamers tiaunted fair ; Various in shape, device, and hue, Green, sanguine, purple, red, and blue, : ., Broad, narrow, Bwallow-taiied, and square, 6 Scroll, pennon, pensil, bandrol, there O'er the pavilions flew. Highest, and midmost, was descried The royal banner floating wide : The staff, a pine-tree strong and straight, 10 Pitched deeply in a massive stone, Which still in memory is shown. Yet bent beneath the standard's weight. Whene'er the western wind unrolled, With toil, the huge and cumbrous fold, 15 And grave to view the dazzling field. Where, in proud Scotland's royal shield. The ruddy Lion ramped in gold. Lord Marmion view'd the landscape bright, — xxix He viewed it with a chief's delight, — Until within him burned his heart, And lightning from his eye did part, As on the battle-day ; 6 Such glance did falcon never dart, When stooping on his prey. — " Oh ! well, Lord-Lion, hasc thou said, Thy King from warfare to dissuade Were but a vain essay; 10 For, by Saint George, were that host mine. Not power infernal, nor divine. Should once to peace my soul incline, Till I had dimmed their armour's shine. In glorious battle-fray ! " — 13 Answ red the bard, of milder mood : *' Fair is the sight, — and yet 'twere good, That kings would think withal^ 70 MAKMION. When peace and wealth their land has blessed, *Tis better to sit still at rest, 20 Than rise, perchance to fall." — J^ Still on the spot Lord Marmion stayed, xxx [ For fairer scene he ne'er surveyed, I When, sated with the martial sh.ow That peopled all the plain below, ' The wandering eye could o'er it go, 6 And mark the distant city glow With gloomy splendour red; For on the smoke-wreaths, huge and slow, That round her sable turrets flow, ■; The morning beams were shed, ^' 10 And tinged them with a lustre proud. Like that which streaks a thunder-cloud. '" Such dusky grandeur clothed the height, ' ;' Where the huge castle holds its state, And all the steep slope down, 15 Whose ridgy back heaves to the skj'-, Piled deep and massy, close and high, Mine own romantic town ! But northward far, with purer blaze. On Ochil mountains fell the ravs, 20 And as each heathy top they kissed, It gleamed a purple amethyst. Yonder the shores of Fife you saw ; Here Preston- Bay, and Berwick-Law ; And, broad between them rolled, 25 The gallant Firth the eye might note, Whose islands on ;ts bosom float, Like emeralds chased in gold^ V^ Fitz-Eustace' hej^rt felt closely pentj As if to give his rapture vent, 80 The spur he to his charger lent. And raised his bridle-h.md. CANTO IV. 71 And, malving demi-volte in air, Cried, " Where's the coward that would not daro To fight for such a land ! " ' G5 The Lindesay smiled his joy to see ; Nor Marmion's frown repressed his gleo. : I Tnus while they looked, a flourish proud, xxxi Where mingled trump, and clarion loud, , , And fife, and kettle-drum, < ,, -j And sackbut deep, and psaltery, • - And war-pipe with discordant cry, '/ ^ , 1^ And cymbal clattering to the sky, ^ . ^ .; * Making wild music bold and high, , . M Did up the mountain come ; . ' The whilst the bells, with distant chime, '~M ■ Merrily tolled the hour of prime, 10 And thus the Lindesay spoke : — " Thus clamour still the war-notes when The King to mass his way has ta'en, Or to Saint Catherine's of Sienne, Or Chapel of Saint Kocqu j. 15 To you they speak of martial fame ; But me remind of peaceful game. When blither was their cheer. Thrilling in Falkland-woods the air, In signal none his steed should spare, 20 But strive which foremost might repair To the downfall of the deer. " Nor less," he said, — " when looking forth, xxxii I view yon Empress of the North Sit on her hilly throne ; Her palace's imperial bowers. Her castle proof to hostile powers, 6 Her stately halls and holy towers — Nor less,'' he said, *' I moan, 72 MARMION. To thiuk what woe mischance may bring, And how these merry bells may ring The death-dirge of our gallant King ; 10 Or, with their larum, call The burghers forth to watch and ward, 'Gainst Southern sack and fires to guard Dun-Edin's leaguered wall. — But not for my presaging thought, 15 Dream conquest sure, or cheaply bought ! Lord Marmion, I say nay : — God is the guider of the field, He breaks the champion's spear and shield, — But thou thyself shalt say, 20 "When joins yon host in deadly stowre, Thrtt England's dames must weep in bower, Her monks the death-mass sing ; For never saw'st thou such a power Led on by such a King." — 25 And now, down winding to the plain, The barriers of the camp they gain, And there thev made a stay. — There stays the Minstrel, till he riing His hand o'er every Border string, dO And fit his harp the pomp to sin^, Of Scotland's ancient Court and King, In the succeeding lay. 3 CANTO V. THE COURT, The train has left the hills of Braid ; i The barrier guard have open made, (So Lindesay bade), the palisade, That closed the tented ground ; Their men the warders backward drew, 5 And carried pikes , j they rode through, Into its ample bound. Fast ran the Scottish wan-iors there, Upon the Southern baua to stare ; And envy with their wonder rose, 10 To see such well-appointed foes ; Such length of shafts, such mighty bowS; So huge, that many simply thought. But for a vaunt such weapons wrought ; And little deemed their force to feel, 13 Through links of mail, and plates of steel, When, rattling upon Flodden vale. The cloth-yard arrows flew like hail. Nor less did Marmion's skilful view ii Glanco every line and squadron through ; And much he marvelled one small land Could marshal forth such various band : For men-at-arms were here, 6 Heavily sheathed in mail and plate, Like iron towers for strength and weight, On Flemish steeds of bone and height, With baitleaxe and spear. 74 MARMION. Young kniglits and squires, a lighter trai.i, 10 Practised their chargers on the phiiii, • liy aid of leg, of hand, and rein, Eu,c^ warlike feat to show ; To pft&s, to w?«.eel, the croupe to gain, AiiJ high curvet, that not in vain 15 The sword-sway might descend amain On foeman's casque below, lie saw the hardy burghers there March armed, on foot, with faces bare, For visor they wore none, 20 Nor waving plume, nor crest of knight ; But burnished were their corslets bright, Their brigandines, and gorgets light, Like very silver shone. Long pikes they had mr standing fight, 25 Two-handed swords they wore. And many wielded mace of weight. And bucklers bright they bore. Ojf foot the yeoman too, but dressed iii In his steel jack, a swarthy vbot, With iron quilted well ; Each at his back (a slender store), His forty days' provision bore, 6 As feudal statutes tell. His arms were halberd, axe, or spv^ar, A crossbow there, a hagbut here, A dagger-knife, and brand. — Sober ho seemed, and sad of cheer, 10 As loth to leave his cottage dear, And march to foreign strand ; Or musing, who would guide his steer, To till the fallow Isnd. Yet deem not in his thoughtful eyo 15 Did aught of dastard terror lie ; More di-eadful far his ire, CANTO V. 75 Than theirs, who, scorning danger's name, In eager mood to battle came, Their valour, like light straw on flame, 20 A fierce but fading fire. Not so the Borderer : — ^bred to war, iv He knew the battle's din afar. And joyed to hear it swell. His peaceful day was slothful ease ; Nor harp nor pipe his ear could please 6 Like the loud slogan yell. On active steed, with lance and blade. The light-armed pricker plied his trade,— Let nobles fight for fame ; Let vassals follow where they lead, 10 Burghers, to guard their townships, bleed, But war's the Borderer's game. Their gain, their glory, their delight, To sleep the day, maraud the night, O'er mountain, moss, and moor j 15 Joyful to fight they took their way, Scarce caring who might win the day, Their booty was secure. These, as Lord Mannion's train passed by. Looked on at first with careless eye, 20 Nor marvelled aught, well taught to know The form and force of English bow. • But when they saw the Lord arrayed In splendid arms and rich brocade. Each Borderer to his kinsman said, — 25 " Hist, Ringan ! seest thou there ! Canst guess which road they'll homeward rido ?— Oh I could we but on I 'order side, llj Eusedale glen, or Liddell's tide, Beset a prize so fair ! SO 76 MAMHON. That fangless Lion, too, their guide, Might chance to lose his glistering hide ; Brown Maudlin, of that doublet pied, Could make a liirtle rare." Next, Marmion marked the Celtic race, y Of different language, form, and face, A various race of man ; Just then the chiefs their tribes arrayed. And wild and garish semblance made, 5 The chequered Irews, and belted plaid, And varying notes the war-pipes brayed, To every varying clan ; Wild through their red or sable hair Looked out their eyes, with savage stare, 10 On Marmion as he ppst ; Their legs above the knee were bare : Their frame was sinewy, short, and spare, And hardened to the blast ; Of taller race, the chiefs they own 15 "Were by the eagle's plumage known. The hunted red-deer's undressed hide Their hairy buskins well supplied ; The graceful bonnet decked their head ; Back from their shoulders hung the phiid ; 20 A broadsword of unwieldy length, A dagger proved for edge and strength, A studded targe they wore, And quivers, bows, and shafts, — but, oh ! Short was the shaft, and weak the bow, 35 To that which England bore. The Isles-men carried at their backs The ancient Danish battleaxe. They raised a wild and wondering cry, As with his guide rode Marmion by. 30 Loud were their clamouring tongues, as when The clanging sea-fowl leave the fen^ CANTO V. ' 77 And, witb their cries discordant mixed, Grumbled and yelled the pipes betwixt. Thus through the Scottish camp they passed, ti And reached the City gate at last, Where all around, a wakeful guard. Armed burghers kept their watch and ward. "Well had they cause of jealous fear, 6 When lay encamped, in field so near, The Borderer and the Mountaineer. As through the bustling streets they go, All was alive with martial show ; At every turn, with dinning clang, 10 The armourer's anvil clashed and rar.g; Or toiled the swarthy smith, to wheel The bar that arms the charger's heel j Or axe, or faulchion, to the side Of jarring giindstone was applied. 15 Page, groom, and squire, with hurrying pace, Through street, and lane, and marketplace, Bore lance, or casque, or sword ; While burghers, with important face, Described each new-come lord, 20 Discussed his lineage, told his name, His following, and his warlike fame, llie Lion led to lodging meet, Which high o'erlooked the crowde'l street ; There must the Baron rest, 25 Till past the hour of vesper-tide, And then to Holy- Rood must ride, — Such was the King's behest. Meanwhile the Lion's care assigns A banquet rich, and costly wines, 30 To Marmion and his train ; And when the appointed hour succeeds. The Baron dons his peaceful weeds, A.nd following Lindesay as he leadSj 78 MARMION. The palace-halls they gain. 85 Old Holy-Rood rung merrily, Tii That night, with wassell, mirth, and glee; King James within her princely bower Feasted the chiefs of Scotland's power, Summoned to spend the parting hour ; fi For he had charged, that his array Should southward march by break of day. Well loved that splendid monarch aye The banquet and the song, By day the tourney, and by night 10 The merry dance, traced fast and light. The masquers quaint, the pageant bright, The revel loud and long. This feast outshone his banquets past ; It was bis blithest, — and his last. 15 The dazzling lamps, from gallery gay, Cast on the court a dancing ray ; Here to the harp did minstrels sing ; There ladies touched a softer string ; With long-eared cap, and motley vest, 20 The licensed fool retailed his jest ; His magic tricks the j uggler plied ; At dice and draughts the gallants vied ; While some, in close recess apart. Courted the ladies of their heart, 25 Nor courted them in vain ; For often, in the parting hour, Victorious Love asserts hie power O'er coldness and disdain ; And flinty is her heart, can view 80 To battle march a lover true, — Can hear, perchance, his last adieu, Nor own her share of pain. Through: this mixed crowd of glee and game, viii The King to greet Lord Marmion came, CANTO V. 79 "While, reverend, all made room. An easy task it was, I trow. King James's manly form to know, 6 Although, his courtesy to show, He doffed, to Marmion bending low, His broidered cap and plume. For royal were his garb and mien, His cloak, of crimson velvet piled, 10 Trimmed with the fur of martin wild j His vest, of changeful satin sheen. The dazzled eye beguiled ; His gorgeous collar hung adown. Wrought with the badge of Scotland's crown, 15 The thistle brave, of old renown j His trusty blade, Toledo right, Descended from a baldric bright ; White were his buskins, on the heel His spurs inlaid of gold and steel j 20 His bonnet, all of crimson fair, W^as buttoned with a ruby rare : And Marmion deemed he ne'er had seen A prince of such a noble mien. The Monarch's form was middle size j ix For feat of strength, or exercise, Shaped in proportion fair ; And hazel was his eagle eye, And auburn of the darkest dye 6 His short curled beard and hair. Light was his footstep in the dance, And firm his stirrup in the lists ; And, oh ! he had that merry glance, That seldom ladv's heart resists. 10 Lightly from fair to fair he flew, And loved to plead, lament, and sue ; — Suit lightly won, and shortlived pain ! For monarchs seldom sigh in vain. 80 MARMION. I said he joyed in banquet bowor ; 16 But, 'mid his mirth, 'twas often strange, How suddenly his cheer would change, His look o'ercast and lower, If, in a sudden turn, he felt The presssure of his iron belt, 20 That b^una his breast in penance pain, In memory of his father slain. Even so 'twas strange how, evermore. Soon as the passing pang was o'er, Forward he rushed, with double glee, 26 Into the stream of revelry : Thus, dim-seen object of affright Startles the courser in his flight, And half he halts, half springs aside ; But feels the quickening spur applied, 80 And, straining on the tightened rein, Scours doubly swift o'er hill and plain. O'er James's heart, the courtiers sav, x Sir Hugh the Heron's wife held sway : To Scotland's Court she came, To be a hostage for her lord, Who Cessford's gallant heart had gored, 6 And with the King to make accord. Had sent his lovely dame. Nor to that lady free alone Did the gay King allegiance own j For the fair Queen of France 10 Sent him a turquois ring and glove, And chu,rged him, as her knight and love. For her to break a lance ; And strike three strokes with Scottish brand, And march three miles on Southron laud, 15 And ^""^ ' ^ V>aTiners of his band '''uglisti ureezes dance. CANTO V. 81 And thus, for France's Queen he drest " His manly limbs in mailed vest; And thus admitted English fair 20 His inmost counsels still to share ; And thus, for both, he madl}' planned The ruin of himself and land ! And yet, the sooth to tell, Nor England!s fair, nor France's Queen, 25 "Were worth one pearl-drop, bright and sheen, From Margaret's eyes that fell, — His own Queen Margaret, who, in Lithgow's bower, All lonely sat, and wept the weary hour. The Queen sits lone in Lithgow pile, xi And weeps the weary day, The war against her native soil, Her Monarch's risk in battle broil ; — And in gay Holy-Rcod, the while, 5 Dame Heron rises with a smile Upon the harp to play. Fair was her rounded arm, as o'er The strings her fingers flew ; And as she touched and tuned them all, 10 Ever her bosom's rise and fall Was plainer given to view ; For, all for heat, was laid aside, Her wimple, and her hood uutied. And first she pitched her voice to sing, 15 Then glanced her dark eye on the King, And then around the silent ring ; ^ And laughed, and blushed, and oft did say Her pretty oath, by Yea, and Nay, She could not, would' not, durst not play I 20 At length, upon the harp, with glee, Mingled with arch simplicity, A soft, yet lively, air she ruag. While thus the wily lady sung : — o 82 MARMION. LOCHINVAR. LADY nEROW's SONG. Oh, young Lochinvar is come out of the west, xii Through all the wide border his steed was the best ; And save his good broadsword he weapon had none, lie rode all unarmed, and he rode all alone. 80 faithful in love, and so dauntless in war, 6 There never was knight like the young Lochinvar. lie staid not for brake, and he stopped not for stone, He swam the Eske river where ford there was none; But, ere he alighted at Netherby gate. The bride had consented, the gallant ( anie late : 10 For a laggard in love, and a dastard in war, Was to wed the fair Ellen of brave Lochinvar. So boldly he entered the Netherby Hall, Amongbride's-men, and kinsmen, and brothers, and all : I'hen spoke the bride'3 father, his hand on his sword, 15 (For the poor craven bridegroom said never a word,) *' O come ye in peace here, or come ye in war. Or to dance at our bridal, young Lord Lochinvar ? " *' I long wooed your daughter, my suit you denied ; — Love swells like the Solway, but ebbs like its tide — 20 And now am I come, with this lost love of mine, To lead but one measure, drink one cup of wine. There are maidens in Scotland more lovely by far. That would gladly be bride to the young Lochinvar." The bride kissed the goblet ; the knight took it up, 25 He quaffed off the wine, and he threw down the cup : She looked down to blush, and she looked up to sigh. With a smile on her lips, and a tear in her eye. He took her soft hand, ere her mother could bar,—* " Now tread we a measure ! " said young Lochinvar. 30 So stately his form, and so lovely her face, That never a hall such a galliard did grace ; ^"^hile her mother did fret, and her father did fume* CANTO V. 83 Anp the bridegroom stood dangling liis bonnet and plume; And the bride-maidens whispered," 'Twere better by far*35 To have matched our fair cousin with young Lochinvar.'* One touch to her hand, and one word in her ear, When they reached the hall-door, and the charger stood near; So light to the croupe the fair lady he swung, So light to the saddle before her he sprung ! 40 " She is won ! we are gone, over bank, bush, and scaur ; They'll have fleet steeds that follow," quoth young Lochia\ar. There was mounting 'mong Graemes of the Netherby clan ; Forsters, FenwicVs^and Musgraves,they rode and they ran: There was racing, and chasing, on Cannobie Lee, 45 But the lost biide of Netherby ne'er did they see. So daring in love, and so dauntless in war, Have ye e'er heard of gallant like young Lochinvar ? The Monarch o'er the siren bung, xiii And beat the measure as she sung ; And, pressing closer, and more near. He whispered praises in her ear. In loud applause the courtiers vied ; 6 And ladies winked and spoke aside. The witching dame to Marraion threw A glance, where seemed to reign The pride that claims applauses due, And of her royal conquest too, 10 A real or feigned disdain : Familiar was the look, and told Marmion and she were friends of old. The King observed their meeting eyes, With something like displeased surprise ; 16 For monarchs ill can rivals brook, Even in a word, or smile, or look. Straight took he forth the parchment broad, 62 84 MARMION. Which Marmion's high commission shewed*. *' Our borders sacked bv many a raid, 20 - . Our peaceful liegemen robbed," he said ; "On day of truce our Warden shiin, Stout Barton killed, his vessels ta'en — > ' _ - . Unworthy were we here to rei^n, Should these for vengeance cry in vain ; 25 • Our full defiance, hate, and scorn, Our herald has to Henry borne." — He paused, and led where Douglas stood, xiv And with stem eye the pageant viewed : I mean that Douglas, sixth of yore, . . Who coronet of Angus bore, : ^ And, when his blood and heart were hiffh, 6 . Did the Third James in camp defy, . ^ . ; And all his minions led to die /a On Lauder's dreary flat : ' V ;*,i • - Princes and favourites long grew tame, And trembled at the homely name 10 Of Archibald Bell-the-Cat : The same who left the dusky vale Of Hermitage in Ijiddisdale, Its dungeons and its towers. Where Bothwell's turrets brave the air, 15 And Bothwell bank is blooming fair, To fix his princely bowers. Though now, in age, he had laid down His armour for the peaceful gowTi, And for a staff his brand, 20 Yet often would flash forth the fire, That could, in youth, a monarch's ire And minion's pride withstand ; And even that day, at council-board, Unapt to sooth his Sovereign's mood. Against the war had Angus stood. And chafed his royal Lord. CANTO V. S5 Ills giant form, like ruined tower, xv Though fallen its muscles' brawny vaunt, Huge boned, and tail, and grim, and guunt, deemed o'er the gaudy scene to lower: His locks and beard in silver grew ; 5 His eyebrows kept their sable hue. Near Douglas when the Monarch stood, His bitter speech he thus pursued : — " Lord Marmion, since these letters say That in the North you needs must stay, 10 "While slightest hopes of peace remain, Uncourteous speech it were, and stern, To say — Return to Lindisfarne, Until my herald come again. — Then rest you in Tantallon Hold, 15 Your host shall be the Douglas bold, — A chief unlike his sires of old. He wears their motto on his blade, Their blazon o'er his towers displayed j Yet loves his sovereign to oppose, •*' 5© More than to face his country's foes. ' , And, I bethink me, by Saint Stephen, But e'en this mom to me was given » - -?f A prize, the firstfruits of the war, Ta'en by a galley from Dunbar, v 25 A bevy of the maids of heaven. Under your guard these holy maids Shall safe return to cloister shades. And, while they at Tantallon stay, Kequiem for Cochran's soul may say." — 30 And, with the slaughtered favourite's name, Across the Monarch's brow there came A cloud of ire, remorse, and shame. In answer nought could Augus ?peak ; xyi His proud heart swelled wellnigh to break : He turned aside, a»d down his cheek 86 MARMION. A burning tear there stole. His hand the Monarch sudden took, . B That sight his kind heart could not brook : ** Now, by the Bruce's soul, Angus, my hasty speech forgive ! For sure as doth his spirit live, As he said of the Douglas old, 10 I well may say of you, — That never king did subject hold, In speech more free, in war more bold, More tender, and more true : Forgive me, Douglas, once again." — 15 And, while the King his hand did strain, The old man's tears fell down like rain. To seize the moment Marmion tried, And whispered to the King aside : — '* Oh ! let such tears unwonted plead 20 For respite short from dubious deed ! A child will weep a bramble's smart, A maid to see her sparrow part, A stripling for a woman's heart : , - But woe awaits a country, when ^ ,1 25 She sees the tears of bearded men. Then, oh ! what omen, dark and high, "When Douglas wets his manly eye ! " — Displeased was James, that stranger viewed xvii And tampered with his changing mood. *' Laugh those that can, weep those that may," ; . Thus did the fiery Monarch say, *' Southward I march by break of day j 6 And if within Tantallon strong, The good Lord Marmion tarries long, Perchance our meeting next may fall At Tamworth, in his castle-hall," Th« haughty Marmion felt the taunt, 10 And answered, grave, the royal vaunt : CANTO V. 87 *' Much honoured were my humble home, If in its hall King James should come j - But Nottingham hcis archers good, And Yorkshire men are stem of mood, 16 Northumbrian prickers wild and rude. V On Derby hills the paths are steep, . *^ V In Ouse and Tyne the fords are deep ; \;;^ And many a banner will be torn, ■ . I And many a knight to earth be borne, 20 And many a sheaf of arrows spent, Ere Scotland's King shall cross the Trent : Yet pause, brave prince, while yet you may." The Monarch lightly turned away, . And to his nobles loud did calL — 25 ^* Lords, to the dance,— a hall ! a hall ! " Himself his cloak and sword flung by. And led Dame Heron gallantly ; -^ And minstrels, at the royal order. Hung out — " Blue Bonnets o'er the Border." '"^O Leave we these revels now, to tell xviii What to Saint Hilda's maids befel, '*.. , Whose galley, as they sailed again To Whitby, by a Scot was ta'en. Now at Dun-Edin did they bide, 5 Till James should of their fate decide j And soon, by his command. Were gently summoned to prepare To journey under Marmion's care, As escort honoured, safe, and fair, 10 Again to English land. The Abbess told her chaplet o'er, Nor knew which Saint she should implore ; For, when she thought of Constance, sore She feared Lord Marmion's mood. 15 And judge what Clara must have felt I The sword, that hung in Marmion's belt, 68 MARMION. Had drunk De Wilton's blood. Unwittinj^ly, Kin{? James had given, As guai'd to Whitby's shades, "' 20 The man most dreaded under hea.ven By these defenceless maids ; , . . . Yet what petition could avail, ; ;^ Or who would listen to the tale Of woman, prisoner and nun, 25 'Mid bustle of a war begun ? They deemed it hopeless to avoid The convoy of their dangerous guide. Their lodging, so the King assigned, xix To Marmion's, as their guardian, joined j '"■ And thus it fell that, passing nigh; - ' • ' The Palmer caught the Abbess' eye, ' -. Who warned him by a scroll, ^' : S She had a secret t o revea l, That much concerned ine Church's weal, t >- And Bealth of s inner s' soul; And, with deep cliarge of secrecy, She named a place to meet , 10 W ithin an open balcony, .■ That hung from dizzy pitch, and high, ^^ .>!"* , J?bove tlie stately street j *"^ ;-.; To which, as common to each home, ■ At night they migiit in secret come. ^ 15 At night, in secrel, there they Mine, xx The Palmer and the holy dame. The moon among the clouds rode high, And all the city hum was by. 't Upon the street, where Lite before 6 Did din of war and warriors roar, ^ You might have heard a pebble fall, A beetle hum, a cricket sing, ' An owlet flap his boding wing On Giles's steeple tall. 10 :>>'-^- »il*4'"-iA.- CANTO V. 89 The antique buildings, climbing high, '-A - Wliose Gothic frontlets sought the sky, -' Were here wrapt deep in shade ; There on their brows the moonbeam broke, Through the faint wreaths of silvery smoke, 15 And on the casements played. And other light was none to see, -J' Save torches gliding far. Before some chieftain of degi'ee, Who left the royal revelry 20 To bowne him for the war. — A solemn scene the Abbess chose ; > A solemn hour, her secret to disclose. "0 HOLY Palmer!" she began,— r xxi *' For sure he must be sainted man. Whose blessed feet have trod, the ground Where the Redeemer's tomb is found ; — For His dear Church's eake, my tale 6 Attend, nor deem of light avail, - ^ -■■^''^H ' Though I must speak of worldly love, — How v&in to those who wed above ! — De Wilton and Lord Marmion wooed Clara de Clare, of Glosler's blood ; 10 (Idle it were of Whitby's dame, To say of that same blood I came ;) And once, when jealous rage was high, Ijord Marmion said despiteously, Wilton was traitor in his heart, 16 And had made league with Martin Swart, When he came here on Simnel's part j And only cowardice did restrain His rebel aid on Stokefield's plain, — And down he threw his glove : — the tVlng 20 Was tried, as wont, before the King ; Where /rankly did T)e Wilton own. That Swart ha Quelders he had known ; 90 MARMION. And that between them then there w^nt Some scroll of courteous compliment. / For this he to his castle sent ; But when his messenger returned, Judge how De Wilton's fury burned I For in his packet there were laid Letters that claimed disloyal aid, $0 , And proved King Henry's cause betrayed. His fame, thus blighted, in the field He strove to clear, by spear and shield ; — To clear his fame in vain he strove, For wondrous are His ways above ! , . SS Perchance some form was unobserved ; - Perchance in prayer, or faith, he swerved ; Else how could guiltless champion quail, Or how the blessed ordeal fail ? His squire, who now De Wilton saw xxii .' As recreant doomed to suffer law, ; . Kepentant, owned in vain, - That, while he had the scrolls in care, =. ; • A stranger maiden, passing f^dr, Ji Had drenched him with a beverage rare j — ::\ His words no faith could gain. ^ ' "^ ^ With Clare alone he credence won, :v> - Who, rather than wed Marmion, Did to Saint Hilda's shrine repair, 10 To give our house her livings fair, And die a vestal vot'ress there. The impulse from the earth was given, But bent her to the paths of heaven. A purer heart, a lovelier maid, 16 Ne'er sheltered her in Whitby's shade. No, not since Saxon Edelfled; Only one trace of earthly strain, That for her lover's loss . She cherishes a sorrow vain« * 20 TAMO V. 91 And murmurs at the cros3. — . And then her heritage ; — it goes Along the banks of Tame ; Deep fields of grain the reaper mow?, In meadows rich the heifer lows, 25 The falconer and huntsman knows Its woodlnnds for the game. '' * Shame were it to Saint Hilda dear, ^ And I her humble vot'ress here Should do a deadly sin, 30 Her temple spoiled before mine eyes, If this false Marmion such a prize By my consent should win ; ' . . Yd hath our boisterous Monarch sworn, - That Clare shall from our house be torn ; 9S And grievous cause have I to fear, , Such mandate doth Lord Marmion bear. Now, PKISONER, helpless, and betrayed xxiii To evil power, I claim thine aid. By every step that thou hast trod To holy shrine and grotto dim, v' By every martyr's tortured limb, -: S By angel, saint, and seraphim, . ^ And by the Church of God ! • • ' ■ " ' ^ For mark : — When Wilton was betrayed, ■';^;, And with his squire forged letters laid, ' .> She was, alas ! that sinful maid, ■ - ; ^ j.^ . Jjl By whom the deed was done, — ? Oh I shame and horror to be said ! — She was a perjured nun : No clerk in all the land, like her, Traced quaint and varying character. 16 Perchance you may a marvel deem, That Marmion 's paramour, (For such vile thing she was,) should scheme Her lover's nuptial hour j 02 MARMIOX. But o'er him tljus she hoped to gam, -90 As privy to his honour's stain, Illimitable power : For this she secretly retained ' Each proof that mig-ht the plot revtial, • Instructions with his hand and seal ; 95 And thus Saint Hilda deigned, Through sinner's perfidy impure, * ■ Her house's glory to secure, And Clare's immortal weal. 'TwERE long, and needless, here to tell, xxiv How to my hand these papers fell ; With me they must not stay. . Saint Hilda keep her Abbess true ! Who knows what outrage he might do, 6 While journey icg by the way ? — * O blessed Saint, if e'er again . ; . , I venturous leave thy calm domain, To travel or by land or main, , ' - Deep penance may I pay ! — 10 Now, sainth'' Palmer, mark my prayer: • I give this pncket to thy care, - < . , 5 For thee to stop they will not dare ; ,: ^^ ?_ ^ And oh ! with cautious speed, ;? To Wolsey's hand the papers bring, . n ; ^ W^ That he may show them to the King; jk ■ And, for thy well-earned meed, t Thou holy man, at Whitby's shrine A weekly mass shall still be thine, While priests can sing and read. — 20 What ail'st thou ?— Speak ! " — For as he took The charge, a strong emotion shook His frame ; and, ere reply, They heard a faint, yet shrilly tone, Lilce distant clarion feebly blown, 25 That on the breeze did die j CANTO V. ^ 93 t And loud the Abbess shrieked in fear, *' Saint With old save us ! — What is here t Look at yon City Cross ! See on its battled tower appear 30 Phantoms, that scutcheons seem to rear, And blazoned banners toss ! '' — Dun-Edin's Cross, a pillared stone, xxv Rose on a turret octagon ; (But now is razed that monument, Whence roval edict rangr, And voice of Scotland's law was sent 6 In glorious trumpet clang. Oh ! be his tomb as lead to lead, • Upon its dull destroyer's head ! — A minstrel's mahson is said. — ) -j , : Then on its battlements they saw > 10 A vision, passjing Nature's law, Strange, wild, and dimly seen ; • - Figures that seemed to rise and die. Gibber and sign, advance and fly, While nought confirmed could ear or eye 15 Discern of sound or mien. Yet darkly did it seem, as there Heralds and pursuivants prepare, With trumpet sound and blazon fair, A summons to proclaim; 20 But indistinct the pageant proud, As fancy forms of midnight cloud, When flings the moon upon her shroud , A wavering tinge of flame ; , ' - It flits, expands, and shifts, till loud, 25 From midmost of the spectre crowd, This awfiil summons came : — -> ^.^ " Prince, prelate, potentate, and peer, xxvi Whose names I now shall call, Scottish, or foreigner, give ear 1 t4 MARMION. Subjects of him who sent me here, At his tribunal to appear, 5 I summon one and all : I cite you by each deadly sin. That e'er hath soiled your hearts within ; I cite you by each brutal lust, That e'er defiled your earthly dust, — 10 By wrath, by pride, by fear, By each o'ermaatering' passion's tone, hy the dark grave, and dying groan ! • ' When forty days are past and gone, I cite you, at your Monarch's throne, 15 To answer and appear." — • Then thundered forth a roll of names : — The first was thine, unhappy James ! V s Then all thy nobles came ; Crawford, Glencaim, Montrose, Argj^le, 20 Ross, Bothwell, Forbes, Lennox, Lyle, — "Why should I tell their separate style? Each chief of birth and fame, Of Lowland, Highland, Border, Isle, Foredoomed to Flodden's carnage pile, 25 Was cited there by name j And Marmion, Lord of Fontenaye, - "V' i Of Lutterward, and Scrivelbaye, t, De Wilton, erst of Aberley, The selfsame thundering voice did say. — 80 But then another spoke : " Thy fatal summons I deny, And thine infernal lord defy, ' Appealing me to Him on High, Who burst the sinner's yoke." — 36 At that dread accent, with a scream, Parted the pageant like a dream, The summoner was gone. Prone on her face the Abbess fell, CANTO T. 95 And fast, and fast, her beads did tell ; 40 Her nuns camft, startled by the yell, . And found her there alone. She marked not, at the scene aghast, What time, or how, the Palmer passed. Shipt we the scene. — The camp doth move, xxvii Dun-Edin's streets are empty now, Save when, for weal of those they love, To pray the prayer, and vow the vow, The tottering child, the anxious fair, 5 The grey-haired sire, with pious care, To chapels and to shrines repair. — Where is the Palmer now, and where The Abbess, Marmion, and Clare ? — Bold Douglas ! to Tantallon fair, ■ ■ . i ' 10 They journey in thy charge : Lord Marmion rode on his right hand, The Palmer still was with the band; ' Angus, like Lindesay, did jcommand, That none should roam at large. ?v-_i 15 But in that Palmer's altered mien ^ ' . A wondrous change might now be seen; * Freely he spoke of war. Of marvels wrought by single hand, When lifted for a native land ; 20 And still looked high, as if he planned Some desperate deed afar. His courser w^ould he feed and stroke, And, tucking up his sable frocke, Would first his mettle bold provoke, 25 Then sooth or quell his pride. Old Hubert said, that never one He saw, except Lord Marmion, A steed so fairly ride. Some half-hour's march behind, there came, xx viii By Eustace governed fair, 9G MAHMIOX. A troop efcnrhng Hilda's Dame, With all her nuns, and Clare. No audience had Lord Maruiion sought j 5 Ever he feared to aggravate Clara de Clare's suspicious hate ; And safer 'twas, he thought, • To wait till, from the nuns removed, The influence of kinsmen Icved, IC And suit by Henry's self approver], Her slow consent had wrought. His was no flickering flame, that dies / Unless when fanned by looks and sighs, And lighted oft at lady's eyes ; 15 He longed to stretch his wide command O'er luckless Clara's ample land : Besides, when Wilton with him vied, Although the pang of humbled pri,Ie , The place of jealousy supplied, 20 Yet conquest, by that meanness won Ho almost loathed to think upon. Led him, at times, to hate the cause, Which made him burst through honour'.'? laws. If e'er he loved, 'twas her alone, 25 Who died within that vault of stone. - v" And now, when close at hand thev saw xxix North Berwick's town, and lofty Law, Fitz-Eurftace bade them pause a wliile, : ^ " Before a venerable pile, Whose turrets viewed, afar, 5 The lofty Bass, the Lambie Isle, The ocean'g peace or war. At tolling of a bell, forth caTne The convent's venerable Dame, And prayed Saint Hilda's Abbess rest 10 With her, a loved and honoured guest, Till Douglas should a bark prepare. CANTO V. 07 To waft hor back to Whitby fair. Glad was the Abbess, you may guess, And thanked the Scottish Prioress; 15 And tedious were to tell, I ween, The courteous speech that passed between, O'erjoyed the nuns their palfreys leave j But when fair Clara did intend, Like them from horseback to descend, 20 Fitz-Eustace said, — " I grieve. Fair lady, grieve e'en from my heart, Such gentle company to part : — Think not discourtesy, But lords' commands must be obeyed ; 25 And Marmion and the Douglas said, That you must wend wdth me, Lord Marmion hath a letter broad. Which to the Scottish Earl he shewed, Commanding that, beneath his care, SO Without delay, you shall repair, To your good kinsman. Lord Fitz-Clare." — The startled Abbess loud exclaimed ; xxx But she, at whom the blow was aimed. Grew pale as death, and cold as lead, — She deemed she heard her death-doom read. " Cheer thee, my child ! " the Abbess said, .0 " They dare not tear thee from my bond, . To ride alone with armed baud." — " Nay, holy mother, nay," Fitz-Eustace said ; "the lovely Clare Will be in Ladv Angus' care, 10 In Scotland while we stay ; And, when we move, an easy ride Will bring us to the English side, Female attendance to provide Befitting Gloster's heir ; 15 H 98 MAEMION. Nor thinks, nor dreams, my noble lord, By slightest look, or act, or -^ord, To harass Lady Clare. Her faithful guardian he will be, Nor sue for slightest courtesy 20 That e'en to stranger falls. Till he shall place her, safe and free. Within her kinsman's halls." — ITe spoke, and blushed with earnest grace j His faith was painted on his face, 25 And Clare's worst fear relieved. - ; The Lady Abbess loud exclaimed On Henry, and the Douglas blamed, Entreated, threatened, grieved ; ■ i. To martyr, saint, and prophet prayed, SO Against Lord Marmion inveighed, And called the Prioress to aid, To curse with candle, bell, and book. Her head the grave Cistercian shook : ** The Douglas and the King," she said, ^V 35 *'In their commands will be obeyed ; Grieve not, nor dream that harm can fall The maiden in Tantallon Hall." — The Abbess, seeing strife was vain, xxxi Assumed her wonted state again, — For much of state she had, — Composed her veil, and raised her head. And — " Bid," in solemn voice she siiid, 6 " Thy master, bold and bad. The records of his house turn o'er, And, when he shall there written see, That one of his own ancestry '• Drove the Monks forth of Coventry, 10 Bid him his fate explore ! Prancinpf in pride of earthly trust, CANTO V. 99 His charger hurled him to the dustj, And, by a base plebeian thrust/ He died his band before. , 15 God judge 'twixt Marmioa and me ; He is a chief of high degree, And I a poor recluse ; Yet oft, in holy writ, we see ' Even such weak minister as me - . 20 May the oppressor bruise : • For thus, inspired, did Judith slay The mighty in his sin, And Jael thus, and Deborah," — Here hasty Blount broke in : 25 " Fitz-Eustace, we must march our band ; Saint Anton' fire thee ! wilt thou stand All day, with bonnet in thy hand. To hear the Lady preach ? • , By this good light ! if thus we stay, 30 Lord Marmion, for our fond delay, . . : Will sharper sermon teach. Come, don thy cap, and mount thy horse ; The Dame must patience take perforce."^- *' Submit we then to force," said Clare j xxxii " But let this barbarous lord despair His purposed aim to win : ? Let him take living, land, and life j But to be Marmion's wedded wife i $■' In me were deadly sin : And if it be the King's decree, > ^ v * " That I must find no sanctuary, ^ In that inviolable dome, "Where even a homicide might come, 10 And safely rest his head. Though at its open portals stood. Thirsting to pour forth blood for blood, The kinsmen of the dead j u2 100 MARMION. Yet one asylum is my own, 15 Against the dreaded hour; A low, a silent, and a lone, Where kings have little power. - ■ > One victim is before me there. — Mother, your bles^sing, and in prayer 20 Remember your unhappy Clare ! ' — Loud weeps the Abbess, and bestows Kind blessings many a one ; Weeping and wailing loud arose Eound patient Clare, the clamorous woes 25 Of every simple nun. - - "* His eyes the gentle Eustace dried. And scarce rude Blount the sight could bide. Then took the squire her rein, « And gently led away her steed, > ■ 30 And, by each courteous word and deed. To cheer her strove in vain. But scant three miles the band had rode, xixiii When o'er a height they passed, And sudden, close before them showed, His towers, Tantallon vast ; Broad, massive, high, and stretching far, < - ■ ' 6 And held impregnable in war. f On a projecting rock they rose, ' . And round three sides the ocean flows ; T ; i The fourth did battled walls inclose. And double mound and fosse. 10 By narrow drawbridge, outworks strong, Through studded gates, an entrance long, To the main court they cross. It was a wide and stately square : Around were lodging, fit and fair, 15 And towers of various form, - Which on the comi; projected far, . And broke its lines quadrangular. CANTO V. 101 Here was square keep, there tuiTet liig-li, Or pinnacle that sought the skj, 20 AVhence oft the Warder could descry The gathering ocean-storm. "^ Here did they rest. — The princely care xxxiv Of Douglas, why s^hoald I declare, Or say they met reception fair? - ■ . Or why the tidings say, • K ^; ; Which, varying, to Tantallon came, '• 5 By hurrying posts, or fleeter fame, With every varying day ? " - And, first, they heard King James had won Etall, and Wark, and Ford ; and then, That Norham Castle strong was ta'en. |Q At that sore marvelled Marmion : — And Douglas hoped his Monarch's hand Would soon suhdue Northumberland : But whispered news there came, That, while his host mactive lay, 1$ And melted by degrees away, King James was dallying off the day With Heron's wily dame. — , Such acts to chronicles I yield ; Go seek them there, and see : Sft Mine is a tale of Flodden Field, s^ And not a history.— At lenjrth thev heai-d the Scottish host On that high ridge had made their post, Which frowns o'er Millfield Plnin ; - 26 And that brave Surrey many a band Had gathered in the Southern land, And marched into Northumberland, And camp at Wooler ta'en. Marmion, like charger in the stall, 80 That hears, without, the trumpet-call, Began to chafe, and swear : — 102 MARMION. " A sorry thing to hide my head In castle, like a fearful maid, When such a field is near ! 86 Needs must I see this battle-day: Death to my fame, if such a fray Were fought, and Mamiion away ! The Douglas, too, 1 wot not why, Hath 'bated of his courtesy : * ." 40 No longer in his halls I'll stay." — Then bade his band they should array For march against the dawning day. *i*«' -.-: t->::'^*^»4-i'. 103 , • •■ -■ CANTO VI. >}■-*'-": I THE BATTLE. "While great events were on the gale, S And each hour brought a varying tale, And the demeanour, changed and cold, Of Douglas fretted Marmion bold, And, like the impatient steed of war, ' W. He snuffed the battle from afar ; And hopes were none, that back again Herald should come from Terouenne, Where England's King in leaguer lay, Before decisive battle- day ; 10 While these thmgs were, the mournful Clai'e Did in the Dame's devotions share : For the good Countess ceaseless prayed, ' ' - To Heaven and Saints, her sens to aid, ' And, with short interval, did pass • Jj^ From prayer to book, from book to mass, And all in high baronial pride, A life both duU and dignified ; Yet as Lord Marmion nothing pressed Upon her intervals of rest, ^ 20 Dejected Clara well could bear S^~~-l-.«. The formal state, the lengthened prayer, Though dearest to her wounded heart The hours that she might spend apart. I SAID, Tantallon's dizzy steep li Hung o'er the margin of the deep 101 MARMION. Many a rude tower and rampart there Ilepelled the insult of the air, "Which, when the tempest vexed the sLv, 5 Half breeze, half spray, came whistling ly. Above the rest, a turret square Bid o'er its Gothic entrance boar, Of sculpture rude, a stony shield ; , , The Bloody Heart was in the field, 10 And in the chief three mullets stood, The cognisance of Douglas blood. The turret held a narrow stair - - ' Which, mounted, gave you access, where A parapet's embattled row ^ ..-. . . ,15 Did seaward round the castle go; ; Sometimes in dizzy steps descending, \ • Sometimes in narrow circuit bending, Sometimes in platibrm broad extending, 4 Its varying circle did combine Tl; 20 Bulwark, and bartlsan, and line, And bastion, tower, and vantage-coign ; Above the booming ocean leant :, The far-projecting battlement ; " -^iVjrjI The billows burst, in ceaseless flow, -■; ;; ft ? 2S . Upon the precipice below. r li '> Where'er Tantallon faced the land, ' ' ' Gate-works, and walls, were strongly manned j !No need upon the sea-girt side ; i ' a ! »^. The steepy rock, and frantic tide, : j. rC 90 Approach of human step denied ; ' c. ^^ ^t: ^>;': And thus these lines, and ramparts rude, "Were left in deepest solitude. And, for they were so lonely, Clare iii Would to these battlements repair, And muse upon her son-ows there, And list the seabird's cry ; Or slow, like noontide ghost, would gli'le 5 CANTO VI. 105 Along the dark-grey bulwarlis' side, And ever on tlie heaving tide Look down with weary eye. Oft did the cliff, and swelling main, Recal the thoughts of Whitby's fane, — 10 A home she ne'er might see again ; For she had laid adown, So Douglas bade, the hood and veil, And frontlet of the cloister pale, And Benedictine gown : 16 It were unseemly sight, he said, A novice out of convent shade. Now her bright locks, with sunny glow, y - Again adorned her brow of snow ; Her mantle rich, whose borders, round, SK^ A deep and fretted brdidery bound, In golden foldings sought the ground ; ' Of holy ornament, alone Remained a cross with ruby stone ; And often did she look S^ On that which in her hand she bore, 'C With velvet bound, and broidered o'er, ^ Her breviary book. > In such a place, so lone, so grim, . At dawning pale or twilight dim, 99 It fearful would have been, ; i ^^ ■' ■J,- To meet a form so richly dressed, •' With book in hand, and cross on breas+, And such a woeful mien. Fitz-Eustace, loitering with his bow, * 86 To practise on the gull and crow, .«, Saw her, at distance, gliding slow. And did by Mary swear, — ^- ^ ^.^ Some lovelorn Fav she mitfht have been. Or, in romance, some spellbound queen j ^ For ne'er, in workda}'^ wijrld, was seen 106 MABMION. A form 80 witchinsr fair. Once walking tnus, at evening-tide, iv It chanced a gliding sail she spied, And, sighing, thought — " The Abbess there, Perchance, does to her home repair ; Her peaceful rule, where Duty, free, 5 Walks hand in hand with Charity; AVhere oft Devotion's tranced glow Can such a glimpse of heaven bestow, That the enraptured sisters see - High yision, and deep mystery; 10 The veiy form of Hilda fair, ^ \ Hovering upon the sunny air, And smiling on her votaries' prayer. Oh ! wherefore, to my duller eye, ^ Did still the Saint her fcfm deny ! 15 "Was it that, seared by sinful scorn, My heart could neither melt nor burn P Or lie my warm affections low, * With him, that taught them fiist to glow ? Yet, gentle x\bbesf, well I knew, . 20 To pay thy kindness grateful due, ^' And well could brook the mild command, That ruled thy simple maiden band. i i^- How diff*erent now ! — condemned to bido My doom from this dark tyrant's pride. ' 25 But Marmion has to learn, ere long. That constant mind and hate of wrong Descended to a feeble girl, ' ; f From Red De Clare, stout Gloster's Earl : Of such a stem, a sapling weak, 80 He ne'er shall bend, although he break. But see ! — what makes this armour here ? '* v For in her path there lay Targe, corslet, helm ; — she viewed them near. — ** The breastplate pierced ! — Aye, much I feur, CANTO VI. 107 Weak fence wert thou 'gainst foeman'a spear, 6 That hath made fatal entrance here, As these dark blood-gouts say. — Thus Wilton ! — Oh ! not corslet's ward, Not truth, as diamond pure and hard, Could be thy manly bosom's guard, 10 On yon disastrous day ! " — She raised her eyes in mournful mood, — Wilton himself before her stood ! It might have seemed his passing ghost, For every youthful grace was lost ; , . 16 And joy unwonted, and 8ui*prise, Gave their strange wildness to his eyes. — Expect not, noble dames and lords, That I can tell such scene in words: What skilful limner ere would choose 30 To paint the rainbow's varying hues. Unless to mortal it were given To dip his brush in dyes of heaven ? •Far less can my weak line declare ; .^: . Each changing passion's shade ; Brightening to rapture from despair, : Sorrow, surprise, and pity there, -^ And joy, with her angelic air, ^ And hope, that paints the future fair, Their varying hues displayed : > 80 Each o'er its rival's ground extending, Alternate conquenng, shifting, blending, Till all, fatigued, the conflict yield, And mighty Love retains the field. Shortly I tell what then he said, 85 Bv many a tender word delaved, And modest blush, and bursting sign, And question kind, and fond reply :— -■—- 108 - MARMION DE Wilton's histort. " Forget we that disastrous day, tl When senseless in the lists I lay. Thence dragged, — but how I cannot know, For sense and recollection tied, — I found me on a pallet low, ' 5 Within my ancient beadsman's shed. Austin, — remember'st thou, my Clare, How thou didst blush, when the old map, , When first our infant love began, Said we would make a matchless pair? — '10 Menials, and fiiends, and kinsmen fled From the degraded traitor's bed, — He only held mv burning head, .- • And tended me for many a day, ''"--^ While wounds and fever held their sway. 15^- But far more needful was his care, When sense returned to wake despair; ' - For I did tear the closing wound, "- -^ And dash me frantic on the ground, ^ If e'er I heard the name of Clare. • - '^ S& At length, to calmer reason brought, ' / -^ Much by his kind attendance wrought, ■ r With him I left my native strand, - , And, in a Palmer's weeds arrayed, Mv hated name and form to shade, 25 I journeyed many a land ; No more a lord of rank and birth, But mingled with the dregs of earth. Oft Austin for my reason feared. When I would sit, and deeply brood SO On dark revenge, and deeds of blood, Or wild mad schemes upreared. CANTO VI. 109 My friend at length fell sick, and said, God would remove him soon j And, while upon his dying bed, 86 He begged of me a boon — If e'er my deadliest enemy Beneath my brand should conquered lie, Even then my mercy should awake, And spare his life for Austin's sake. ' 40 Still restless as a second Cain, ^ ^ > vii To Scotland next my route was ta'en. ' * Full well the paths I knew ; Fame of my fate made various sound. That death in pilgrimage I found, " ; 5 That I had perished of my wound, — ; i * None cared which tale was true : • ? ^ And living eye could never guess '*?^^ J^ De Wilton in his Palmer's dress ; - - J^ , For now that sable slough is shed, ■"-' i' 10 And trimmed my shaggy beard and head, ' I scarcely know me in the glass. A chance most wondrous did provide. That I should be that Baron's guide — I will not name his name ! — 15 Vengeance to God alone belongs ; But, when I think on all my wrongs. My blood is liquid flame ! And ne'er the time shall I forget, When, in a Scottish hostel set, 20 Park looks we did exchange : W hat were his thoughts I cannot toll ; But in my bosom mustered Hell Its plans of dark revenge. A WORD of vulgar augury, viii That broke from me, I scarce knew why, Brought on a villago tale ; 110 MARMIOX. Which wrought upon his moody sprite, And sent him armed forth by night. 6 I borrowed steed and mail, And weapons, from his sleeping band ; And parsing from a postern-door, We met, and 'countered, hand to hand, — He fell on Gifford Moor. 10 For the death-stroke my brand I drew, * (Oh then my helmed head he knew, The Palmer's cowl was gone,) Then had three inches of my blade The heavy debt of vengeance paid, — ' 15 My hand the thought of Austin staid, — ^ I left him there alone. t Oh, good old man ! even from the grave, Thy spirit could thy master save : If I had slain my foeman, ne'er SO ; Had Whitby's Abbess, in her fear, Given to my hand this packet dear, Of power to clear my inj ured fame, And vindicate De Wilton's name. Perchance you heard the Abbess tell . ' ' .. S^ Of the strange pageantry of Hell, That broke our secret speech : < r -, i n' ^ It rose from the infernal shade, l'-- - ^ - ^ Or featly was some juggle played, ;t; 4/ N". A tale of peace to teach. ■ - 4^ - ' : i C- SW Appeal to Heaven I judged was best, When my name came among the rest. Now here, within Tantallon Hold, iz To Douglas late my tale I told. To whom my house was knovra of old. Won by my proofs, his falchion bright This eve anew shall dub me knight. 5 These were the arms that once did turn The tide of fight on Otterburne, CANTO VI. Ill And Ilan-y Hotspur forced to yield, When the dead Douglas won the field. These Angus gave : his armourer's care, 10 Ere mom, shall every breach repair ; For nought, he said, was in his halls, But ancient armour on the walls, And aged chargers in the stalls, And women, priests, and grey-haired men; 16 The rest were all in Twisel Glen. And now I watch my armour here, Ey law of arms, till midnight's near j * Then, once again a belted knight, Seek Surrey's camp with dawn of light. 20 There soon again we meet, my Clare ! x This Baron means to guide thee there : ; Douglas reveres his King's command, ; Else would he take thee from his band. And there thy kinsman, Surrey, too, 6 Will give De Wilton justice due. • Vi Now meeter far for martial broil. Firmer my limbs, and strung by toil. Once more " '^ O Wilton ! must we then Risk new-found happiness again, 10 Trust fate of arms once more ? And is there not a humble glen, ^.. J5^^ jl-^ " Where we, content and poor, "? Might build a cottage in the shade, A shepherd thou, and I to aid . 16 Thy task on dale and moor ? — That reddening brow ! — too well I Imow, Not even thy Clare can peace bestow While falsehood stains thy name : Go then to fight ! Clare bids thee go I 20 Clare can a warrior's feelings know, And weep a warrior's shame ; Ciin R( d Earl Gilbert's spirit feel, 112 MARMION. Buckle the spurs upon thy heel, And belt thee with til y brand of steel, 25 And send thee forth to fame ! " — That night, upon the rocks and bay, «■- xi The midnight moonbeam slumbering lay, ■'■■ And poured its silver light, and pure, Through loophole, and through embrasure, Upon Tantallon tower and hall ; 6 But chief where arched windows wide Illuminate the chapel's pride, The sober glances fall. Much was there need ; though, seamed with scars, Two veterans of the Douglas' wars, ' •- 10 Though two grey priests were there, •> And each a blazing torch held high, ^ You could not by their blaze descry The chapel's carving fair. Amid that dim and smoky light, lo Chequering the silvery moonshine bright, A Bishop by the altar stood, A noble lord of Douglas blood, -^ With mitre sheen, and rocquet white. Yet shewed his meek and thoughtful eve 20 But little pride of prelacy ; More pleased that, in a barbarous age, He gave rude Scotland Virgil's page. Than that beneath his rule he held The bishopric of fair Dunkeld. 25 Beside him ancient Angus stood, Doft'ed his funed gown, and sable hood: "^^ O'er his huge form, and visage pale, ^ ^ He wore a cap and shirt of mail ; And leaned his lar2:e and wrinkled hand 30 XJpon the huge and sweeping brand, "Which wont, of yore, ii? battle-fray, * _. i__> His foeman's limbs to shred away, ' '¥:■,>-. -t CANTO VI. 113 As wood-liiiife lops the sapling spray. He seemed as, from the tombs around 9$ Rising at judgment-day, Some giant Douglas may be found In all his old array ; ] ■ '■■ ^ ' So pale his face, so huge his limb, So old his arms, his look so grim, ^ 4K) Then at the altar Wilton kneels, :m And Clare the spurs bound on his heels ; : And think what next he must have felt, At buckling of the falchion belt ! And judge how Clara changed her hue, - $ While fff^tening to her lover's side A friend, which, though in danger tried. He once had found untrue ! Then Douglas struck him with his blade: " Saint Michael and Saint Andrew aid, 10 I dub thee knight. Arise, Sir Kalph, De Wilton's heir ! For king, for church, for lady fair, See that thou fight." — And Bishop Gawain, as he rose, 16 Said, — *' Wilton ! grieve not for thy woes, Disgrace, and trouble ; For He, who honour best bestows, May give thee double." — De Wilton sobbed, for sob he must — 20 " Where'er I meet a Douglas, trust That Douglas is my brother ! " — '^ Nay, nay," old Angus said, " not so ; To Surrey's camp thou now must go, Thy wrongs no longer smother. 25 I have two sons in yonder field ; And if thou meet'st them under shield, Upon them bravely — do thy worst ; And foul fall him that blenches first I "— X 114 MARMION. Not far advanced was morning day, xiii "When Marmion did his troop aiTay To Surrey's camp to ride ; He had safe-conduct for his band, . Beneath the royal seal and hand, k^. . i:i 6 And Douglas gave a guide : The ancient Earl, with stately grace, Would Clara on her palfry place, And whispered, in an undertone, *^ Let the hawk stoop, his prey is flown." ; ;, 10 The train from out the castle drew, _ ^1; j But Marmion stopped to bid adieu : — ■ % *'• Though something I might plain," he said, ^' Of cold respect to stranger guest, j .; Sent hither by your King's behest, : 15 While in Tantallon's towers I staid ; - -^-j '' Part we in friendship from your land, ^. ^ And, noble Earl, receive my hand." — f - But Douglas r^imd him drew his cloak. Folded his arms, and thus he spoke : — 20 " My manors, halls, and bowers shall still Be open, at my Sovereign's will. To each one whom he lists, howe'er r Unmeet to be the owner's peer. My castles are my King's alone, 25 From turret to foundation-stone^ The hand of Douglas is his own ; And never shall in friendly grasp The hand of such as Marmion cliisp." — Burned Marmion's swarthy cheek like tire, ziv And shook his very frame for ire. And—" This to me ! " he said,— ^ • *' An 'twere not for thy hoary beard, Such hand as Marmion's had not spared 6 To cleave the Douglas' head ! And, first, I tell thee, haughty l*eer, CANTO YI. 115 He, who does England's message here, Although the meanest in her state, May well, proud Angus, be thy mate : 10 And, Douglas, more 1 tell thee here, Even in thy pitch of pride, _ Here in thy hold, thy vassals near, (Nay, never look upon your lord. And lay your hands upon your sword,) 15 I tell thee, thou 'rt defied ! And if thou saidst I am not peer To any lord in Scotland hefe. Lowland or Highland, far or near, Lord Angus, thou hast lied ! " — On the Earl's cheek the flush of raire O'ercame the ashen hue of age : Fierce he broke forth, — ^' And dar'st thou then To beard the lion in his den, The Douglas in his hall ? ; : !■- ? - i^;- * ( And hop'st thou hence unscathed to go ?— ♦ ■ No, by Saint Bryde of Doth well, no ! — Up drawbridge, grooms ! —what. Warder, ho I Let the portcullis fall." — Lord Marmion turned, — well was his need ! 30 And dashed the rowels in his steed, like arrow through the archway sprung. The ponderous gate behind him rung : To pass there was such scanty room, The bars, descending, razed his plume. 85 The steed along the drawbridge flies, xr Just as it trembled on the rise ; Not lighter does the swallow skim Along the smooth lake's level brim : And when Lord Marmion reached his band, 6 He halts, and turns with clenched hand, And shout of loud defiance pours, i And shook his gauntlet at the towers. I 2 116 MAEMION. "Iforse I horse ! " the Douglas cried, " and chase! " But soon he reined his fury's pace : * 10 " A royal mesen' Oh, dotage blind and gross 1 Vi Had I but fought as wont, one thrust Had laid De Wilton in the dust, — My path no more to cross. — 118 MARMION. How stand we now ? — lie told bis i^le f To Douglas: and with some avail > *Twas therefore gloomed his rugged brow. — "^ "Will Surrey dar^ to entertain, ^ - -t-SM:. '-.- • 'dSnst Marmion, charge disproved and vain ? Small risk of that, I trow. — . , ^ X Y et Clare's sharp questions must I shun ; i £6 Must separate Constance from the Nun — Oh, what a tangled web we"weave, When first we practise^ to deceive ! — A Palmer too ! — no wonder why ,,. I felt rebuked beneath his eye : - •,, ' ^ 9(1 I might^^Eave known there was but one, "Whose look couTd quell Lord Marmion." — -^ SruNG with these thoughts, he urged to speed xvui His troop, and reached, at eve, the Tweed, "Where Lennel's convent closed their march. Jk^ (There now is left but one frail arch, Yet mourn thou not its cells ; .^ 6 Our time a fair exchange has made ; '.■'■'] Hard by, inhospitable shade, ^. - - ; ' A reverend pilgrim dwells, ^ ^ . • "Well worth the whole Bemardine brood, That e'er wore sandal, frock, or hood.) Yet did Saint Bernard's Abbot there -u^ f. ■ Give Marmion entertainment fair, ; And lodging for his train and Clare. ; ' Next mom the Baron climbed the tower, To view afar the Scottish power, rf / . Encamped on Flodden edge : .; JC The white pavilions made a show, ,":..; I Like reranan^'^ of the winter snow, li ._4^_^Along the dusky ridge. Long Marmion looked : — at length his eye 20 Unusual movement might descry Amid the shifting lines ; CANTO VI. " 119 The Scottish host drawn out appears. For, flashing on the hedge of spears, The eastern sunbeam shines. 25 Their front now deepening, now extending, Their iiank inclining, wheeling, bending, Now drawing back, and now descending. The skilful jNlarmion well could know. They watched the motions of some foe, ■ 30 Who traversed on the plain below. ~ Even so it wfta ; — from Flodden ridge xix The Scots beheld the English host • Leave Barmore-wood, their evening post, And heedful watched them as they crossed The Till by Twisel Bridge. " 6 High sight it is, and haughty; while They dive into the deep defile, ; Beneath the caverned cliflf they fall. Beneath the castle's airy wall. By rock, by oak, by hawthorn tree, 10 Troop after troop are disappearing; Troop after troop their banners rearing, Upon the eastern bank you see. • ' Still pouring down the rocky den, 1 - i Where flows the sullen Till, - • 16 And rising from the dim wood-glen, \- i . Standards on standards, men on men. In slow succession still, ' • ^ - < - -r l>; " i And sweeping o'er the Gothic arch, ^- - 1 ' And pressing on, in ceaseless march, 20 To gain the opposing hill. I , That mom, to many a trumpet-clang,* Twisel ! thy rock's deep echo rang ; (, And many a chief of birth and rank, Saint Helen I at thy fountain drank. S5 Thy hawthorn glade, which now we see _^.^ In spring-tide bloom 'so lavishly, ,: 120 MARMION. Had then from many an axe its doom, To give the marching columns room. And why stands Scotland idly now, xx Dark Flodden ! oil thy airy brow, Since England geins the pass the while, And struggles through the deep defile ? "What checks the fieiy soul of James ? 5 "Why sits that champion of the dames Inactiye on his steed, And sees, between him and his land, Between him and Tweed's southern strand, His host Lord Surrey lead ? 10 What 'vails the vain knight-errant's brand ? — O Douglas, for thy leading wand ! Fierce Randolph, for thy speed ! ' Oh for one hour of Wallace wight. Or well-skilled Bruce, to rule the fight, 15 And cry — " Saint Andrew and our right ! " Another sight had seen that mom. From Fate's dark book a leaf been torn. And Flodden had been Bannockbourne ! — The precious hour has passed in vain, ; ■ . 20 And England's host has gained the plain ; Wheeling their march, and circling still, . / Around the base of Flodden Hill. Ere yet the bands met Marmion's eye, xxi Fitz-Eustace shouted loud and high, — *^ Hark ! hark ! my lord, an English drum ! And see ascending squadrons come . Between Tweed's river and the hill, ' $ Foot, ho^ , and cannon: — hap v 'hat hap. My basnet to a prentice cap, Lord Surrey's o'er the Till ! — r, ,_ 4^._, -^ Yet more ! yet more ! — how fair arrayed ^- They file from out the hawthorn shade, 10 CANTO VI. 121 And sweep so gallant by ! "VMth all their banners bravely spread, And all their armour flashing high, Saint George might waken from the dead, To see fair England's standards fly." — 15 "Stint in thy prate," quoth Blount; "thou'dstbest, And listen to our lord's behest." With kindling brow Lord ]\[arniion said, — " This instant be our band arrayed ; The river must be quickly crossed, 20 That we may join Lord Surrey's host. If fight King James, — as well I trust, That fight he will, and fight he must, — The Lady Clare behind our lines Shall tarry, while the battle joins." — 25 Himself he swift on horseback threw, xxii Scarce to the Abbot bade adieu ; Far less would listen to his prayer, To leave behind the helpless Clare. ^ ■ Down to the Tweed his band he drew, 5 And muttered as the flood they view, — '* The pheasant in the falcon's claw, He scarce will yield to please a daw : Lord Angus may the Abbot awe. So Clare shall bide with me," 10 Then on that dangerous ford, and deep. Where to the Tweed Leafs eddies creep, He ventured desperately : * ,, ,;.'*■ And not a moment will be bide, ■ ; • Till squire, or groom, before him ridej 15 Headmost of all he stems the tide, — <-■' And stems it gallantly. ^ , ^ Eustace held Clare upon her horse. Old Hubert led her rein, -« -r-, - ? Stoutly they braved the current's course, i^b_: 20 And though far downward driven perforce, :^W^- 122 - MAllMION. The southern bank they gain ; Behind them, stragf^ling, came to shore, . ' - As best they might, the train : - * Each o'er his head his yew-bow bore, • ■ 25 A caution not in vain ; Deep need that day that every string, By wet unharmed, should sharply ring. A moment then Lord Mannion staid, And breathed his steed, his men arrayed, ' 80 Then forward moved his bind, Until, Lord Surrey's rearguard won, He halted by a cross of stone, That, on a hillock standing lone, ■:' r - ' Did all the field command. 35 Hence might they see the full array * -i xxiii Of either host for deadly fray ; Their marshalled lines stretched east and west, And fronted north and south. And distant salutation passed 6 From the loud cimnon mouth ; Not in the close successive rattle, t- 4 That breathes the voice of modem battle, But slow and far betw^een. — , ,. v,^ r The hillock gained, Lord Marmion stayed : 10 " Here, by this cross," he gently said, . . " You well may view the scene ; ; , ^ ■ Here shalt thou tarry, lovely Clare : ^ Oh ! think of Marmion in thy prayer! — Thou wilt not ? — Well, — no less my care 15 Shall, watchful, for thy weal prepare. — You, Blount and Eustace, are her guard, ^^ With ten picked archers of my train j With England if the day go hard, - -^— To Berwick speed amain. — iv--^ 20 But, if we conquer, cruel maid ! My spoils shall at your feet be laid. CAMO VI. ^ 123 "WTien here we meet again." — He waited not for answer there, ' ' And would not mark the maid's despair, 25 J^or heed the discontented look From either squire ; but spurred amain, And, dashing through the battle-plain. His way to Surrey took. " The good Lord Marmion, by my life ! xxiv Welcome to danger's hour ! — ,- Short greeting seiTCs in time of strife : — Thus have I ranged my power i , Myself will rule this central host, - 5 Stout Stanley fronts their right. My sons command the vaward post, "With Brian Tunstall, stainless knight ; Lord Dacre, with his horsemen light, ; Shall be in rearward of the fight, 10 And succour those that need it most. *. Now, gallant Marmion, well I know, Would gladly to the vanguard go; \, . Edmund, the Admii'al, Tunstal there. With thee their charge will blithely share j 15 There fight thine own retainers too, Beneath De Burg, thy steward true." — *' Thanks, noble Surrey ! " Marmion said, Nor further greeting there he paid: But, parting like a thunderbolt, , . 20 Fii'st in the vanguard made a halt, .. . Where such a shout there rose , j- i,^ -: : Of " Marmion ! Marmion ! " that the cry = v -- .;. Up Flodden mountain shrilling high, . i- i . Startled the Scottish foes. ; ,- ; ■ , 26 Blount and Fitz-Eustace rested still ^ ^i ^.i^ xxv With Lady Clare upon the hill ; ;; L < .. On which, (for far the day was spent,) The western sunbeams now w^ere bent. 124 MARMION. The cry they heard, its meaning knew, 5 Could plain their distant comrades view : Sadly to Blount did Eustace say, " Unworthy office here to stay ! * No hope of gilded spurs to-day. — But, see I look up — on Flodden bent, 10 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. 15 Volumed and vast, 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, 20 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, . 25 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, ' ^ ' ' " 30 As if men fought upon the earth, ' . ' f-. And fiends in upper air : ,. : . O life and death were in the shout, -J; ' Kecoil and rally, charge and rout, p ' And triumph and despair. 86 Long looked the anxious squires ; their eye Could in the darkness nought descry. At length the freshening western blast xxvi Aside the shroud of battle cast ; And, first, the ridge of mingled spears Ab^"? the brightening cloud appears j CAMO VI. 125 And in the smoke the pennons flew, 5 As in the storm the white sea-mew. Then marked they, dashing- broad and far, The broken billows of the war, And plumed crests of chieftains brave, Floatiuf^ like foam upon the wave j 10 But nought distinct they see : Wide raged the battle on the plain ; Spe.ars shook, and falchions flashed amain ; Fell England's arrow-flight like rain ; Crests rose, and stooped, and rose again, - 16 Wild and disorderly. Amid the scene of tumult, high They saw Lord Marmion's falcon fly : " - And stainless Tunstall's banner white, And Edmund Howard's lion bright, 20 Still bear them bravely in the tight j Although against them come. Of gallant Gordons many a one, ^ And many a stubborn Highlandman, And many a rugged Border clan, - 25 With Huntley, and with Home, - • Far on the left, unseen the while, ' xxvii Stanley broke Lennox and Argyle ; -' - Though there the western mountaineer ' * Rushed with bare bosom on the spear, - And flung the feeble targe aside, — & And with both hands the broadsword plied : 'Twas vain : — But Fortune, on the right, With fickle smile cheered Scotland's fight. Then fell that spotless banner white, vf ■- ^ The Howard's lion fell ; ; ^ ^ ^ .;ri >? > ,J; ^ Yet still Lord Marmion's falcon flew 7 "-tr-"!^'^ " — ^ With wavering flight, while fiercer grew Around the battle yell. :-^'- -.■-y^^.. f^'^^"'":^" The Border slogan rent the sky ! 126 / MARMION. " A Home ! " "A Gordon ! " was the ciy ; 15 Loud -were the clanging blows; Advanced, — forced back, — now low, now higli, The pennon sunk and rose ; As bends the bark's mast in the gale, "When rent are rigging, shrouds, and sail, 20 It waver^ 'mid the foes. No longer Blount the view could bear : — *' By heaven, and all its saints, I swear, I will not see it lost ! Fitz-Eustace, you with Lady Clare 25 May bid your beads and patter prayer,— I gallop to the host." And to the fray he rode amain, - ■.-- Followed by all the archer train. ^"1 The fiery youth, with desperate charge, 30 Made, for a space, an opening large, — The rescued banner rose, — But darkly closed the war around, Like pine-tree rooted from the ground. It sunk among the foes. 35 Then Eustace mounted too ; — yet staid, As loth to leave the helpless maid. When, fast as shaft can fly, Bloodshot his eyes, his nostrils spread. The loose rein dangling from his head, 40 Housing and saddle bloody red. Lord Marmion's steed rushed by ; And Eustace, maddening at the sight, A look and sign to Clara cast, To mark ho would return in haste, -, 45 Then plunged into the fight. Ask me not what the maiden feels, xxviii Left in that dreadful hour alone : Perchance her reason stoops, or reels ; Perchance a courage, not her own, ' Braces her mind to desperate tone. — CANTO VI. 127 The scattered van of England wlieels j — She only said, as loud in air The tumult roared, " Is Wilton there ? " — They fly, or, maddened by despair, - Fight but to die. — '* Is Wilton there ? "— W With that, straight up the hill there rode Two horsemen drenched with gore,. And in their arms, a helpless load, A wounded knight they bore. His hand still strained the broken brand; 15 His arms were smeared with blood and sand : , Dragged from among the horses' feet. With dinted shield, and helmet beat, The falcon-crest and plumage gone, Can that be haughty Marmion ! . . 90 Young Blount his armour did unlace, And, gazing on his ghastly face, Said — " By Saint George, he's gone ! That spear-wound has our master sped. And see the deep cut on his head ! S3 Good night to Marmion." — " Unnurtured Blount ! thy brawling cease : He opes his eyes," says Eustace ; " peace ! '* — WiiEN, doffed his casque, he felt free air, xxix Aro.:nd 'gan Marmion wildly stare : — * " Where's Harry Blount ? Fitz-Eustace where ? Linger ye here, ye hearts of hare ! , ' Redeem my pennon, — charge again I 5 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 Hignet ring ; y^ Tell him his squadrons up to bring : — ^^~~ - Fitz-Eustace, to Lord Surrey hie ; Tunstall lies dead upon the field, -^Vr'— ^ ^ Tl is lifeblcod stams the spotless shield: --^ ■ 128 MARMTON. Edmund is d(»wn ; — my life is reftj— ^ 15 The Admiral alone is left. •; Let Stanley charge with spur of fire, — With Cliester charge, and Lancashire, Full upon Scotland's central host, Or victory and England's lost. — 20 Must I bid twice ? — hence, varleta ! 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, 25 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 ! " .30 O WOMAN ! in our hours of ease, , , xxx Uncertain, coy, and hard to please, And variable as the shad^ • By the light quivering aspen made ; When pain and anguish wring the brow, . 5 A ministering angel thou! — Scarce were the pitying accents said, W^hen, with the Baron's casque, the maid To the nigh streamlet ran : Forgot were hatred, wrongs, and fears j 10 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's side, 15 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, -: WTiere water, clear as diamond-spark, 20 In a stone bason fell. CANTO VI. 129 Above, some half- worn letters say, JSrinfe. lucarg. pilgrim, tfrinft. aiitf. piay. dfor. tljc. ]feintr. )90«l. at ^I'litl. 6raii. Wi\}a. i»uilt. tljt^. cio^^. aiitr. UjcH. 25 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, SO To shrive the dying, bless the dead. Deep drank Lord Marmion of the wave, xxxi 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, — 6'^ *' 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,— 10 Oh 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 lie felt no wound ; 15 Though in the action burs' the tide, In torrents, from his wounded side. u *' Then it was truth ! " he said, " I knew > That the dark presage must be true. I would the Fiend, to whom belongs 20 The vengeance due to all her wrongs, Would spare me but a day I ^ For wasting fire, and dying groan, And priests slain on the altar-stone, - ^+7r- Might bribe him for delay. . 25 130 - MARMION. It may not be ! — tliis dizzy trance— ■ ' • Curse on yon base marauder's lance, ■ ■ And doubly curst my failing brand I ■ ■ A sinful heart makes feeble hand." -^ Then, fainting-, down on earth be sunk, • 80 Supported by the trembling Monk. With fruitless labour, Clara bound, xxxii And strove to staunch, the gushing wound : The Monk, with unavailing cares, Exhausted all the Church's prayers. • : 'Raer, he said, that, close and near, B A lady's voice was in his ear. And that the priest he could not hear, For that she ever sung, " In the lost battle, borne down hy the Jfyinrf, Where mingles war's rattle loith groans of the dying / " 10 So the notes rung; — -^ '' Avoid thee, Fiend ! — with cruel hand. Shake not the dying sinner's sand ! — Oh look, my son, upon yon sign Of the Redeemer's grace divine : • 15 Oh think on faith and bliss ! - By many a deathbed I have been, - And many a sinner's parting seen, But never aught like this." The war, that for a space did fail, ~ 20 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 • • ' 25 He shook the fragment of his blade, ' - ' And shouted " Victory ! — - Vt v- r ?>i^ :i - *' Charge, Chester, charge! On, St^anley, onl" . , . Were the last words of Marmion. _— By this, though deep the evening fell, xxxiii Still rose the battle's deadly swell, ^ CAJSTO VI. 131 For still tlie Scots, around their King, : . ■ Unbroken, fought in desperate ring. Where's now their victor vaward winp-, : : 6 Where Huntley, and where Home ? — Oh for for a blast of that dread horn, On Fontarabian echoes borne. That to King Charles did come, When Rowland brave, and Olivier, 10 And every paladin and peer, • - On Roncesvalles died ! Such blast might warn them, not in vain, ' - To quit the plunder of the slain. And turn the doubtful day again, lo While yet on Flodden side, Afar, the Royal Standard Hies, And round it toils, and bleeds, and dies, Our Caledonian pride I In vain the wish — for far away, " 20 While spoil and havoc mark their way, Near Sybil's Cross the plunderers str;iy. — " O Lady," cried the Monk, '' away ! " — And placed her on her steed ; " And led her to the chapel fair, 2b Of Tilmouth upon Tweed. ' There all the night tliey spent in prayer, And, at the dawn of morning, there ■; She met her kinsman. Lord Fitz-Clare. ••' But as they left the dark'ning heath,' " xxxiv 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, 5 To break the Scottish circle deep, ^ v^ »-■ ;- That fought around their King. But yet, though thick the shafts as snow, Though charging knights like whiil winds go, - k2 132 MARMION. Tliough bill-men ply the g-liastly blow, 10 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. 15 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 20 O'er their thin host and wounded King. . Then skilful Surrey's sage commands Led back from strife his shattered bands j And from the charge they drew, As mountain-waves, Irom wasted lands, 25 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, AVhen streams are swoU'n and south winds blow, 30 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 ; '35 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: 40 Still from the sire the son shall hear Of the stem strife and carnage drear, - --- ^'^^^'^: Of Flodden's fiatal field, • ^ Where shivered was fair Scotland's spear, And broken was her shield ! 45 CANTO VI. 133 Day dawns upon the moimtaiK's side : — xxxv There, Scotland ! lay thy bravest pride, Chiefs, knights, and nobles, many a one ; The sad survivors all are gone. — View not that corpse mistrustfully, S Defaced and mangled though it be j Nor to yon Border castle high Look northward with upbraiding eye ; Nor cherish hope in vain. That, journeying far on foreign strand, : . 10 The Royal Pilgrim to his land May yet return again. - He saw the wreck his rashness wrought ; Reckless of life, he desperate fought. And fell on Flodden plain : IM And well in death his trusty brand, Firm clenched within his manly hand, Beseemed the monarch slain. But, oh ! how changed since yon blithe night ! — Gladly I turn me from the sight 20 Unto my tale again. ' Short is my tale : — Fitz- Eustace' care xxxvi A pierced and mangled body bare To moated Lichfield's lofty pile ; ' And there, beneath the soutTiern aisle, : • A tomb, with Gothic sculpture fair, - . || Did long Lord Marmion's image bear. (Now vainly for its sight you look ; . 'Twas levelled, when fanatic Brook The fair cathedral stormed and took ; , - : But, thanks to heaven, and good Saint Chad, 10 A guerdon meet the spoiler had !) .. , There erst was martial Marmion found, ^ His feet upon a couehant hound, ? His hands to heaven uprai^sed ; -__^-i_._i.^_;_^_ And all around, on scutcheon rich, . ' i(| And tablet carved, and fretted niche, 134 MAEMION. His arms and feats were blazed. And yet, though all was carved so fair, And priests for Manuion breathed the prayer, The last Lord Marmion lay not there. .20 * From Ettrick woods, a peasant swain Followed his lord to Flodden plain, — One of those flowers, whom plaintive lay In Scotland mourns as " wede away ; " Sore wounded, Sybil's Cross he spied, 25 And dragged him to its foot, and died. Close by the noble Marmion's side. The spoilers stripped and gashed the slain, And thus their corpses were mista'en j And thus, in the proud Baron's tomb, ' 30 The lowly woodsman took the room. Less easy task it were, to shew xxxvii Lord Marmion's nameless grave, and low. They dug his grave e'en where he lay, But every mark is gone ; Time's wasting hand has done away 6 The simple Cross of Sybil Gray, And broke her font of stone : But yet from out the little hill Oozes the slender springlet still. Oft halts the stranger there, - 10 '], For thence may best his curious eye ^' The memorable field descry ; And shepherd boys repair To seek the water-flag and rush, And rest them by the hazel bush, 1^ And plait their garlands fair; Nor dream they sit upon the grave, ■ - ' That holds the bones of Marmion brave.— ^ When thou shalt find the little hill. With thy heart commune, and be still. 20 If ever, in temptation strong, CANTO VI. 135 Thou left'st the right path for the -wrong, If every devious step, thus trod, Still led thee further from the road ; Dread thou to speak presumptuous doom, 25 On noble Marmion's lowly tomb ; But say, " He died a gallant knight. With sword in hand, for England's right." I DO NOT rhyme to that dull elfj , xxxviii Who cannot image to himself, That all through Flodden's dismal night, Wilton was foremost in the fight ; That, when brave Surrey's steed was blain, 5 'Twas Wilton mounted him again j 'Twas Wilton's brand that deepest hewed Amid the spearmen's stubborn wood : Unnamed by Hollinshed or Hall, He was the living soul of all ; 10 That, after fight, his faith made plain, He won his rank and lands again ; , -. And charged his old paternal shield -, . With bearings won on Flodden Field. , ., Nor sing I to that simple maid, , 15 To whom it must in terms be said, That king and kinsmen did agree, To bless fair Clara's constancy ; Who cannot, unless I relate, Paint to her mind the bridal's state ; 20 That Wolsey's voice the blessing spoke, More, Sands, and Denny passed the joke : That bluff King Hal the curtain drew, And Catherine's hand the stocking threw ; And afteryards, for many a day, 25 That it was held enough to say. In blessing to a wedded pair, ** Love they like Wilton and like Clare 1 " — 136 MARMION r ENVOY. TO THE KEADER. Why then a final note prolong", Or len^hen out a closing sonj^, Unless to bid the gentles speed, "Who long have listed to my rede ? To Statesmen grave, if such may deign If To read the Minstrel's idle strain, Sound head, clean hand, and piercing wit, And patriotic heart — as Pitt ! A garland for the hero's crest. And twined bv her he loves the best : ]0 . To every lovely lady bright, What can I wish but faithful knight ? V;" To every faithful lover too, "•, ^ What can I wish but lady true? ' And knowledge to the studious sage, 15 And pillow soft to head of age ? To thti, dear schoolboy, whom my lay Has cheated of thy hour of play, Light task, and merry holiday ! To all, to each, a fair good night, 20 And pleasing di'eanis and slumbers light, . ' . ENS OF AtABMION. NOTES TO MAEMION. CANTO I.— THE CASTLE. Loud Maumiox, the hero of the poem, nrrives at Novham Castle, on the Tweed, where he is entertained by Sir Hugh the Heron. He is on his way from England to tlie Scotch Court, with a message from Henry VIII. to the Scotch King : his mission is to inquire why King James IV. is now mustering his army upon the Borough Moor, near Edinburgh, and whether this is being done with any hostile intention against England. He asks for a guide to Holy-Rood, the royal palace of Scotland, preferring a herald or a priest, as he is on a peaceful errand. The very man to act as such guide is found in a Palmer, who had arrived at Norham on the previous night. Lord Jlarmion accordingly starts next morning for Holy -Rood, under his guidance. i. 1. Norhmti's castled s/epp.] *' The ruinous castle of Norham (anciently called Ubbanford) is situated on the southern bank of tlio Tweed, about six miles alwve Beiwick, and where that river is still the boundary between En*rland and Scotland. The extent of its ruins, a> well as its historical importance, shows it to have been a place ol magnificence as well as strength. Edward I. resided there when he was created umpire of the dispute concerning the Scottish succession. It was repeatedly taken and retaken during the wars between England and Scotland ; and, indeed, scarce any happened in which it had not a principal share. Norham Castle is situated on a steep bank, which overhangs the river. The repeated sieges which the captle had sus- tained rendered frequent repairs necessary. It was almost rebuilt by Hugh Pudsey, Bishop of Durham, who added a huge keep, or don- jon, notwithstanding which. King Henry II. took the castle from the Bishop, and committed the keeping of it to William de Neville. After this period it seems to have been chiefly garrisoned by the King, and considered as a roj^al fortress. The Greys of Chillinghanie Castle were frequently the castellans, or captains of the garrison ; vet, as the castle was situated in the patrimony of St. Cuthbert, the property was in the See of Durham till the Reformation. After that period it passeil through various hands. The ruius of the castle are at present con- siderable, as well as picturesque. They consist of a large shattered tower, with many vaults, and fragments of other edifices, enclosed within an outward wall, of great circuit." — jS, 138 NOTES TO CANTO I. [Pi'. 1, *J. 1. 2. Tweecta fair river,] This river, which rices in the south of the county of Peebles, in Scotland, flows eastward, past the town of Peebles and Melrose Abbey ; then becomes the boundary iK-tween England and Scotland, receiving tributaries on both sides ; and flows into the German Ocean near Penvick, after a course of more than 100 miles. It ie famous as a salnion-producing river. . . _ 3. ChevioCs mountains.] The Cheviots are a ran^ of hills, separating the county of Roxburgh, in Scotland, from that of Northumberland, in England. 4. Donjon-keep.] "Dun " is the Celtic for hill. It is the same root as the German DH^e, French itune, English downs. Dunkirk = " church of the san Ihills." The donjon was the strongest part of a castle, usnnllv a tower built on the highest elevation. A donjon-keep was a priscn in oi under such a tower. The ordinary spelling for such a prison is dungeon, OJ-hers derive it from Latin tloininio ; vf. Fr. sonye, from somniare, ii. 1. Saint George.] Cf. infra, xiv. 11, note. iii. 4. Petmon,] or pennant (Latin penna). A small pointed flag, anciently borne by an ei^qnire. When he was knighted, the triangular end was cut off, leaving a small square flag. The cognate word pendant (may not this, however, be derived from Latin pendeo, to hang ?) denotes a long narrow flag, ending in one or two points, carried by ships as a sign that they are in active service. On tlie varieties of flags, cf. infra, IV. xxviii., of. vane. />^ ■,.'.• 9, 10. Palisade, barricade.] Both words are derived from the French : both signify a defence formed of stakes. The latter id related to our words bar, barrier ; the former to our pole and pate, which is (1), that which forms a boundary ; (2), that which is bounded, an inclosure, and BO a district. Tlie follov.ing may refer to either of these senses : — " The studious cloister's pale " (Milton) ; " Within the pale of Christianity " (Atterbiiry); " The Irish without the pale." (3) It has also a special Bense in hcraldrj', for the division of a shield lengthwise. iii. 16. Setc^.] An officer, whose chief function seems to have been getting on and removing dishes from the table at a feast. An early poet, Barclay (Edw. II.), remarks upon them : — ** Slow be the sewers in serving in alway, .■ ^. .i • But swift be they after in taking meat away." ,. ;- Milton mentions them in connection with the seneschal, as in this place (' Par. Lost,' ix. 35) : — " Then marshalled feast, ^ Served up in hall with sewers and seneschals." Diydcn places them in lower company : — " The cook and sewer each his talent tries : In various figures scenes of dishes rise.'* In the stage directions to " Macl>eth " (act i. scene 7), the sc-orpx is mentioned atteaded by inferior servants. pp. 2, S.] NOTES TO CANTO I, 139 It seems also to have been his business to bring water for the handa of the guests, and he therefore carried a towel, as the token of hia office. Cf. Ben Jonson, " Epiccene" (act iii. scene 3) : — " Harry, sir, get me your pheasants, and your godwits, and yonr best meat, and dish it in silver dLhes of your cousin's presently, and say nothing, but clap me a clean towel about you like a sewer, and bare- headed march before it with a good confidence." And Chapman's '* Odyssey : " — " Then the sewre Ponr'd water from a great and golden ewre." Thrre are still four gentlemen sewers in the Rojal Household. Five derivations have been given for the word : — 1. French, asseoir, to set on. 2. French, suivre, to follow, follower. Our sue, snit, etc. 3. French, essuyer, a towel, the mark of his office. 4. Old French, escuyer, our esquire; but whereas in *; the » is generally dropped, in this case it would be the c that is lost. 6. French, assayer, to try : assigning to the sewer a new duty — that of tasting, as well as arranging, the dishes at the feast, to see that they were not poisoned. i' iii. 16. Squire,"] or esquire. French icuyer, originally written eseiiyer, and derived from Latin {scutum, shield), an armour-bearer or attendant of a knight, or a person of the rank next below knighthood. "We now use the two forms of the same word in somewhat different senses. A squire is a country gentleman in possession of an estate. Esqoire is a title now given by courtesy, indiscriminately, in the addressing of letters, but properly signifying the possession of a certain amount of property. Seneschal.] A French title of dignity, given to certain high officers of justice ; also to certain officials in a palace, who have the duties of stewards. For this union of ofllccs, note that the officer who presides over the House of Lords, when it sits as a Court of Impeachment, is the Lord High Steward of England. Derivation uncertain : old Grerman sineigs, old; cf. Lat. seneje. The termiration, like that of marshal, is from German — schalk, a servant. Low Lat. seniscalcus. iv. 1. Mah'oisie,] or Malmsey. A species of wine, so called from Napoli di Malvasia, on the east side of the Morea, where it is produced. The song of " Simon the Cellarer" si^eaks of " Malmsey and Malvoisie,'* as if they were different wines : this is inaccurate. The Dnkc of Clarence was drowned in a butt of Malmsey. Cf. Shakespeare, " Richard HI." (act i. scene iv.) 8. Salvo-shot.] Salute. Lat. salve, hail. Cf. salvage, salvation. V. 2. Red-roan.] Lat. rvfus ; Ital. rotano, roano ; Fr. ronan. Ecan usually signifies a red, or nearly red, horse. 8. Bosworth field.] In Leicestershire. The battle fonght Aug. 22, 1485, at which King Richard was defeated and killed by Henry Tudor, 140 NOTES TO CANTO I. [Pp. 3-.% Earl of Richmond, who was immediately proclaimed king, under the title of Henry YII. 1513 is the date of this poem ; so that this scar was 28 years old. T. 18. Cai'pet knight."] Cf. Shakespeare, "Twelfth Night" (act iii. scene 4), " He is a knight, dubbed > 'ith unhatched rapier, and on carpet consi- deration," Where Johnson's note is as follows : "That is, he is no soldier by profession, not a knight-banneret dubbed on the field of battle, but cii some carpet consideration at a festivity, or on some peaceable occasion, when knights receive this dignity kneeling not in war but on a carpet."' vi. 2. Milan steelJ] " The artists Of Milan were famous in the Middle Ages for their skill in armoury, as appears from the following passage, in which Froissart gives an account of the preparations made by Henry Earl of Hereford (afterwards Henry IV.), and Thomas Duke of Norfolk, Earl Marischal, for their proposed combat in the lists at Coventry : — • These two lords made ample provisions of all things necessary for the combat ; and the Earl of Derby sent off messengers to Lombardy, to have armour from Sir Galcas, Duke of Milan. The Duke complied with joy, and gave the knight, called Sir Francis, who had brought the mes- sage, the choice of all his armour for the Earl of Derby. When he had selected what he wished for in plated and mail armour the Lord of Milan, out of his abimdant love for the Earl, ordered four of the best armourers in Milan to accompany the knight to England, that the Earl of Derby might be more completely armed.'— Johnes's ' Froi:;sart,' vol. iv. p. 597."— 5. Til. 3. Gilded spurs.] Mark of knighthood. 6. Bear the ring mcay.] One variety of the ancient game of tilting was running at the ring. A small ring was hang at about the level of the eye of the horseman, who endeavoured to carry it off on his lauco'a point, whilst at full gallop. viii. 8, 9. Forky pennon, swallow's tail.] Cf. note on I. iii. 4. A " swallow's tail" is still the technical name of a nautical pennon forked into that particular shape. 20. Cloth-yard shaft.] Ct. V. I. 18. Hollinshed describes certain arro\vs of the Cornish insurgents in 1496 as " in length a full cloch" yard." Cloth-yard = 6 quarters = ell. Ix. 9. Welcotne shot.] Cf. supra, iv. 8, salvo-shot. A salute on arrival. X. 8. Angel.] An English gold coin bearing the stamp of an angel, in allusion, as some say, to Gregory the Great's "Non Angli sod angeli." (On which story nee Stanley's" Memorials of Canterbury," p. 7 et seq. : he gives it from Bede.) Its value varied at different times, but it was somewhere about ten shillings. xi. 1. Pursuivants.] (Latin persequor ; French poursuivre, follow.) Attendants on heralds. It was customary for gentlemen to undertake this service with the view of becoming heralds. They were called in French poursuivants d^armot, ** followers of armoury," whence the English name. P 5.] NOTES TO CiNTO I. 141 xi. 1. Tabarts.] (French, tabarre.) A short garment, not nnlike a mo- dern shirt, but closer-fitting. "Taliard; a jaquct or slevclesse coate, worn in times past by noblemen in the warres, bnt now only by heranlt8 (heralds), and is called theyre ' coate of arms in servise.' It is the signe of an inne in Southwarke by London."— Speght Gloss, to " Chaucer." It was at this inn that the pJJgrims to Canterbnry met, according to Chancer. (' Prol.' line 20.) Mr. R. Morris (Chancer, 1. c), pays that the Taberdars of Queen's College, Oxford, were scholars, so called because they wore the tabard. (CJf . Lat. trabea, robe of state.) 6. 77>ei/ hailed Lord Marmion, etc.] " Lord Marmion, the principal character of the present romance, is entirely a fictitious personage. In earlier times, indeed, the family of Marmion, Lords of Fontenay in 2forinandy, was highly distinguished. Robert de Marmion, Lord of F( temporary evidence. p. 7.] NOTES TO CANTO L H.'^ The following are the notes of Mr. Surtees : - > " Willimotesirick, the chief seat of the ancient family of Ridley, is Bitnatcd two miles above the confluence of the Allon and Tyne. It is a house of strength, as appears from one oblong tower, still in tolei*able preservation. It has been long in possession of the Blacket family. IlardHding Dick is not an epithet referring to horsemanship, btit means Richard Ridley of HardricUng, the seat of another family of that name, which in the time of Charl^ I. was sold, on accomitof expenses incuiTcd by the loyalty of the proprietor, the immediate ancestor of Sir Matthew Ridley. Ridley, the bishop and martyr, was, according to some authori- ties, bom at Hardiiding, where a chair was preserved, called the Bishop's Chair. Others, and particularly nis biographer and namesake. Dr. Glocester Ridley, assign the tononr of the martyr's birth to Willimotes- wick. Will of the WiC seems to lie William Ridley of Walltown, po called from its situation on the great itoman Wall. Thirltcall Castle, whence the clan of Thirlwalls derived their name, is situated on the small river of Tipple, near the western boundary of Northumberland. It is near the wall, and takes its name from the rampart having been thirled, i.e. pierced or breacbed, in its vicinity. Featberston Castle lies south of tha Tyne, towards Alston Moor. Albany Feathr-rstonhaugh, the chief of ttiat ancient family, made a figure in the reign of Edwai*d VI. A feud did certainly exist between the Ridlcyp and Featherstons, productive of such consequences as the ballad nai rates: — '24 Oct. 22. (1530). Inquititio capt. apud Ilautwhistle, sup. visum corpus Alexandri Feathefsfon, Oen. apud Grensilhaugh felon ice inter/ecti, 22 Oct. per Nico- laum Ridley de Unthante, Oen. Ilitgon Ridle, Nicolaum Ridle, et alios (jusdem neminis* Nor were the Featherstons without their revenge ; for, 3<>to Henrici 8vi (1544), we have—* Utlagatio Nicolai Feiherstou, ac Thome Nyxson, -12. a' (Solutions, which were releases from the consequences after the act. Luther attacked them openly in Gennany, whilst Chaucer and Lyndsay, by their poetry, had made them contemptible in England and Scotland. The Pardoner is a freqnent character in the old " Moralities." In Sir David Lyndsay's drama, the " Satjrre of the Three Estaitis," one is intro- duced with the appropriate nickname of " Robin Rome-raker." Chaucer introduces a Pardoner as one of the company of pilgrims which as- sembled at the " Tabard," Southwark, and went together to the ahriuu - of St. Thomas of Canterbury. (Vide Morris's " Chaucer," p. 21.) xxi. 5.] " At Berwick, Norham. and other Border fortresses of im- portance, pursuivants usually resided, whose invio'able character rendered them the only persons that could, with perfret assurance of safety, be - Bent on necessary embassies into Scotland." — his usual home ami occupations, when he had paid his devotions at the particular spot which was the object of his pilgrimage."— A'. An old writer (Blount's "Gloasography ") gives the diffoi-ence still more fully : — " A pilgrim and a palmer differed thus : a pilgiim had some dwelling — the palmer none ; the pilgrim travelled to some certahi place — the palmer to all, nut one in p.articular : the nilerim might l>ear his rwn chui'gob— lUo palmer must profess wilful poverty ; the pilgrim luigut p. 1 2. J NOTES TO CANTO I. 147 relinquish his vocation— the palmer must be constant till he won the palm, that is, victory over his ghostly enenxies, and life by death." Chancer and Pope seem to make the distinction : — Chaucer (Prol. line 12) — " Thanne longen folk to go on pilgrimages, And palmers for to seeken straunge strondes." Pope — " Tehold jon isle, bj' palmers;, pilgrims trod, Mci bearded, bald, cowl'd, imcowl'd, shod, unshod." The diflference is not observed in the following extract from Camden's " Remains " :— " As palmer— that is, pilgrim — for that they carried palm when they came from Jerusalem." " Palmer's-weeds," used aa a disguise (Spenser, " F. Q." II. 1. 52, 58). xxiii. 2. Salem.] Jerusalem. 3. The blessed tomb.] Our Loi-d's Sepulchre, still shown at Jerusalem. 6.] Ararat, in Armenia. Cf. Gen. viii. 4. 12.] Cf. Chaucer, " Wife of Bath," prol.:— ^ *,: j / ^ - •' With wilde thonder dint and firy leven ' ' . Mote thy wicked nekke be to-broke." 14. Saint James's cockleshell.] A token that the pilgrim had visited the shrine of St. James of Compostello. There is a town in Galicia, in the norti-west comer of Spain, with two names, both of which refer to this shrine, which has given the town its name and fame : Santiago, which is simply the Spanish for St. James ; and Compr*- stello, for which two derivations liave been found — either Campus Stella*, because a star pointed out the place where the body of the Apostle waa concealed ; or Qiacomo Apoetolo, the Italian for James the Apostle. The Spanish Church claims, apparently on very small foundation, that St. I'eter, St. Paul, and St. James the Elder visited Spain shortly after the Crucifixion. But as Italy laid claim to the other two, St. James alone became the tutelar saint of Spain. The local tradition was that after St. James was beheaded at Jerr.salem, in a.d. 42, his body was taken to Joppa, and thence was miraculously transported to Padron, near Com- postello. [Compare the story of St. Cuthbert (n. xiv.), and of the House of Loretto (I. xxvii. lO.] This afterwards became the most important shrine in Spain ; and as the Spaniards were prohibited from going on the CniFades, because there were infidels in their own country, a great deal of the feeling, which elsewhere found an outlet in the Crusades, was m Spain expended upon this shrine. In a.d. 1 '■ 48 a military Order of Santiago was founded, which, like the Order of the Templars, from being at first poor and humble, became rich, powerful, and insolent, and the autho- rity of its Master rivalled the power of the Sovereign. In the person of Ferdinand the Catholic, however, the two offices were united, and a violent suppression like that of the Templars thereby avoided. The scallop (xxvii. 13) or cockleshell abounded in the neighbour- hood, and was of course sacred to the saint. Moreover, it must be r»< luembered that St. James was a fisherman. LS 148 NOTES TO CANTO I. [PP. 12-14. rilgrim.'i^reB are still made, though the life has gone from the per- formauce. Vide " Ford's Handbook of Spain," p. 601. Cf. " Percy's Roliques," Book II. xviii. " The Friar of Orders Gray '»— ♦• And how should I know your true love From many another one ? O by his cockle, hat, and staff. And by his sandal shoon ! *' which verse Percy has adapted from Shakespeare, " Hnnilct,' iv. v. 23. Southey also has written a b-allad to which reference should be made, called " The Pilgrim to Com postella." xxiii. 15. Montserrat.'] A mountain in the north-west of Spain, on which was a shrine of the Virgin. 19. Saint Rosalie.] A holy maid of Palermo, in Sicily, who retired from the world, and lived in a cave on an almost inaccessible mountain. xxiv. 1. Saint George of y^oiiriih mei'ry.] In the year 1385 a frater- nity, consisting of brethren and sisters, was formed at Norwich in honour of St. George. They endowed a chaplaincy, to celebrate a daily service to the saint in the cathedral. The association obtained a charter from King Henry V., and appears to have been closely connected with the corporation of the city of Norwich. They became a very wealthy bo<1y, and had very imposing processions on St. George's Day. Perhaps the word "mer^^' ' refers to the festivities on the»e occasions; per- haps it refers ^J ^3 English cry, " St. George for merry England 1" Cf . Henry T&i \>' , " O England, merry England, styled of yore." 2. Saij ' TTiomas.] Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, the great opponent of Henry II. Interesting accounts of the murder of Becket, and of his shrine, will be foiuid ia Stanley's " Memoriul?tianity censed out of the Holy Lar.d. As this situation proveii unsatisfactory, owing to the wicketlness of the inhabitants, it was again removed, by the same miiTiculous agency, to its prosent position in the year 1J94. It wii» deposited on the lands of a noble and pious lady, called Lauretta, after whom the town which soon grew up around the ikitita Casa was named. The Virgin's house contains a very old statue of her in cedar, which is attributed to St. Luke. It is, however, most rudely executed. Relics so Baci'eimilar articles laid upon the sacred relics, by which process they l)elieve them to acquire some peculiar virtue. (Vide Stanley's " Sinai and Palestine," p. 444.) xxvii. 16. Budget.] A small bag, from the French hougette, a little leathern bag ; boitge, a closet. All these words are, perhaps, from the same root as bag. The Chancellor of the Exchequer's annual accounts are callod the Budget, from their being in the form of a btmdle of papers. It is also a term used in heraldry. Scrip.] Also signifies a small bag, or wallet. In 1 Sam. xvii. 40, we read that David took five smooth stones, " and put them in a shepherd's bag wliich he had, even in a scrip." Cf. Matt. x. 10, Luke xxii. 3.5-6, Oi-cck TT^pa— a leather pouch for victuals. This w^ord is entirely un- connected with the tcrip, which is derived from Latin, sn-iOo. It is relute [Pp. 19-21. abbot of a monastery, but as his tIcws were opposed to those of the monks, he broke off the connection ; and so many persons followed him, that lie M'as able to found twelve new monasteries. He int^tituted his famous order at Monte Cassino. where he composed his Rule {Reyula Mouw Chorum), pronounced by Gregory the Great to be the best ever written. The Benedictine order became very illustrious, and served as th« model for all other orders. In the twelfth century it is said that there were no less than twelve thousand monasteries in Europe under its rule. Innumerable popes, emperors, princes, and great men belonged to it. It became a favourite order in England, because our great missionary and first Archbishop of Canterbury, St. Au- gustine, was a Benedictine, The Venerable Bede also belonged to this order. In consequence of their wearing a long, black robe, the Benedictine monks were commonly called Black Friars. Cf. " Black was her garb." ', iv. 14. Ti/nemouth.] A town, as its nameimplic"', on the mout'i ,f the River TjTie, on the north, famous for its priory, the beautiful remains of wliich may still be seen on the cliff looking towards the sea. 15. Chapter.'] A meeting of heads (capita). A court was about to be held, at which the head* of three religious houses, belonging to the Order of SI. Benedict, would hold a trial on the two apostates. It is a name given to a body of ecclesiastics attached to a church or cathedi'al. n. Apostate.] From Gi-eek ai^io-ttjaxi. One who deserts the religion or nect to which he belongs. The Emperor Julian of Byzantium, who re- nounced Christianity, is usually known as Julian tlie Apostate. V. 3. Unpro/essed.} Sc. having not yet taken the vows. 6. One now dead, or Korse.} Sc. De Wilton. 6. One who loved her/or her land.} Sc. Mann ion. t •. 10. Vestal.] Lit. of Vesta, the ancient goddess of the hearth. As virgins used to be consecrated to her service, the word is now c&cd. Kuncrally, for virgins set apart for any raligious purpose. rii. 5. Una and the lion in Spenser, " F. Q.," book I. canto ill. ei 6, 12. Bowl.] Sc. of poison. viii. 6. Monk-Wearmouth.] A town in Durham, at Ihe mouth of the Wear, now almost fonning a part of the comparatively modem town of Sunderland. It is a town of great antiquity : quite recently a Saxon cross has been dug up in the church. There was a famous monastery there, the early history of which is given by Bede. This monaster}' was destroyed by the Danes ; but the present church is very old, probably dating from Saxon times. Tyitemouth.] Cf. iv. 14. Seaton-Delaval.] The family seat of the Delaval family, built in the style of the Renaissance, pp. L»0, 21.] NOTES TO CANTO II. Ij3 Tlif. 9. WiiMeringlon."] The home of the "Widdrlnorton family, a very ancient famii}-, ccilalnly as old as the ? sign of Henry II. Ileference i§ Blade to one of them in " Chevy Chase " : — " For Witherington my heart was woe. That ever he should slain be, / For when his legs were hewn in two. He knelt and fought on his knee." 15. A^ne.] A river on which Alnwick is situated. 16. WaikicorCh.} At the month of the River Coquet. It btlongs to the Tercy family, of which the Duke of Northumberland is the head, to whom it gives a second title. The castle is famous in history ; and Shakespeare laid there the scene of part of " Henry IV." But it L««, |ierhai«, best known on account of Bishop Percy's ballad, " The Hermit of Warkworth." r 20. Dunstanborough Castle.] Now a ruin, perched on the top of a ridge of basaltic rocks, which rise from the sea in black pcr- I^ndicular pillars. Though there was a structure there in much earlier times, the castle was built by Thomas Earl of Lancaster, grandson of Henry III., and the powerfi;! subject in the reign of Edward II., who wm executed after his defeat at the battle of Borough Bridge. 21, Bamborotigh.'] Though still a magnificent castle, dates from a period long before the Conqnest. It was built by Ida, the first Saxon king of Northumbria ; and shortly afterwai-da it was called Bedban- burgh, in honour of Bebba, a Saxon queen. Frequent batterings in various wars, and consequent rebuildings, make it almost impoflsible to say whet'.ier any part of the original " King Ida's Castle" nemair.s. It now belongs to Loi-d Crewe's ch^ray, which consists chiefly of benefac- tions to the University cf Oxf rd, to Lincoln College, Oxford, and to varioutj local and diocesan objec a. ix. 3. " Lindisfame is not properly an Island, but rather, as the Venerable Bede has termed i'., a semi-isle ; for although surrounded by the sea at full tide, the ebb leaves the sands dry between it and the opposite coast of Northumberland, from which it is about three milea distant."— 5. 13. Dark red pile.] Built of red sandstone. X. 1. " The ruins of the monastery upon Holy Island betoken great antiquity. The arches are, in general, strictly Saxon, and the pillars which support them short, strong, and massy. In some places, however, there are pointed windows, which indicate that the building has be«-n repaired at a period long sul»equent to the original foundation. The exterior ornaments of the building, being of a light sandy stone, have been wasted, as described in the text."— 5. 5. Tlic art.] Gothic architecture. The early Gothic architects drew their insoiration from natui-e, and copied In their stone carvings the 154 NOTES TO CANTO II. [Pp. 22-24. folmge of treta, and in their arches the interlacing boughs of an avenue ; BO that what was said of feudalism may be applied also with tnith to Gothic architecture : " Ce beau syst^me a et«! trouve dans les bois." xi. 10.] "The nunnery of Holy Island is altogether fictitious."— .S. Indeed, St. Cuthbert had a special dislike tci women, owing, it is said, to ft trick which was played on him by a Pictish princess. There was in the floor of Durham Cathedral a cross of blue marble, which no woman was all:>wed to pass, lest she should approach the shrine of the saint. xiii.] In this stanza four stories are given, as related by the nuns of Whitby:— 1.] (1.) The authority for this story is an old document, said to be as much a fiction as this poem. Three knights were chasing the wild by the Chiu-ch was widespread in the Middle Ages, and gave great gi*onnds and aid to the efforts of the llefonners. (Cf. I. xx. ib.) xvii. 6. Afantles.] This vord means, primarily, ix) spread the wingd, 03 a hawk does when pleased. Thus Milton has : — ^ " The swan with arched neck .* Between her white wings mantling, rows Her state with oary feet," , ^.- . —" Par. Lost," vii. 438. The word also means (as here) to gather on the surface, like froth, or to feiment. Cf. Pope, " Imitations of Horace,"— " From plate to plate your eyeballs roll. And the brain dances to the mantling bowl." - - The derivation of the word mantle in these senses Is unknown, unless it comes from the substantive mantle, and signifies spread out as a cloak. 10. /lopes in heaven.] The breach of convent To^vs was a most, ht'iuous crime in the eyes of a Roman Catholic ; it was breaking a solemn promise and covenant with God Himself. 23. His Sovereign's mandate.] Which prevented his returning for Con- stance. 27, Cf . what Constance had said, II. zxxi. 3. xviii. 4. Vennachar] , or Vennachoir. A lake (about 4 m. by 1 m.) in the aouth-westem part of Perthshire, one of several lakes formed by southern branch of Frith. xix. 2. Alexander III. reigned from 1249 to 1263. The clerk's answer, therefore, would be l/iO yeara. 19. Dunbar.] Cf. I. xix. 4. XX. 8. Nonceyan,] for Noi-weglan. Cf. Shakespeare, "Macbeth," II. ii. 31, 49. So Troyan, for Trojan, " Merchant of Venice," V. i. 4, 11. Bute and Arran are islands in the estuary of the Clyde. Cunning' hame and Kyle are, respectively, the northern and central poilions of Ayrshire. 15. " Magicians, as is well known, were very curious in the choice and form of their vestments. Their caps are oval, or like pyramids, with lappets on each side, and fur within. Their gowns are long, and fun-ed with fox-skins, under which they have a linen garment reaching to the knee. Their girdles are three inches broad, anr" have many cabalisticai names, with crosses, irjnes, and circles inscriU . on them. Their shoes m2 164 NOTES TO CANTO III. [Pp. 46-48. ghonld 1)6 of new masct leather, with a crops cut ai'on them. Their knives are diggcr-faahioned ; and their swonis have neitiier guard uor Bt-abbard. — See these, and many other particnlara, in the diw-oiireo con- cerning Devils and Spirits, annexed to Regiuald Scott's Discovei-y of mfc/jcro//, edition 1063."- S. „ XX. 22. Pentacle (Ok. TreVrt. ^).^ A piore ot fine linen, folded with five comere, emblematic of the senses, and inscribed with msaterious signs. Some say it is emblematic of the five wounds in Our Lord's body. 26. Combust, retrograde and trine are adjectives, agreeing with sign. The Host could not have known what they meant. xxli. 14. As born upon.] Those who were bom on Good Friday or Christmas Day were vulgarly believed to have the gift of seeing spirits. Alexander IH. w , bom Sept. 4, 1241, whic h could not have been Good Friday or Christmas Day. If Sir Waltei wished to describe the carelesE habits of speech of the lower classes, he has succeeded to a marvel. 22. ITie gi/t.] Another mistake of the Host. This speech must have l)een made in A.D. 1262 or 1263, by a king who was bom in 1241. CvEur-de- Lion died in 1199. 27. Unicoi m III., sumaxned Cean-mohr, from the great size of his head, yacceetled to the Scotch throne in a.d. 1056. Ue was a prince of great ooui-age and genei'osity. He carried on frequent wars against England, and was finally killed before Alnwick. His wife Margaret, sister of Edgar Athcling, was afterwards canonised. 36. Saint George to speed .'] Cf . VI. xv. 13, " Saint Jade to speed ! " xxiii. 5. Left-hand the toan.] Elliptic expression for " on the left hand of the town." Hctish race.] The Pict? were the jtredominant race in Scotland daring the firet four centuries of the Christian era : they then began to be ousted by the Scots, who came from IreUmd, and ultimately subjugated them. Very little is kno\vn of the Picts, save that they were rude savages. Their religion was Dniidical, and the poet is, therefore, justified in imputing bloody rites to them. 15. Four points of heaven.] l.^e cardinal points. 20. England's King.] Slight finachronlams. Alexander's vision mvbi have been very shortly before the battle of Largs (1262 or 1263), because he was then only just out of his teens. Edward I. came to his throne in 1272. He went to Holy Land a/ler the battle of Evesham (1265). 26. Length of limb.] Edward I. was sumamed Longshanks. xxiv. 6. Visor.] A word which is variously written, as, vizard, vizor, &c. (from Latin, video, see). Tliat part of the helmet which protected the face, and which couisted of bars, or other open work, to enable the wearer to see. xxiv. 11. 0/ Largs he saw the glorious plain .] Largs is in AjrrBhlro, or Che eastern bank of the estuary of foe (Jlyde. In 1263 Haco, king of Pp. 19,50.] NOTES TO CANTO III. l6/l Nonvay, invaded Scotland with a pown-fnl fleet. After taking the islnnd<» of Anan and Bnte, he disemhark»Hl his forces at Larprs, to give battlo to tl-n Scots, who were assembled there nnder their king, Alexander III. owing to a stonn he wjis only able to land a part of his troops ; he then.»- fore suffered a decisive defeat (r2«3). Heaps of stones Btill mark the BIK^ts under whic^h the slain lie, and hanows, whi.h, being opened, have been found to cont;iin urns ai.d bones, xxiv. 17. T/ie shadoiry h'inijx.] I.e. himself and Haco, as seen in hi« vifion. 20. This is in allusion to the expedition undertaken by the English Bg.tinst Copenhagen, in 1801, when Denmark and Swalen formed an alliance with Russia with the object of dcpnving England of her mari- time supremacy. Sir Hyde Parker was the admiral of the English fleet ; but Nelson was the second in command, and the foremost iu the battle. Some account of this expctlition will be found in Southey's " Life of Nelson," chap. vii. The insertion of a prophecy of hi. torical events, later than the times spoken of, is not uncommon in poets : p^Hiaps the be.-t-kujwn instance is in Vli^il's " Sixth ^neld." XXV. 9. Dunfermline.] Malcolm Ceun-mohr resided here with his wife, eister of Edgar Atheling, through v.-hom the Anglo-Saxon civilisation was introduced into Scotland. He had established an important reli- gions house here, and ordered that it should be the regiilar burialplace of the Scottish kings. The Abbey became VC17 impoi"tant, and though destroyed by Edwai-d I. it was splendidly refbuil '., rind many of the kii;gg were inten-ed in it. Dunfermline was long a roral residence. Charles I. was bom here. 19. Wallace iPvjht.'^ Sir William Wallace vas bom of good family in the reign of Alexander III. Edward I. conquered Scotland iu 1290. Wallace kept up a band of active insurgonts, but, being ill-supported by the Scottish nobles, he was not very jucceasful. He waa bcti*ayed to the English, taken to London, tried, Iiangetl, drawn and quaiterrKl. It is worth notice that tlie English spent fifteen yeara in the attempt to subjugate Scotland, and were at the height of their power when Wallace was executed. Six montlis latijr Scotland was free. Very contrary estimates of his character may Le found in Dickens's " Child'a Histoiy of England," where he is a hero, and in a book called " The Greatest of the Plantageneta," where he is a scoundrel of the blackest dye. xxvi. 1. Quaiijh.] " A wooden cup, composed of staves hooped toge- ther." — S. A small and shallow cup or drinking- vessel, with two ears for handles, generally of wood, but sometimes of silver. Gaelic- In Irish Gaelic, it is cuach. The word is piobably not unconnected with our English quaff, to drink, which some say is derived from it. Smollett gives th«' following account of the vessel in " Humphry Clinker" (iii. p. 18, old edit. p. 2S7): " It is emptied into a quaff, that is, a curious cup made of different pieces of wood, such as box and ebony, cut intfi little gtnvea, joined alternately, and tiecun. ^ with delicate hoops, Uuviug two ears at 16G NOTES TO CANTO IV. [Pp. 61-64. handles. It holds about a gill, is sometimes tipped round t'ne mouth with silver, and has a plate of the same metal at bottom wila tuc land- lord's cipher engraved." CANTO IV.-THE CAMP. I\ THE morning Marmion's horse was nearly dying, and the horse of a sqi'.ire seemed to have been violently ridden in the night. Nevertheless, Mannion with his train continued his journey. He was soon met by Sir David Lindesay, Lord Lion King-at-Arms, chief herald of Scotland, who had been sent by the King of Scotland to conduct Marmion to his pre- Rencc. The Palmer was not, however, allowed to depart, for Sir David's orders were that no one was to leave the train. Sir David conducte-J Marmion to Crichtoun Castle, and after resting there for two days, they continued their journey to the camp at Borough Moor near Edinburgh, where King James was mustering his forces. 1. 13.'B(cket.2 Cf. supra, I. xxiv. 2, note. 16. On Blount's character. The following epithets are applied to him by the poet :— 1. Gentle (ac. well-bom), by Hubert, IV. i. 21. 2. Hasty, V. xxxi. 27 :— »• Saint Anton' fire thee ! " 8. Rude, V. xxxil. 27. 4. Unnurtured, by Eustace. VT. xxviii. 27 :— Cf. "Stint in thy prate," VI. xxi. 16, and again xxvii. 23. 6. Su:orn horse courser, by Mannion, VI. xvi. 32. JeiTrey, in the " Edinburgh Review," dHSoribcd Blount's speeches as " a great deal too unpolished for a noble youth aspiring to knighthootl." But is it not truer to nature to recognise thi ere are porstjua so natu- rally unoonrtoous that even chivalry, the «.sr:.'>» of which wafl cour- tesy, could not polish tbem ? 81. Lantern-led by Friar Rush.'] Sir Walter Scott in his note says, " alias Will-o'the-Wisp." Then, to explain the name, " he is a strolliui; aemon, who once upon a time got admission into a monastery as a HculUon, and played the monks many pi-anks." He then adds, ** he waa also a sort of Robin Goodfellow and Jack o'Lanthom." Mr. Kelghtley, in his "Fairy Mythology" (p. .34, note), describee this as " a preinons confusion," i^to which condenmatioii text as well as the note falls, fc'ir Waltof; however, followed Milton in his mistake (" L' Allegro," loy) : — Pp. 54-57.] NOTES TO CAMO IV. 167 " She was pinched and pulled, she said ; And he, hy friar's lantern led, Tells how the drudging goblin sweat To earn his cream-bowl duly set/' '^\3lom also Keightley corrects: " The Friar is the celebrateil Friar Jliah, who haunted houses, not fields, and w^aa never the same with Jiick-o'- the-Lanthorn. It was probably the name Rush, which suggested rush- light, that caused Miltou's error. He is the Bnidyr Rausch of Germany, the Broder Runs of Denmai-k. His name is either, as Grimm thinks, uoise, or, as "Wolf deems, drunkenness, oui" old word rouse." Cf. leuny- Bon, " Vision of Sin " :— '* Have a rouse before the morn." Iv. 2. Ilumbie and Salloun are parishes in Haddingtonshire. 24. William Caxton set up the first printing-pi-ess in England. He lived 1412-1491. Wynkyn de Worde was his successor. Cf. PoiJe's " Dunciad," bk. 1. 149 :— •' There Caxton slept with WynkjTi at his side ; One clasped in wood, and one in strong cow-hide." V. 6. Point of tpar] = note of war. Cf. Macaulay's " Ivrj'," 59. vi. 8. Places in Scotland, from which the national heralds took their names : — liute^ an island on the west, at the mouth of the Frith of Clyde. Islay, another island, a little farther west. Marchmont : the castle of Marchmont, now called Roxburgh Castle. Rothsay, an ancient royal residence in the Isle of Bute. 9. Tabards."] Cf. I. xi. 1. 11. Kivg-at-anns.} These officers presided over the colleges of the heralds, and determined various matters relating to heraldry. vii. 12. Cap of maintenance.] An heraldic term for a cap of dignity worn by distinguishctl persons. It originally belonged to the rai.k of a duke. Tlie fur cap of the Lord Mayor of London, worn by him on. state occpsions, is so called. The Mayor of Exeter also has one, given by Henry VII. 19. Achaius (Eocha), P^'^f^ti king of the time of Charlemagne (cf. note on VI. xxxiii. 9), with w, ai it is state 1, though on very slight grounds, that he made a treaty, and that the double tit'ssure with the Jeur-de-lys was introduceofore he ob- tiineearance. The inside of this part of the building appears to have con- tained a gallery of gi-eat length and iinc-ommon elegance. Access wag given to it by a magnificent staircase, now quite destroyed. The soffits (technical term for the inside of an arch) are orndmentcd with twining cordage and rosettes: and the whole seems to have been far more splendid than was u?ual in Scottish castles. The castle bclongetl orifriu- ally to the Chancellor, Sir William Crichton, and probably owed to him its first enlargement, as well as its bxburghshire, and is the valley on the north side of the Cheviot Hills. 33. Maudlin.] A corruption of Magdalen. Cf. the ijronunciation ot Magdalen College. The adjective maudlin is said to be derived from Magdalen also, because painters lepreaent her with swollen eyes, and confused with weeping. V. 1. Celtic] The Highlanders are Celtic or Gaelic, whilst the Low* Jjinders are of Saxon or Scandinavian origin. The names of Celtic thhes may be thus con:iected : Cdtse, Keltic, Galatas, Ga'li, Gael, Wai», Pp. 77-80.] KOTES TO CANTO V. 175 Cornwall, Walloon. Cf. Caesar, B. G. I. i. " qui ipsoram lingua CdtaB, nostra Galli appellantur." vi. 22. Following.^ Scott, on using this word, added the explanation " feudal retainers" in a note. It is now conunon enough, especially as nsed uf a Parliamentaty party. 27. Holy Rood.} Cf. I. xxi. 25. 30. Costly teines.} A customary present to ambassadors. vii. 12. Maskers.'] Actors in masks. Cf. Shakespeare's " Henry VIII.* I. ir. Hence the word masquerade. viii. 16. Thitile.l Cf. supra, IV. xiv. 13. 17. Toledo."] A very ancient city of Spain, once its capital, situated on the River Tagiis, and thirty-seven miles south-west of Madrid. It8 architecture is chiefly Moorish, the result of the occupation of Spain by the Saracens, but its history dates from a much earlier period. It is mentioned by Liry (xxxv. 22), *' Toletima ibi parva Tirbs erat setl loco munito," and (xxxix. 30) he tells us of its capture by M. Fabius Nobilior, 193 B.C. By the Goths, it was made the capital of their monarchy. It has long been famous for its manufacture of swords, the Mooi3 having brought the art from the East. Charles III. had a huge building erected for this object, about two miles from the city. The sword-blades were remarkable for their temper, and a proof of their elasticity is given by the fact that they were sometimes sold in boxes, coiled up like the main- spring of a watch. " Compassed like a good Bilboa, in the circinuferenro of a peck, hilt to point, heel to head." FalstaflE in Shakespeare's " Merry Wives of Windsor," m. v. 110. ix. 20. Iron belt.] Cf. IV. xv. 15. X. 2. Sir Hugh the HerorCs wife.] In I. xvil. Sir Hugh had announced that his wife was at the Scotch court : in IV. ix. 10, Sir David Ly»:d.suy hivd called her a spy for England : the warning against woman's wiles, in IV. xvii. 12, is directed against her. It is said by' most historians that " the delays which led to the fatal defeat of Flodden " (5.) are to rie traced to the influence which this lady exercised over the King. Lingard (vol. iv. p. 150, note), however, denies that there were any such delays, because Norham surrendered on the 29th of August, whilst Surrey rcivched Alnwick on the 3rd of September, and Ford, Etall, and Wark were taken in the meantime. Scott's answer to another such defender of Lady Ford, is that it is certain she came and went between the armies of James and Surrey — evidence, however, insufficient for conviction. Her hiisliand ha I been accessory to the slaughter of Sir Robert Kerr of Cessford, Warden of the Middle Marches, for which he had been delivered M|i to King James. Lady Ford's object was to obtain her husband's lilxjrty. X. 10. Qiieen of France.] Anne of Brittany, ^vidow of Charles VTH.^ ana second wife of Louis XII. It was through her man-Lige with two 176 NOTES TO CANTO V. [Pp. 81-84. Klnps of Frnncc thnt Brittany, the Inst of the great fiefs, was nnltml to t)ie crown of France. The account of her message to James is from Pitsrottie. The tnrquois ring is said to be now in the London College of Heralds. X. 27. Margaret.] Daughter of Henry VII. of England. After the death of James IV. at Flodden, she married secondly Archibald Douglas, Earl of Angus, from whom she was divorced ; and thirdly Henry Stuart, Lord Methvin. It was through the marriajte of Margaret to James IV. that Jamiis VI. was heir to the English croMin, and at his accession united the crowis of Englaud «»rid Scotland. 28. Lithgow.] Same as Linlithgow. Cf. supra, IV. xv. 4. xii. 1. Lochinvar,] The Gordons were Lords of Lochinvar, a castle by a lake of the same name, in che parish of Daky in Kirkcudbright, beyond the borders of Dumfries. The Grahams were Lords of Netherby Hall, near Carlisle in Cumber- land. Helen Graham was the yonng lady who was to be married to one of the Mu^raves, by the wish of her father and mother ; but Lochinvar was the lady's true-love, who carried her off from her father's mansion. Lochinvar crossed the Esk and rode over Cannobie Lee, a plain in Dum- fiiesshire, divided from Cumberland by the River Liddel. 8. Eske,] or Esk. A river which flows Into the Sol way. It is chiefly '.ji Dumfrieashire. The Liddel is its tributary. (Cf . iv. '20.) xiii. 1. Siren.] Gr. 1tipi)v. In ancient mythology a mermaid or god- dess who enticed men into her power by the charms of music, and tlion destroyed them. The legend is first found in Homer's Odyssey, xii. 39. Hence used for an enticing woman, one with dangerous allurements. 20. The real causes of the war between England and Scotland in which Flodden was the chief battle, seem, according to Lingard (vol. iv. p. 178), to have been three : 1. The detention by Hen^y VIII. of some jewels which Henry VII. had bequeathed to his daughter the Scotch Qneen.— 2. The murder of Sir Robert Ker, the Warden of the Scottish Marches, by the bastard Heron of Ford (vide note on x. 6).— 3. The death of Andrew Barton. 23. Stout BrtrtonJ] John Barton had been captured in 1476 bythePortn- g:iC8c. King James gave to him and his brothers, of whom Andrew is tlie best known, letters of reprisal, or permission to attack any Portuguese Bhips. Thej-, however, found this business so pleasant and lucrative, that they stopped and plundei-ed English ships also. Henrj- VIIL pro- nounced the Bartons pirates, and in an action with an English srtiip-of- war, Andrew Barton was killed. There is a ballad upon Sir Andrew in Percy's " Reliqnes." xiv. 1. Douglas.] Archilmld Douglas. Eai'l of Angin, sunianied Belt' ffu-Catt which suru:une he thus acquitted. Jame«i III., Icing fond of *^\ pp. 84, 85.] NOTES TO CANTO V. 177 architecture and music, was unwise enough to make favourites of Ws architects and musicians. One of his unworthy favourites was a stone- mason named Cochran ; him he created Earl of Mar. The nobles, taking advantage of being assembled for war with England, held a mid- night council in the Church of Lauder, to take meaauits to rid them of this Cochran. Lord Gray told the assembly — who were agreed as to their object, although no one would volunteer to carry it out— the fable of the mice and the cat : the mice determined that they would tie a bell round the cat's neck, so that they might hear her coming ; but their excellent intentions were frustrated because no one would bell the cat. " I under- stand you," said Lord Angus ; " I will bell the cat." Accordingly, Cochran was seized by Lord Angus, and after\.ards hung over the Bridge of Lauder. Earl Angus, now an old man, was strongly opposed to the Flodden war, whereupon the King insultingly told him that he might go home if he was afraid. xiv. 8. Lauder.] A small town in the extreme west of Berwickshire. It is on the Kiver Leader, a tributary of the Tweed. 13. Hermitage Castle.] A famous Border castle, which originally be- longed to the Lords Soiilis, afterwards to the Douglas family. Liddesdale.] Cf. supra, iv. 29. 15, 27. Bothvell Castle.] Now a magnificent ruin on the River Clyde, stands a few miles above the town of Hamilton. It was once the great stronghold of the Douglas family. Near Bothwell Bridge was fought a battle (June 22, 1679), in which the Covenanters were defeated by the royal troops under the Duke of Monmouth. " The Clyde here makes a beautiful sweep, and fonos the semicircular declivity, celebrated in Scottish song as Bothwell Bank."— Guide Book. XV. 15. Tantallon Hold.] Cf. infra, xxxiii. " The ruins of Tantallon Caatle occupy a high rock projecting into the German Ocean, about two miles east ot North Berwick. The building is not seen till a close approach, as there is lising ground betwixt it and the land. The circuit is of htrge extent, fenced upon thiiee sic^.es by the precipice which overhangs the sea, and on the fourth by a double ditch and very strong ^outworks. Tan- tallon was a principal castle of the Douglas family, and when the Eail of Angus was banished, it continued to hold out against James V. The King went in ixjrson against it, and for its reduction borrowed, from the Castle of Dun liar, then belonging to the Duke of Albany, two gi-eat cannons, whose names, as Pitsoottie informs us with laudable minuteness, were ' Thrawai-moutli'd Meg and her Marrow ' ; also, ' two great botcards, and two moyan, two double falcons, and four quarter falcons ' ; for the safe giTidlng and ivdelivery of which three lords were laid in pawn at Dimltar. Yet, notwithstanding all this apparatus, James was forced to raise the siege, and only afterwards obtained possession of 1 imtallon by treaty with the governor, Simon Panango. When the Earl of Angus ruiurncil fixtm banishment, upon the death of James, he again obtaiitod N 178 , NOTES TO CANTO V. [Pp. 85-89. « poRScesion of Tantallon, and it actually afforded refuge to an Engll&h ambassador, under circumstances similar to those described in the text. This was no other tlian the celebrated Sir Ralph Sadler, who resided tliere for some time under Angup's protection, after the failure of his negotia tion for matching the infant Mary with Edward VI. He says, that though this place was poorly furnished, it was of such strength as might warrant him against the malice of his enemies, and that he now thought himself out of danger. " There is a military tradition, that the old Scottish March was meant to expiiess the woiris, ' Ding down Tantallon, i;;';- Mak a brig to the Bass.' *. - •• Tantallon was at length ' dung down ' and ruined by the Covenanters — Its lord, the Marquis of Douglas, being a favourer of the royal cause. The castle and barony were sold, in the beginning of the eighteenth cen- tury, to Ppsident Dalrymple, of North Berwick, by the then Marquis of Dou^as."— 5. One of Scott's friends, Mr. Guthrie Wright, once bantered him for having taken Marmion to Edinburgh by Gifford, Crichtoun, Borthwick, and Blackford Hill, a circuitous and impossible route. Scott replied that he took him by that route because he wished to describe those scenes. But it was at the suggestion of the same finend that Marmion was taken back by Tantallon.— Lockhart's " Life of Scott," vol. iii. p. 17. •XV. 18. Motto, hlazon.l The arms of the Douglas family consist of a heart, surmounted ynth. a crown. This represents Brace's heart, vabich on bis deathbed, in 1329, he commanded the good Lord Douglas to carry to the Holy Land. Thiir motto was ** both time and hour " ; but it seems l\o\v to be changed for " jamais arridre." Cf . VI. ii. 10, " bloody hfeait." —Tide " Tales of a Grandfather" (Scotland), vol. i. p. 86. 25. Dunbar.^ Cf. note, I. xix, 4. xvi. 7. Bruce.] King Robert Bruce. , 10. 77i< Douglas old.] Lord James Douglas, sumamcd the Good. Cf. iupra. xvli. 26. " A hall ! a hall ! "] Ancient cry, to make room for a dance or pageant. Cf. " Romeo and Juliet," I. v. 27. " You are welcome, gentlemen ! Come, musicians, play. A hall I a hall ! give room, and foot it, girls." xriii. 12. Told her chaplet o'er.] Cf. Gloss., bead, xxi. 10. Glostcr.] Qt. note, VI. iv. 29. 16. Martin Strart.] "A German general, who commanded the auxi- liaries sent by the Duchess of Burgundy with Lambert Simnel. He waa rt*?feated and killed at Stokefield. The name of this German general is proGerved by that of the field of battle, which is called, utter him. Swart- Pp. 89-93.] >^OTES TO CANTO V. < 1 79 tnooT. There were songs about him long current In England. — Set Ritaoa's ' Ancient Songs* (1792), p. ]xi."—S. xxi. 17. 8imnelJ\ Lambert Slmnel was the son of a baker, the pupil of an Oxford priest named Simmons, who trained him to personate Edward Plantagenet, Earl of Warwick, son of George Duke of Clarence, who was dro\\Tied in a butt of malmsey. He was at first well received in Ireland ; and the Duchess of Bui^undy sent to him 2,000 German soldiers. The motley army which Simnel got together (Irish and Germans and a few English), under the Eai-1 of Lincoln, were routed in the battle of Stokefield, and the greater number slain. Simnel was made a turnspit in the King's palace, and afterwards rose to be a falconer. This was the first imposture in the reign of Henry VII. (Cf. I. xviii. 10.) 19. Stokefield.'] In Nottinghamshire, halfway between the towns of Newai'k and Nottingham. Date of battle, a.d. 1486. 23. Oueldres.] A town of Ehenish Prussia, between the Bivers Meuse andBhine. 29. On the gi-amfRar, cf. xxii. 24, and note on III. ix. 7. xxiL 17. Edelfled.1 Cf. supra, II. xiii. 11-13. ,, 23. Tame.] A river, which ristd near Walsall, and, after a course of thirty-eight miles, falls into the Trent near Tamworth. It is not to be confused with the Thame, a tributary of the Thames, which it joins ac Dorchester in Oxfordshire. 34. Boisterous monarch.] Cf. VI. xxxviii. 23, "Bluff King Hal." " King Henry the Eighth, whom it has been too much the fashion to call ' Bluff King Hal,' and • Burly King Harry,' and other fine names ; but whom I shall take the liberty to call, plainly, one of the most detestable villains that ever drew breath." — Dickens's " Child's History of England," p. 254. It is but fair to add that one modem historian, at least, has taken King Henx-y'a part : " With all his faults about him, he was still perhajM the greatest of his contemporaries ; and the man best able of all living Eng- lishmen to govern England, had been set to do it by the circumstances of his birth."— Froude'e Hist. vol. i. p. 178. xxiY. 15. Wolsey.] 1471-1530. A short life of Wolsey will be found prefixed to Hunter's edition of Shakespeare's " Hem-y VIII." ; a much longer life in Campbell's " Lives of the Chancellors." 28. Saint Withold.] Withold seems to have been the saint popularly invoked against the nightmare. The Abbess, therefore, invokes his aid oeainst this vision. Cf. Shakespeare's " King Lear " (IV. iii. 125) :— ir2 1 80 NOTES TO CANTO V. [Pp. 93-96. •• Suint "Withold footed thrit-e the wold ; He met the nightmare, and her ninefold ; - Bid her alight. And her troth plight, And, aroint thee, witch, aroint thee I " "Where the old reading, " Swithold foot<\l thrice tlie old," soems to have been in this way correctl}' explained. Cf. also Scott's " Ivanhoe " (vol. i. p. 232) : " The convent of Saint Wittol, or Withold, or wliatever they call that chiu'l of a Saxon saint at Burton-on-Trent." No such conven't, however, is to be fotnd in any accounts of that city. xxiv. 30. There can be no doubt that this story was designed " a tale of peace to teach " (VI. viii. 30). Cf. " Tales of a Grandfather " (Scotland), vol. i. p. 182: "Another story, though not so well authenticated, says, that a proclamation was heard at the market-cross of Edinbui-gh, at the dead of night, summoning the King by his name and titles, and many of his nobles and principal leaders, to appear before the tribunal of Pluto, within the space of forty days. This also has the appearance of a stratagem, invented to deter the King from his expedition." XXV. 1. Dun-F ill's Ci'oss.'] " The cross of Edinburgh was an ancient and curious structure. The lower pai-t was an octagonal tower, sixteen feet in diameter, and about fifteen feet high. At each angle there wjus a pillar, and between them an arch, of the Gi^ecian shape. Above tliesa was a projecting battlement, with a turret at each corner, and medal- lions, of rude but curious workmanship, between them. Above this rose the projier cross, a column of one stone upwai-ds of twenty feet high, sunnounted with a unicorn. This pillar is preserved in the grounds of the property of Drum, near Edinburgh. The Magistrates of Edinburgh, with consent of the Lords of Session (proh pudor .') destroyed this curious monument, under a wanton protext that it encumbei'ed the stroeu , while, on the one hand, they left an ugly moss called the Luckenbooths, and, on the other, an awkward, long, and low guardhouse, which were fifty times more encmubrance than the venerable and inoffensive cross. " From the tower of thf cross, so long as it remaineil, the heralds pub- lished the Acts of Parliament; and its site, marked by radii, diverging from a stone centre, in the High Street, ia still the place where proclama- tions are made."— 5. xxviii. 2. Fair] = fairly. xxix. 2. North Berwick's townJ] A roj.-i burgh and seaport in the county of Hatldington, in Scotland, situate^l on a small bay at the south entrance of the Frith of Forth, and twenty-one miles from Edinburgh. It is at the base of a conical hill, 910 feet in height, called North Berwi(;k Law. About a quarter of a mile fi'om the town, on the si^mmit of a gentle elevation, stand the ruins of the Abbey of North Berwick, " the venerable pile." Iaxw seems to mean a bea'^n hill. Cf. Green/a/r, Duna; fjnr. Sic. In Derbysbire the word " low " is used iu a somewhat similar ai>nse. So pp. 96-99.] NOTES TO CANTO V. 181 also Briiik.'yfr, near Rngby. Probably they are derived from the Anflo- Boxon, " Hlesw," a heap, or hilh Cf ., h ^ ve\er, ley, lea, &.c. The convent was of Cistercian nuns, 1 >i.nded by Duncan, Earl of Fife in 1216. zxiz. 6. Lofty Bass."] A precipitous rock, abont two miles from the Bhore, much frequented by the soiau-treese. (Cf. III. iii. (5.) Lambie Isle.'] There are three small islands oflf the coast— Craigleith, the Lamb (in one MS. it was " the Lamb's green isle "), and Fidra. Tbo iirst is just outside the harbour of North Berwick, the Lamb about a quarter of a mile farther west. They are too small for any but an Ordnance map. XXX. 33. To curse with candle, bell, and booh.] This was the most solemn form of excommunication. Twelve priests in surplices, wth lighted candles, stood round the bishop, and as he pronounced the sentence they dashed their candk-s to the ground. The bells were rring in order that the devils might be kept away from the church, who were Bupposeil to seize upon the excommunicated jjerson at once. The book was the service-book, from which the sentence of excommunication was read. Yide Maskell's " Monumenta Ritualia," vol. i. p. 256. Cf . Shakespeare's " King John," (III. iii. 12) : -,'■:. i " Bell, book, and candle shall not drive me back.' 84. Cistercians.] k religious order, founded by Robert, Benedic- tine Abbot of Molesme. They derived their name from that of their fii"st convent, which was at Citana (Cistercium), neiir Bearne. The rule of the Cistercians was that of St. Benedict. The monks wore a white robe. The order grew very rapidly, and owned a very large number of monasteries within a hundred years of its establishment. xxxi. 7. The records of his house, Jtc] " Tliis relates to the catastrophe of a real Robert de Marmion, in the reign of King Stephen, whom WiUiam of Newbury describes with some attributes of my fictitious hero: Homo bellicosus, ferocia et astucia fere nullo suo tempore impar (a warlike nxan, in fierceness of temper aud in cleverness surpassei by hardly anyone of his own time). This baron, having expel ed the monks from the church of Coventry, was not long of experiencing tLa divine judgment, as the same monks, no doubt, termeuts, blood-gouts.] (VI. v. 7.) Fr. gouile ; Lat. gutta, a drop. Cf . " Macbeth," II. i. 46 : " And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood.'* '* Gramercy t "] (I. xxv. 1 ; III. xxii. 19.) Fr. grand merci, many thanks. Guerdon.] (VI. xxxvi. 11.) A reward, requital, recompense ; either in good or bad sense. From same root as re-u!ard,Te-gard, French. Gules.] (IV. vi. 10.) Heraldic term for red ; bright red. Fi.fftumles, Crom the colour of the gullet, throat ; Lat. gula* 200 GLOSSARY. Hafpbnt.] (V. iii. 8.) Also spelt hackbut. A musket. Hackbtiteer, •• Lay of Last Minstrel," III. xxi. 12. French, arquebuse, from Grerman, hakenMkhse. Ilakeii, hook, and biichse, a fire-arm. Halbert.] (I. viii. 2 ; V. iii. 7.) Germ, hellebarde ; Fr., hallebarde. A epear with an axe at the end of it. Some derive from Germ, helm, handle (cf. helm, handle of ship s rudder), and batte, an axe. There is an Old Germ, form, helmbarte. The halbert is now only used by the to\vn- officers in Scotland, who attend a magistrate, and who may be compared with the English javelin-men. Hale.] (II. xi. 18.) Drag. Cf. St. Luke, xii. 68, " haU thee to the judge." Cf. haul, hale-yard. Harry.] (I. xix. 7.) 1. Same as harrow ; devastate, ravage ; espe- ryt/«i. 204 GLOSSARY. " Warwick having espied certain plumpx of Scottish horsemen ranging the field, turned towards the an iere to prevent danger." — Howard. ♦• There ia a knight of the North Country, Which leada a lusty plump of spears." Ballad of Floddtn Field. PortCTillis.] (I.fv. 13.) Sometimes called Portcluse. •' A sort of door formed of crossbars of iron like a grate. It has not hinges like a door, but is drawn up by pulleys, and let down when any danger approathes. It may be let go iu a moment, and then falls down into the doorwjiy ; And as it has great iron spikes at the bottom, it crushes all that it lights upon."— TVi/m of a Grandfather (Scotland), vol. i. p. 70. Cf. *' Lay of Last Minstrel," VI. iii. 10 : " the portcullis, iron grate." Derived from Trench., porte-coulisie. Prick.] (VI. xix. 3.) Lit. to spur ; hence to ride hard, gallop. Cf. Spenser, " Faerie Queene," 1. 1. 1 : — *' A gentle knight was prtclrin^ on the plaine." And MUton, " Par. Lost," U. 536 :— " ■• ■ •• Before each van Prick forth the airy knights, and couch their spears." Pricker.] (V. iv. 8, xvil. 16.) A light horseman, whether pricking vith spur (Cf. prick, supra) or lance. Prime.] (IV. xxxi. 10.) One of the services in the Church befort the Reformation. It was held at six o'clock in the morning, and the nunie is derived from Lat. primus, because at the first hour of the day, accord- ing to the old calculation. Pursuivant.] Vide note, I. xi. 1. ' Qualgh.] Vide note on m. xxvi. 1. Quiver.] (III. xxvi. 9.) A case for arrows. Prob. deriv., (1) Fr. eouvrir, cover ; (2) Fr. cuivre, metal of which the quiver was made. Ramp.] (TV. xxviii. 18.) Fr. ramper^ climb. To stamp, prance, caper. So Chaucer: — •' Whan she Cometh home, she ram;)eed hf ebxly English writors. Cf. Shakespeare's "Tempest," I. ii. — " A oonfidence jan< bound." • , . And " As You Like It," II. vu. 66 :— " Sans teeth, satu written or pronounced scftur in Scotland." (Ogi}-ry.) There is a rock called tlie Scar at Whitby. Scouts.] (I. ii. 7.) Spies, lit. listeners; from French ecouttt- (escouter). Scrip.] Vide note, I. xxviii. Ifi. Scutcheon.] (I. xi. 2, xii. 20), or escutcheon (through the Frencli tkussor, escusson, from Latin scutum, shield). A shield of aims. Selle.] (III. xxxi. 10.) Lat. sella. French word for saddle, for- merly used in English. Cf. Spenser's " Faerie Queene," II. ii. 11, 6 :— " He left his loftie steed with golden selle." ;, Soott (" Lay of Last Minstrel,'.'- VI. viii. 6) uses it for seat generally ; — ,^, . .^ , "As those that sat in lordly selle." Seneschal.] Vide note, I. iii. 16. Seraphim.] (V. xxiii. C.) Plural of ser&ph, a Hebrew word. Of- Cherubim and Teraphim. Settle.] (III. iii. 16.) A.-S. sell. Germ, sessel, Lat. sedile, something . on which to sit : used for a bench by Dryden. In £zek. xliii. 14, 17, xlv. 19 (Vulgate, crepido), it is used in a somewhat different sense, for » kind of ledge round the bottom of an altar. Sei^'er.] Vide nofc, I. iii. IC. ,.: Shaw.] Vide note, I. xiii. 16. Sheen.] (1.) Adj. (V x. 27.) Shining. A.-S. *-^h, Germ. «cMn. Cf, Bliecn, old name for Richmond, Surrey. (2.) Subs. (V. viii. 12.>i Splendour. Shrift.] (VI. xxxi. 6). and shrive.} (I. xxi. 37, VI. xxx. 31.) (A.S.. scri/oA, the written penance imposed by priest. Germ, schieiben ; Lat. teribo.) Confession, to confeus ; also absolution as following confession* Obtolet* since the Reformation. Cf. Tennyson's •• Idylls," p. 204 :— GLOSSARY. ' f a07 " Bid call the ghostly man Hither, and let nie shrive me clean, and die." Klirove is preterite ; hence Slu-ove Tuesday, Sire.] (T. viii. 2.) Father : through Fr. sire, sieur, from Lat. senior, "Sir" is the same word. Slogan.] (V. iv. 6.) The war-cry or gathering word of a clan : »)iiginally written slughome, sloggome, probably from siege, slay, and eoJtr, horn. Cf. "Lay of Last Minstrel," IV. xxvi. 20: — " Our slogan is their lyke-wake dirge." Slough.] (VI. vii. 10.) The skin of a serpent, which it is said to shed or cast. A.-S. sl6g, hollow place, i.e. skin aione. Solands.] Vide note, III. iii. 6. Sooth.] Truth : cf. foi-sooth. Soothly.] Truly. Speed.] Its first meaning Is to hasten (Gr. a-evSew) : hence if comes to signify help forward, aid. Squire.] Vide «o/<', I. iii. 16, Stalworth,] or stalwart. (I. v. 5.) Stronjr, firm. Eitlier (1) steel-worthy, or (2) steal-worthy, worthy to be stolen. Stare.] (II. xxxii. 4.) Germ, stan-en, be stiff. To stand up : obfcolelf .. Cf. Shakespeare's " Julius Cffisar,'' IV. iii, : — . *• -: " Thou mak'st my blood cold, and my hair to stare." '■■ Stoop.] (I. xvii. 16.) Technical term for descent of a falcon. Stowre^] or 5/oMr. (IV. xxxii. 21.) A.-S. i/ynan. Disturbance, stii sm of battle. In Scotch, it also means stir of dust. Strook.] (III. xiy. 11, IV. xxi. 11.) Old form of struck. ^■ Saccessless.] (II. xxvii. 3.) Without success. So Drj-den : J " The hopes of thy sficcessless love resign." Sumpter-mtiles.] (I. viii. 4.) A beast of burden. Der. O, Fr. fommier. Ft. somme. It. soma, Lat, summa. Sward.] (IV. iv. 1,) A word of Teutonic origin. It first means- the skin of bacon. Hence it is applied to the surface part of grass-land, ooutaiiiiitg the roots of grass. Tabart.] Vide nofe, I. xi, 1. Targe] (VI. v, 3, VI, xxxvii, 3, " the feeble t.") A round target of light Wix>d, cov'^red with strong leather, and studded with brass or iron. In churKiiJi,' regular troops, the Highlander received the thrust of the bayonet in this buckler, twisted it aside, and used the broadsword against the eucumbered soldier. {Hole on " Lady of Lake," Y. xv. 2.) Tide.] (Verb.) To happen. Derived from the Anglo-Saxon ^idan, to happen, to lull. " Tide what tide " (III. xxli. 3) moans " happen what may," " whate'er tetide," or (as VI. xvj. fi) " hap what hap." ^ The word "tidings" moms news of what has happened. >'' Tide.] (Sub«.) (a.) The time at which anything happens. Ifonnuf;: 'J 08 GLOSSART. tide (I. xxix. 3) ; vesper tide (V. vi. 26); eventide C^^. iv. 1). It la aly» ocmmou in compounds, as Whitsrntide, Shrovetide. Tide.] (Subs.) (b.) The rise and fall of the waters of the sea (VI. ii. 30) ; and, metaphorically, of blood (VI. xxx. 16, xs i. 16) ; of flght (VI. ix. 7) ; of ale (III. iii. 19). Tome.] Volume, French. Tread, a measure.'] (V. xii. 30.) Dance. Cf . Shakespeare, " Venue i.nd Adonis." 1148. Treasure.] (IV. vii. U.) A st>ecies of heraldic border ; as in Scot- tish coat of arms. Trews.] Troupers. Fr. tmusse. Trine.] (III. xx. 26.) Lar. Threefold. In astrology, a triangular position of planets, which was thought to be propitious. Un-nurtured.] (VI. xxviii. 27.) Not educated. Un-recked.] (I. xvii. l.) Disregarded. Un-sparred.] (I. iv. l i.) The obsolete word spar signifies to cloce oi bar. Germ, sperren. Thus Chaucer, Horn. R. 3320 : " lie it sparred with a keie.' Vantage-coign.] (VI, ii. 22.) Coign, coin, or quoin (usually the lost in arcliiteoture), means a corner. It is Fr. coin. A vantage-ground is a place from which one can gain an advantage. Cf. Bacon's Essay, 1. " Vantage ground for truth," and Tennyson's Preface to " Idylls," " A vantage-ground for pleasure." So a vantage-coign means a corner whence one obtains advantage. Cf. the Biblical phrase, " thcliend-stoue of the corner." Varlet.] (VI. xxix. 21.) Same word as valet, which was ancifTitly spelt with the r, orifrinally of rather higher rank, a page or knight'r follower. Then the wc -d becamo degraded, valet coming to mean a gentleman's servant ('• Ko man is a hero to his valet-de-chambre"),and varlet, an impudent rascal. In Shakespeare's time the word was useil in both senses, more freqn:^ntly as an opprobrious epithet : " varlet vile." Scott here uacs it with something of the old sense. (Cf. Trench's " Study of Words," pp. 156—160.) Vassal.] (II. xxxi. 2.) A t«nant under the feudal system. From the French, perhaps derived froni Lat. ras, vadis, bail, beciuise the tenant was pledged to assist the lord. Visor.] Vide «o.V, III. xxiv. 6. * Wan. J (III. 1. 16.) Uncommon form of won, preterite of win. War.] (VI. XXV. 17.) Use V Weal.] Welibeing. : :; > V, Wede.] "Weeded. (Scotch.) Weeds.] ("V. vi. 33, VI. vi. 24.) Originally, clothes of any kind ; aow used, except in poetry, only for the mourning of a widow: a widow's weeds. Cf. Tennyson, " In Memariam," v. 9 : • In words, like weeds, I'll wi-ap me o'er, i Like coarsest clothes against the ccld." A. -5. tcocd. Mr. Kitchin (Spenser, I. G'oss.) suggests that it may bt .'oimf^ted with weeds, grass, which " clothes the field." Wight.] (1) Subs. : a person, being— almost obsolete now, nnd itt^ use confined to burlesque. Dryden has— " The triy'ii of all the world who loves thee !>est." i.-S. u:iht ; Germ. mcM. Perhaps connected with quick. (2) Adj. (a). Swift. " He was so \\'imble and so tright, ' From bough to bough he leaped light." —Spen iter, (&). Strong. " "Wrastlen by veray force and veray might, With any young man were he never so mghtJ'*-- Chancer . (0). Large, • " Great Orontes, that montane wichf—Ltndesay, Wimple.] (V. xi. 14.) A cloth or haTulkerchief for tbene<.k, uistln- guished from the veil. Cf. "Lay of Last Minstrel."" T. xvii. 4 :— " '\Vhitc was her wimple and her veil." Spenser use«! it for tlie white linen plaited cloth w^hich nuns wear about their neck. Tliere is also a verb, to wim- ple, meaning to plat or fol'^ * ,-S. icin^el, Fr. guiniple, a nock-kcrchief. (?erm. tcimpel, a pennon or Un^, V^elfl i/tccmpi'!, a veil. In Isaiah iii. 22 it is mentioned amongst tiia bravery of women. Spenser, " Faerie Queene," I, xii. 22 :— " Aiipd widow-like sad wimple thrown away :" and ill Tennyson's " Lilian." Wis.] Pi"et. wist. Think. Ger. wissen. Wizard.] From -wise ; properly only a wise man, but r«uftlly ai^plled only to magicians, and men badly wise. The tennination perhaps im- plies the bad sense. Cf . sluggard, drunkard, dotard, haggard (a uselesa hawk). Wold.] (r dx. 9, "VI. xvii. 1 3 ; termination of Cottiswold, I. xii. 8.) A lawn or picun. A common tenuin;ition of names in LeiceBtnnJitra and Liucohifihire. Cf. Tennyson, " To J. S. • "— * T"^ ~ " The wind, that beats the mountain, hioivb i :-♦ aiore soltly round t ne oi)en tf 0/4." ' •210 GLOSSAKY. Cf. similar woi d, ietald. " The weald of Essex." Teacjaou's ** Idjll«,'' p»231 :— .^ .■.....,„.... ,,^ ,..: ,,^.,.„. ,. ,.. " Pled all nigh^ long by glimmering waste and weald.** Wont. Vide no/«, II. xxxii. 3. .>* A'?', . Wore.] (11. iviii. 0.) For worn, past part, from wear. "Videj.ofe II. xxiv. 1. , Wot.] Preterite of to weet, or wit. A.-S. mVan, know. Cf. Wltan- agemote. Wot seems to be ustd as a present in Acts "VU. 4'J .•—••As foi this Moses, wc vot not what is become of him." , * Yare.] (I. ix. 8.) Ready; also eager. A.-S. fccaro; (Jerm. ^ar; tf«r Fisch ist gar, the fish is done. A word in ordinary use amongst sailors. Cf . opening of Shakesjionio's " Tempcat." Yeoman.] Properly a man who owns a small eaiate ui land. Germ ffemetn, common, a commoner. Yode.] (Ill.xxxi. 8.) Went. Preterite of an old verb yede or yead, to go. fipenser makes pret. yode ; Chancer, yede. Ilic^rdt-on derivee t a* if •* Roeri " **-"v ^ ♦ ' L^^^^I^Z—. - >f,:XBL.L . ,. ._ , . „_ " ■^1, \ "^V A -^ , ^^ TS^ >K ( #KC U O W N A vr -^>-^ g^ay -_:xr:=:^: * t i ,«► \ _;_ fr^iynti^L.tH-J I i I, M a |> /• .* TO I LLUSTRATE M A R M I O N • ^O i l.h^diiTlvlfU- htvica j }?t :^ 4(1/ . Jlf^,''^ * V > Oiterburti ^ I .^M? ) ■I'^JljfV''^ *" ^J n'i.uirinotoT^ \ .'S •' --"j^ V ¥■*■ K O R T H B^OKS FOH TEACHERS A STUDEIVTS, Br DR. MoLELLAlf. . 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SPOTTOInT, M. 4..; B«ad MMt«r of Banie High School ILLUBT8ATBD BT THE ▲UTHOB8. 1 80 Paiires, Xoned Paper, # 1 .00« I TEE CANADA SCHOOL JOURNAL —DECEIVED— AN HONOR ABLE MENTION AT THE PARIS EXHIB ITION 1878. Seeommended by the Minister of Education for Ontario. ,_ Rocommended by the Council of Public Inat.^ Quebec. Becommended by Chief Supt. of Educ.^ New Brunswick. B9Commended hy Chief Supt. of Edu^.^ Nova Scotia. Btcommended by Chief Supt. of Educ.t Brit. ColumbuiJl > R4cominended by Chief Supt. of Eduo., Manitobci, —IS EDITED BY— -4 CiauBittee of Sonie of the Leading EdccatioQists in Gntario,- -ASSISTED BY- Able Provincial Editors in the Provinces of Qs!%bec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Is- Uad, Manitoba, and British Columbia, thus having each section of the Dominion fully represented. 1— ■— — — i^M '" CONTAINS 24 P16£S OF READING HITTER, Live Editorials; Contributions on important Educa- tional topics; Selections— Readings for the School Room ; and Notes and News from each Province, PRACTICAL DEPARTMENT ' Will always contain useful hints on methods of teaching different subjects. ^ . ..^ MATHEMATICAL DEPARTMENT Gives solutions to di£ficult problems, also to Examination Papers. OFFICIAL DEPARTMENT Contains such regulations as may be issued from time to time. Subscriptions: $i.oo per Annum, strictly in advance. Specimen Number Free. Address W. J. Gaok & Co.. Publisher*. Toronto. , ^ .^v. ■''^%:^^y ■■■■ ■ - - ■■■ •.■:-^.^ -r^ v:^-^,''-'-'^>-:;;-*^.v.--. •^ ..ViSfffJ -•:■.;, (*f Only Complete Copyright Edition. SCOTT'S IPOElSdiS, THE LADY OF THE LAKE, . ' - e ■_-;■• ' -- .-^ ^, With Introduction, Sketch of Life, Not**'' f^- and Glossarial Index, "^ ., — BY — Assistant Master in Rugby School, and formerly I ': Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge. P^ ' \A'V "% ''^- TO WHICH IS ADDED AN '| ' v ■ sf ' V- 'A hiU'odiLctio^i to Scott- s PoemSy ' (FROM LAY OF LAST MINSTKEL,) ' J. SURTEES PHILLPOTTS, M. A." C ^CANTOS I. TO VI,. INTERLEAVED, PRICE 60 Os. Educaxlonal Publishers, - - Toronto, Ont- D , WYCLIFFE COLLEGE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO. ^^ ^ - .:v^ . ■ ^ ' I » •" The History and Principles -OF— Wyclifte College. AN ADDRESS TO THE ALUMNI —BY THE— Rev. Principal Sheraton, D.D. OCTOBER 7th, I891. ■••••Oi z TORONTO : | s The J. E. Bryan r Comtany (Limited) g { 1891. CHLkCH I'rni.KATloN.s THK 1. K. l;R^■.\^"!" COMPANN (I.IMriKD). riie Kvaii^elical Churchman. 'I'he Cluirch Sunday School Lesson Leaflet- The* Church Sunday Sciiool Lesson Helps. I'ari^h and Home. The AlgoMKi Missionary News. The Canadirm Church ^La^a/ine. The Protestantism of the Prayer i'ook. WYCLIFFE COLLEGE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO. The History and Principles -OF— Wycliffe College. AN ADDRESS TO THE ALUMNI -BY THE- Rev. Principal Sheraton, D.D. OCTOBER 7th, 1891. TORONTO : The J. E. Bryant Company (Limited) 1891. The History and Principles of Wyclifle College. ADDRESS TO THE ALUMNI, OCT. 7, 1891, BY THE REV. PRINCIPAL SHERATON, D.D. THE opening of this new and commodious building fur- nishes a fitting opportunity for a brief review of the past history of our College and the reassertion of the principles it is intended to embody and to propagate. It is fitting to do so, both that we may be stirred up to gratitude and de- vout thanksgiving lo Him without whose guiding and sus- taining hand we had in vain attempted to build, and that we may be reminded of the trust committed to us, and, taking courage from the past, may go forward with increased ardour and hopefulness in our work. THE HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE. The very origin of the College is a proof of its vitality and a pledge of its stability. For it was not the result of any formal ecclesiastical deliberation, but the outcome of the spontaneous and voluntary action of earnest Christian people, loyal members of our communion, ly laymen, together with a small band of earnest and faithful clergy- men. 4 The History and Principles This informal spontaneity of inception has been char- acteristic of the most useful enterprises of the Christian Church in missions, in ed^jcation, in the circulation of the Scriptures, and in the rescue of the sinning and the suffering. It is the best guarantee of success, because it is the strong- est evidence of vitality. It marks that which proceeds out of the very heart and inmost being of the Church, and not merely arises from the routine of formal deliberation and official procedure. The situation in this diocese and throughout Canada was most serious. We were feeling the blighting influence of the mediaeval reaction which has torn and weakened the Mother Church. It became necessary to withstand the growing sacerdotalism by means of organization and agita- tion. The association formed for this purpose battled with the evil courageously. More and more it was apparent that the contest lay between the majority of the Protestant laity of our communion on the one hand, and, on the other hand, a large section of the clergy who had ceased to be in sympathy with the principles and spirit of the Reforma- tion. The conviction grew that the only adequate remedy must be foutid in the provision of distinctive Evangelical teaching in the training and education of candidates for the sacred ministry, and out of this conviction, deepened by thought and prayer, originated Wycliffe College. 'l^he initiation of the work evoked, as is well known, strong and persistent opposition. It was alleged that it was opposed to the law and order of our Church, and the authority of the Bishop was invoked to arrest it. Charges of disloyalty and lawlessness were persistently alleged. Now all educational w^ork, including the training of theo- of Wycliffc College, 5 logical students, has ever been carried on in the Church of England by the voluntary action of her members, as dis- tinguished from the corporate action of the Church. In the elasticity of this voluntaryism she has found her chief counteraction to the inflexibility of an Establishment and her most reliable safeguard against the disintegration of parties, which thus found within her scope and liberty of action. The promoters of this College in their resistance to attempted coercion were contending for this freedom of voluntary action within legal limits which both laity and clergy have ever deemed an inalienable right and necessity. Mor.^over, that which they sought to do was no innovation. Individually they had the right, as was admitted at the time, to prepare men for the Bishop's examinations, and it was urged that this should content them. But what had been done before in a desultory and unsatisfactory way, they proposed now to do by methods more thorough and systematic ; and surely, as they contended, their liberty ex- tended to the better doing of that which they were already doing less completely and satisfactorily. The Church in Canada had no corporate connection with the work of theological education, and no control over theo- logical colleges. Even the Provincial Synod had not dealt with the matter. So late as in 1883, a committee of that Synod declined to recommend any action, a decision which, I rejoice to say, has been reconsidered so far as relates to theological examinations and degrees. Thus the matter stood; law could not be violated where no law existed; and no accusation could be more devoid of foundation than the statement repeatedly made that the founders of this College were acting in opposition to the settled laws of the Church. 6 The History and Principles Painful as it is to recur to these misrepresentations, they could not be passed over in silence in any just and accu- rate review of our history ; and although in every stage of the work the same misrepresentations have pursued the workers, I shall refrain, as far as possible, from any further allusion to them. Only we who know the motives of our founders and benefactors, their real and strong affection for the Church of their fathers, their devotion to its principles ; we who are impelled by the same strong convictions of truth and duty, and who see with sorrow the perils and conflicts which have gathered around our historic com- munion ; we who know and share these things, and who are jealous tor the good name of this College, must indig- nantly repel the charges of disloyalty and faction which have been flung forth so gratuitously and vindicate the in- tegrity and legality of our position. In October, 1877, this work was begun in a very unas- suming form in one of the Bible Class rooms of the school- house belonging to St. James' Cathedral, under whose fostering wings the infant institution was sheltered, and to the co-operation of v,hose members, under the late lamented Dean Grasett, the work owes an incalculable debt. In what was then known as the Protestant Episcopal Divinity School a little band of students assembled, and some six of the Evangelical clergy of the city gave their valuable and gratuitous services as instructors. And although the growth of the College and the increase of the staff have en- abled us to diminish our demands upon their time and strength, their zeal has not grown cold, nor their co-opera- tion less valuable, in the work. At our dedication service last evening three of these standard-bearers who led the of Wycliffc College. 7 work at that time conducted our devotions and voiced our thankfulness for the progress achieved — the Venerable Archdeacon Boddy, M.A., the Rev. Alexander Sanson, and the Rev. Septimus Jones, M.A. In 1878 the bitterness of the conflict was somewhat mitigated by the agreement arrived at between the repre- * sentatives of the two parties in the diocese, upon the basis of which the Church Association was dissolved and the present Bishop of the diocese elected by a unanimous vote. This partial recogn'tion of the place and rights of the Divinity School was followed by two important steps towards placing it upon a more permanent and etfcient basis. One was its incorporation in 1879 j ^^^ other was the erection of the building upon College street in 1882, which gave the work a local habitation and supplied the accommodation and appliances without which it could not be efficiently conducted. The institution was still in the weakness of infancy, and at times the most resolute were tempted to despond, so great were the perils which threatened it. But the work of building was taken in hand and the contracts signed by the then Cliairman and Treasurer, the Hon. S. H. Blake and Mr. W. H. Howland, who became personally responsible for the funds required, and to whose courageous faith we owe, in a large measure, the determination to build and its successful completion. The original building soon proved inadequate, and in 1885 an addition was completed which almost doubled its capacity, giving additional dormitories, a refectory, and a splendid room for the library. The chiei financial basis of the extension was furnished by the Hon. Edward Blake's muni- x^nt gift of $10,000 for this purpose, but one of his many 8 The History and Principles generous benefactions to the College. Notwithstanding these additions the building proved inadequate for the growing work, and while the College Council was contem- plating further extensions an opportunity was given to sell the building for hospital purposes. The proposition, at first refused, was ultimately accepted, the Council being re- luctant to part with so central and convenient a site. The wisdom of the course taken is sufficiently justified by the erection of these buildings in a position altogether suitable for the work. The foundation was laid in the spring of 1890, and now, in the autumn of 189 1, we are enabled by the Divine goodness to take possession of these new quarters, substantial and commodious, which owe very much more than I can tell you to the unwearied supervision of Sir Casimir Gzowski, whose unflagging interest in the w'ork is everywhere manifest. But it will be a grievous mistake to regard this work as complete. Further enlargement will soon be necessary. I hope before very long to see an extension to the south, with a front towards University College, pro- viding additional dormitories, and a convocation hall which shall supply more adequately the accommodation for pub- lic gatherings now temporarily secured in the suite of lecture rooms in which we are assembled. Commensurate with the growth of the building, there has been an increase in the financial basis of support. The steady inflow of voluntary contributions is an indication of the deep interest felt in the work and a measure of the donors' attachment to the principles of the College. To name these many generous and self-denying friends is im- possible. The record of their benefactions is attached to the annual calendar. At first there was no method with • . "■ of Wy cliff e College. 9 regard to the collection of these gifts ; but the increase in the requirements of the work necessitated a more system- atic procedure. Our friends are greatly indebted in this matter to the indefatigable energy and devotion of the Financial Secretary, the Rev. T. R. O'Meara. A partial endowment from gifts and legacies has been secured. Of this the foundation was laid by the liberality of Messrs. A. H. Campbell, Homer Dixon, J. K. Kerr, Sir C. S. Gzowski, the Blakes, and the late Sheriff Jarvis. Its in- crease, as rapidly as possible, ought to be strenuously sought after by our friends. For although it is well that such an institution as this should always be partially de- pendent upon voluntary offerings, and by this means kept in touch with its constituency ; yet because of its com- parative remoteness from its supporters, not being in daily and weekly contact with them as a congregation is with its pastor and organization, it is necessary that there should be a backbone of endowment, a reserve of financial sup- port, to meet the inevitable vicissitudes and delays of volun- tary annual subscriptions. Let me pass now from the material growth to the more internal and vital progress. The personnel of the staff is of vital importance to the efficiency of the work. We began with one paid professor, relying very largely upon the generous assistance of city clergymen al- ready overburdened with the work of populous parishes. We have gradually enlarged our regular staff until we have four professors devoted to the work. In this enlargement w^e have followed a policy which, I believe, has amply justi- fied itseU'. We found some years ago in making inquiries in England and taking counsel with such competent ad- 10 The History and Principles visers as Principal Moule, of Ridley Hall, in the University of Cambridge, that we must either afford very large induce- ments to tried and experienced men who were already in positions of responsibility, or take young and untried men. The former course was beyond our resources. If we must adopt the latter, it were better far than bringing from abroad men unknown to us and unproved in their own land, to take men whom we knew, men young but of promise, honour-graduates of the Toronto University, as well as of our own College, who were imbued with the spirit of our work and filled with enthusiasm for its ad- vancement. This policy has been followed in Ridley Hall itself and elsewhere. The results here have more than justified its wisdom. I would speak very warmly and with heartiest approval of the work done by my younger col- leagues. We have an increasing body of graduates from which we can draw for the development of our work. I trust that our frinds will soon give us funds to add another instructor to our staff, and help us thus to reasonably real- ize the ideal toward which we have been \vorking. The, library is an indispensable factor in the work of the College. The basis of our own was laid in the munificent gift of the family of the late Dean Grasett and in other con- tributions of generous friends, especially Mr. VVyld, and now reaches nearly eight thousand volumes. But we greatly need a library endowment fund and some provision for an annual increase to our books, not only from current literature, but also from the great works of the past, in not a few departments of theological study. This matter can- not be kept too prominently before the friends of the Col- lege. Our students are, however, by no means restricted of Wycliffe College, ii to our own College library. They have access to the great library of the University, now being reconstrucied upon a most ample and acceptable basis, and numbering not less than forty thousand volumes, and to the valuable and ex- tensive public library of this city, and to others of lesser extent. These are invaluable privileges. •Wycliffe College stands in two intimate and important educational relationships which merit consideration ; the one literary - to the University of Toronto ; and the other theological — to our Church in Canada. Our connection with the University of Toronto was at first merely the local one of convenient proximity and ac- cess to its lecture-rooms and appliances. Even this was a very great advantage, in which we owed very much to the sympathy and co-operation of the revered President, Sir Daniel Wilson. In 1885 Wycliffe College was by statute of the University Senate, confirmed by the Governor in Council, affihated to the University. In 1889 the College was by Act of the Ontario Legislature confederated and mac^e a constituent part of the University of Toronto. From this close and intimate relationship with our national University the College derives great advantages. All our revenues are devoted to theological *- aching, while the general literary training is provided by the University. Our students are able to avail themselves of all the resources of the University in the various departments of study, especi- ally those which bear the closest relation to theology. Moreover, by our connection with the University we are preserved from that tendency to narrowness of which an isolated theological school stands in great danger. Our students commingle with those among whom their life-work 1 2 The History and Principles is to be carried on. They come into contact with men of different communions and destined for various professions, have their sympathies broadened, and learn to take broader and juster views of life. I lay great stress upon the in- fluence of a common university life and the relations of our students with their fellow-students with whom they are associated in the pursuits of learning, and in the religious work which, I rejoice to say, is carried on both by the Uni- versity Young Men's Christian Association and in other ways. After much delay the Provincial Synod, in 1889, passed a canon relating to examinations and degrees in theology. The scheme was adopted in consultation with the theologi- cal colleges, and is chiefly based, with some modifications, not always improvements, upon the lines developed by Lightfoot and Westcott in connection with the University of Cambridge, and with what is known in England as the Preliminary Examination for Holy Orders. By this canon Wycliffe College is recognized as one of the six institutions devoted to theological teaching in this Ecclesiastical Prov- ince, and the Board of Examiners is constituted, upon which Wycliffe is represented equally with the other institu- tions. This scheme, which first comes into operation this year, has the hearty support of the Council of Wycliffe Col- lege, and we welcome it with great satisfaction, believing tha; it will exercise a very marked and beneficial influence upon theological education in Canada, elevating its stand- ards and improving its methods. While, then, our College preserves completely its autonomy and carries on its work upon its own lines, it is intimately and organically con- nected, on the one hand, with our national system of educa- of W y cliff e College, 13 tion, which has its crown and completion in the University of Toronto, and, on the other hand, with the special theo- logical education of our own Church. The student of Wycliffe can, at the close of his course, go forth with his degree in x\rts, the certificate and guarantee of his literary attainments, bearing the imprimatur of the University of Toronto, and with the certificate of the Board of Examiners of the Provincial Synod, bearing the imprimatur of the highest ecclesiastical authority in our Canadian Church. No sketch of Wycliffe would be complete without some reference to the missionary work supported by our gradu- ates, and the outcome of the practical work of the students which has been encouraged and developed in connection with therr theological training, and which is as valuable and indispensable as the clinical side of mediqal studies. Already there are supported by the Missionary Society of the College and its friends a travelling missionary in Al- goma, a missionary in Rupert's Land, and two missionaries in Japan, where we hope to see developed a strong and ag- gressive centre of educational and evangelistic work, and which specially commends itself to the prayerful and prac- tical sympathy of the friends of Wycliffe. Another educational enterprise at home has had its origin and impulse in Wycliffe Collesje. There was long felt the necessity for a boys' school which should be of the highest standing in educational efficiency and pervaded by an earnest religious spirit to which those who value the Protestant and Evangelical principles of our Church could send their sons with confidence. Bishop Ridley College, St. Catharines, has now entered upon the second year of its existence under the energetic and admirable management of the Rev. J. O. 14 The History and Principles Miller, M.A., assisted by an able staff, and in its signal suc- cess has already more than justified the expectations of its promoters. These enterprises, missionary and educational, and, above all, the faithful work of our alumni in their parishes and missions, are the practical outcome of the principles em- bodied in this College, which exists to provide . such workers and to promote such work. For this object the College exists — to send forth faithful, earnest, de- voted ministers of the Gospel of Christ, not mere theologi- cal theorists, but practical men, faithful to the Reformation principles and devoting themselves without reserve to the service of humanity in the most blessed of all ministries, the bond-service of Jesus Christ. To say that there may have beerif and to expect that there will be, no failures, no disappointments, would be to claim what is unknown in any enterprise committed to frail men ; but we can say, humbly and thankfully, that the labours of our alumni and the whole work of the College have been blessed beyond the most sanguine expectations of its friends, and that the prom- ise of the fuiure is rich and encouraging, so that we are ready to go forward with unabated confidence, assured that the same strong and loving Presence to which we owe all the success of the past will abide with us in the days to come, and prove, as of old, the exhaustless source of wisdom and strength, filling our work with abounding vigour and keep- ing it true to its original design and to the principles which it embodies. JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH ONLY. The whole value of our work depends upon those principles which it represents and propagates. Nothing of IVycliffe College. ' .15 less than the most vital issues can either vindicate its past course or guarantee the stability and success of its future development. Profound and far-reaching, we believe these issues to be. In any enquiry into their nature we must bear in mind that we are not dealing with isolated statements, fragments without connection or re- lationship, among which we can pick and choose, each selecting for himself what he will retain or reject. On the contrary, we have to do with one homogeneous whole, a cor- related system, a living organism, all of whose parts stand in a definite and vital relationship to each other. Moreover, we find this organis.n of truth dominated and <:ontrolled by a few great principles. If these principles iire clearly understood and resolutely held, the whole com- pass of the truth revealed in Christ stands forth luminous and self-consistent. But if they are ignored, displaced, or perverted, our whole religious belief is vitiated, and our conceptions of (xod, of liberty, and of righteousness suffer. Still further it will be seen that these principles converge into one focus, that they centre themselves in the one point, of all others the most practically important and mo- mentous — How shall sinful man be just with God ? — in the question of the anxious heart, tersely and urgently voiced by the Philippian jailor, "What must I do to be saved?" It is in the answers given to this question that the funda- mental and vital differences between the sacerdotal and the Evangelical theologies most vividly present themselves. Nowhere does this stand out more manifestly than in the development of the great Reformation and in the life his- tories of the Reformers, e.g., of Luther. Take him at the outset of his career, a pious and ardent monk, whose i6 The History and Principles whole concern, as Dorner observes, was about the salvation of his soul. Profoundly conscious of the Divine holiness^ and of his own sinfulness, in vain he sought for peace and deliverance by following the prescriptions and observances of the sacerdotal Church, as he himself afterwards con- fessed, with fastings, vigils, prayers, and other exercises, torturing and wearying his body far more than his most bitter enemies and persecutors ever did. But it was all in vain until he learnt the great truth that man is justified by faith without works of law, and apprehended the glori- ous significance of the words of the Apostonc Creed — " I believe in the forgiveness of sins." Thus Luther first came into the possession of the personal experience of salvation by faith. It was only by degrees that he came to know the full significance of this truth and its bearing upon theology as well as upon life. He had, as Dorner says, as yet no presentiment of the fact that there lay in it the germ of a totally different system of the economy of salva- tion from the ecclesiastical. There is not time to trace the steps by which he was led towards a consummation he had never dreamt of. He was himself astonished at the light which the knowledge acquired upon one point shed upon the whole compass of theology, and unveiled to him the manifold errors of the dominant system. He found the truth of the appropriation by faith of the free grace of God in Christ to be a principle of universal significance. By it he was ushered into a new world of Evangelical free- dom. It became the constructive principle of his theo- logy, and, as expressed in the doctrine of justification by- faith only, apart from works, it soon became manifest that it was entitled to the place universally conceded to it as the of Wy cliff c College. 17 great subjective principle of the Reformation. He himself called it articuhis stantis vel cadentis eccksia'^ the article of a standing or falling Church. His Roman antagonists themselves viewed it as the keystone of the Protestant position, and hence the principal theologians of the Coun- cil of Trent, as Sarpi in his history of that Cpuncil re- lates, advised that their fathers and divines should be assiduous and exact in their studies concerning the doc- trine of justification " because all the errors of Martin (Luther) were resolved into that point." They conceded the doctrine of justification by faith only, to be the master principle of the Reformation. " Therefore," they alleged, " by a contrary way, he that will establish the body of the Catholic doctrine must overthrow^ the heresy of justification by faith only." The student of St. Paul's life cannot fail to observe how close is the parallel between his experience and that of Luther. Study in the light of the apostolic history the third chapter of Philippians, and the contrast there drawn between the Pharisaic legalist who sought by his devotion to ritual and his obedience to law to build up for himself a sure ground of acceptance with God, and the humble dis- ciple and bond-slave of Jesus of Nazareth, who accounts all his attainments, privileges, and performances as dross, vile, and worthless, and finds his only hope of acceptance, his only ground of confidence before God, his only righteous- ness, in the merits of the Redeemer appropric^ted by faith. Study St. Paul's conflict with the Judaizers, whose error is identical in substance with that of legalists and sacerdotal- ists in all ages ; read in the Epistle to the Galatians his impassioned denunciation of their perversion of the Gos- 1 8 The History and Principles pel of Christ and his vindication of the liberty of the Gos- pel and of the gratuitousness of salvation, and you will not be surprised that Luther chose this epistle as his most efficient engine in overthrowing the vast superstructure of error which had been raised upon the simple foundations of the Go^el, and that his "Commentary on the Galatians" remains, as Bishop Lightfoot affirms, a speaking monument of the mind of the Reformers and of the principles of the Reformation. All departures from the Reformation posi- tion can be traced back to unfaithfulness to this great master principle, justification by faith only. Our great Hooker, in his notable sermon on justification, finds here the essential point in the differences between England and Rome, and affirms the Roman doctrine of justification to be the mystery of the man of sin. In this he is at one with our Reformers and great divines. Archbishop Usher overflows v/ith it. Bishops Downame and Davenant have devoted volumes to this controversy. The keynote of our Church's teachmg is sounded in Article XL, that " we are accounted righteous before God only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, by faith and not for our own works or deservings." "Then," to quote the words of the judicious Hooker, "although in ourselves we be altogether sinful and unrighteousness, yet even the man who is impious in himself, full of iniquity, full of sin, him, being found in Christ through faith and having his sin re- mitted through repentance, him God beholdeth with a gracious eye, putteth away his sin by not imputing it, taketh quite away the punishment due thereto by pardoning it, and accepteth him in Jesus Christ as perfectly righteous, as if he had fulfilled all that was commanded him in the law.'' of Wycliffe College. 19 In the history of our Church there occur two periods of lamer table defection from Reformation doctrine, and between them a remarkable parallelism can be traced. I refer to the Laudian and the Tractarian movements. The errors and evils in each can be traced up to one central and fountain error. The decline in each began with the obscuring and setting aside of the truth of justification by. faith only, and substituting therefor the old legal and sacerdotal figment of a progressive justification by works, ceremonies, and sacra- ments. The work of Bishop Bull on the agreement of St. Paul with St. James on justification is an outcome of the earlier of these defections. The character of its theology, confused, illogical, and unscriptural, can be judged from its definition of faith, which Bull states, "comprehends in one word all the works of Christian piety." The influence of this pernicious work upon the theology of non-jurors and High Churchmen has been very great ; and to this day it is recommended as an authority by bishops and examining chaplains of that school. It is one of the books which have transmitted the errors of the Laudian divines to the later Tractarian school, and prepared the way for the more pro- nounced developments of Oxford theology. Dr. Pusey con- demns those who " sever justification from baptism and make it consist in the act of reliance on ♦^he merits of Christ alone." He asserts that " w^e are by baptism brought into the state of salvation or justification"; and he further tells us that it is " a state admitting of degrees according to the degree of sanctification." In Newman's lectures on justifi- cation, written before his departure to Rome and approved by Dr. Pusey, it is stated that " the righteousness wherein we must stand at the last day is not Christ's own imputed 20 The History and Principles obedience, but our own good works." He tells us that ** cleanness of heart and spirit, obedience by word and deed, these alone can constitute our justification." *' The gift of righteousness or justification is not an imputation, but an inward work," " If He (God) accounts righteous, it is by making righteous." But, as Godet points out, this is the vital difference between Romanism and Protestantism : the former teaches an inward regeneration by means of the sacraments, on the ground of which God pardons ; the latter teaches a free reconcihation through faith in Christ's merits, on the ground of which God regenerates. Faber, inhis primitive "Doctrineof Justification," draws the contrast between the certainty and sufficiency of the Gospel plan of salvation and the painful uncertainties of sacerdotalism. If we follow the teaching of the Reformers, " we shall build our justification, not upon the ever-shifting sands of man's im- perfect and inherent righteousness, but upon the immovable rock and absolute cubical unity of the perfect and finished righteousness of Christ. " • The latest Tractarian doctrine differs from the earlier in that it has been formulated more completely into a system which is in its essence a Pantheistic Hegelianism. It is curious and instructive to follow out this teaching to its source. The Tractarian doctrine was first elaborated by Archdeacon Wilberforce, afterwards a pervert to Rome, in his work on the Incarnation. It may be thus briefly stated. The Incarnation is the central dogma of Christianity. Christ having completed His manifestation of Himself upon the earth is now enthroned in heaven as the Head of His mystical body, the Church, which, as Gore says, is of a piece with the Incarnation, whose benefits it perpetuates by means o/ ^Vy cliff c College, 21 of a once for all empowered and commissioned ministry through the sacraments which are the instruments by which we are incorporated into Christ and the channels of spiritual gifts, the sacraments themselves being dependent upon the ministry, apart from whose succession and authority they have no validity. Now, as I said, it is curious to trace the genesis of this theory of the sacraments as the extension of the Incarnation. Wilberforce first introduced it into Trac- tarianism. He derived it from the German Roman Catholic theologian, Moehler,ofa portion of whose "Symbolik" his book is substantially an expansion. Moehler's object was to ex- press Roman theology in the terms of contemporary philo- sophical thought, and thus, if possible, to place its dogmas upon a philosophical basis. He took hold of the Pantheis- tic conception of God perpetually becoming man, an eternal incarnation of God in humanity, as Schelling formulated it. Hegel had constructed upon this basis a philosophy of his- tory. A little later Strauss utilized it in his myth theory of the origin of the Gospel history. Moehler transferred the idea from humanity in general to the Roman Church, so that instead of its being the incarnation of God in humanity, it became, in his theory, the incarnation of God in the Church; the Church being the form or incarnation in which God ex- isted for the world, and through which the world could find access to God, so that to be united to the Church is to be united to God in Christ. Wilberforce simply adapted Moeh- ler's theory to Tractarian exigencies, and to the Tractarian conception of the Church, which included the Anglican and Greek as well as the Roman. The practical result of such a theology is to give the Church that position of mediatorship which belongs to Christ alone ; and accordingly the means 22 The History and Principles by which man is reconciled to God is the reception of the sacraments and submission to the priesthood. A man-de- vised method of reconciliation is substituted for that pro- claimed in the Gospel. It is clear then that the only effective remedy for such a perversion is the proclamation of the Gospel itself. This was the instrument so effective in the hands of its first preachers, and which proved^ as St. Paul declared, the power of God unto salvation unto every one that believeth. It was by the same instrumentality that the Reformation was achieved, and by no other means can our Church be delivered from the false gospel of sacerdotal- ism. It is to bear witness to this great truth of justification by faith only that this College exists, that it may impress it upon its students and send them forth to teach and enforce it and make it the living centre of their preaching. -, ..... ^ THE SUPREMACY OF THE SCRIPTURES. To justification by faith there is a correlative truth — the absolute supremacy of the Word of God as the only rule of Christian faith and life. The one is the inner and subject- ive, the other the external objective principle of Evangelical Protestantism ; and the two are closely related, for the Word of God is the warrant of faith. It is from the promise and revelation of God in Christ that faith derives the guarantees upon which it rests. The written record of the Scriptures sets forth the person of Christ in whom faith trusts, the work of Christ upon which faith builds. The career of Luther forcibly illustrates the relationship between the two truths. When he could not find pardon and peace by means of the prescriptions of the Church, he obtained it by faith in the promises of the Gospel. Then he found the of Wy cliff e College, -23 authority of the Church arrayed against him. Against it he had but one appeal, and it is upon the Word of God that he takes his stand. '* That," he exclaims, " is God's Word ; on that will I risk body and life, and a hundred thousand necks, if I had them." The doctrine of tradition was the substitution of man's word for God's. At quite an early period in Church history the question came to be, not what does God's Word teach, but what do fathers teach and councils affirm that God's Word declares. The Church was thus made the mediator of truth as well as of grace. As man cannot receive what God gives, so neither can he know what God reveals except through the Church, that is, the priesthood. The patristic - rule of quod semper^ quod ubique^ quod ab omnibus creditum est, proved as embarrassing as it was false. Even its origi- nator, Vincentius Lirinensis, was obliged to limit it to " the consent of all or nearly all the clergy." And ever since the Reformation the Church of Rome has been more and more pressed by the insufficiency and inconvenience of the re- quirement of universal consent as the test of truth, as the progress of historical knowledge and the methods of historical enquiry began to show the novelty of her distinct- ive dogmas. Moehler again came to the rescue with his philosophizing. As he made the Church the substitute for Christ by his adaptation of the Hegelian hypothesis of an eternal Incarnation, so he also made the Church the substi- tute for the Holy Scriptures by the skilful application to the- ology of the philosophical doctrine of development. Inspira- tion was thus taught to be continuous in the Church, to which new revelations were constantly being made. Tradition was as little necessary as Scripture to the authentication of a 24 The History and Principles dogma. The voice of the hving CJhurch becomes a suffi- cient substitute for both. And as there were false as well as true developments, a criterion was necessary to distinguish them. This was provided in the infallible authority of the Pope, the Vicar of Christ, whose decisions were final, so that Pius the Ninth could say, " 1 am the tradition." The devel- opment theory of Moehler was adopted by Newman, and is the accepted hypothesis of the younger Tractarians of the Lux Mundi school, and requires only the doctrine of the Papal Infallibility as its correlative. It is the last des- perate attempt of our Anglican traditionalists to defend their dogmas against the encroachments of modern critical enquiry. The disintegration may be delayed, but it cannot be arrested ; and when it does come, the collapse will be all the more complete. Now, it is characteristic of all these theories that they make the Scriptures the initial point in a course of develop- ment. They make the development begm with the com- pleted Scriptures and go on through the whole course of Church life, bringing in thoughts and dogmas which are confessedly not in the Scriptures at all. The Scriptures are thus virtually superseded. They no longer possess either finality or completeness. They n > longer remain the one supreme authority which determines what we ought to be- lieve and do according to the mind of Christ. We, on the contrary, hold fast to the supremacy of the Scriptures. It is because they contain God's revelation of Himself in His Son that they are final and complete, until that Son comes again. Before His advent, God spoke in the prophets, giving a fragmentary, preparatory, and incom- plete revelation. At last He spoke in His Son, who is the of Wycliffe College. 25 express image of His substance. That revelation cannot be superseded or supplemented. We accept it as final and complete for the present dispensation. But this finality does not exclude progress in theology. There is and must be a continuous advance in a living Church, but it is not an advance away from and beyond the Scriptures ; it is an ad- vance which, beginning in each successive generation with the measure of its understanding of the Divine Word, goes on to a fuller and riper knowledge of that Word. The starting point is the measure possessed of the knowledge of a the truth ; the goal is the complete knowledge of the truth revealed. The historical development is not the receiving of new revelations which virtually set aside the Scriptures, but it is a growing up into the full understanding and the complete assimilation of the revelation given once for all in the Incarnate Son of (rod. But it may be said. Is not this great Protestant principle of the supremacy of the Scriptures superseded and dis- credited, not merely by sacerdotal assumptions, but also by modern scholarship and research? We hear in some quar- ters a good deal about the errors of Scripture, the mistakes of Moses, the contradictions of theology and science. What weight are we to attach to these ? I cannot now enter at length into the questions here raised, but I will set before you a few considerations which may be of service to the timid. First, inspiration is one thing, a theory of inspiration is another. We may not be agreed as to the precise terms of the theory. We cannot but accept the glorious reality that (iod has revealed Himself to us. If He could not, where is His power? If He would not, where is His love? And to 26 The History and Principles do it, and yet to do it so feebly, so uncertainly, so vaguely, that we cannot know whether or not He speaks or what He utters, were not worthy of a weak and fallible man, much less of an eternal and omnipotent God. With the fact of the Christian revelation, Theism must stand or fall. Secondly, truth is self attesting. This is characteristic of all truth, whether mathematical, physical, or ethical. Every humble seeker verifies for himself the Divine promise which is, in its inmost nature, the assertion of a Divine law — " Ye shall know the truth." Truth does not need any ex- ternal authority, whether of Council, Pope, or Father, to rest upon. It verifies itself. It is by the manifestation of the truth, to use St. Paul's expression, that the true teacher com- mends himself to every man's conscience. Let us have confidence in the truth. It is often the excess of scepticism which leads to superstition. It was Newman's distrust of God's revelation of Himself in reason and in Scripture which drove him to the alternative of absolute unbelief or of submission to external authority. He chose the latter alternative, and his own premises logically led him into submission to Rome. ' Thirdly, it is a mistake to speak of contradictions between nature and revelation. What we do find are apparent con- tradictions between science, which is man's interpretation of nature, and theology, which is man's interpretation of reve- lation. In either of these interpretations man may err, and has repeatedly erred. When confronted by these perplexi- ties, let us have patience and courage. The timidity of some Christians is as reprehensible and more hurtful than the arrogance of many unbelievers. What a curious com- mentary on human fallibility is the conflict between Genesis of Wycliffe College. 27 and geology. We smile alike at the rash zeal of some apologists who found in the presence of shells on the heights of the Alps a proof of a universal deluge, and the superficial cleverness of Voltaire, who evaded the force of the supposed demonstration by the suggestion that the shells had been dropped by pilgrims from the Holy Land. We may not yet be fully able to synchronize every stage in the record with every successive step in the evolution of the world ; but we refuse to accept the now almost incredible suggestion once seriously made that God created the fossils and placed them in the rocks as a test of our faith. And who does not marvel as he contrasts the puerilities and absurdities of other ancient cosmogonies with the gru.ideur and verisimilitude of that of Moses ? Who can fail to trace the marvellous corres- pondence between its testimony and that of the rocks to the order and beauty of the Divine method which unfolded itself in those dies ineffabiks^ those God-divided, not sun-divided, days, as the great Augustine called them centuries before geology hid begun to trace the vast periods of the world's formation. Profounder problems in biology are now to be dealt with. And if, while we are still but children in know- ledge, we protest against the haughty dogmatism of some scientists as to revelation, let us theologians beware lest we repeat their error by an equally crude and self-sufficient con- demnation of the working hypotheses of science. Fourthly, let us remember that the science of the Biblical criticism of the Old Testament is still in its infancy, and there is too strong a disposition to accept as true what are still, to say the least, unproved hypotheses. But these specu- lations are not to be met by dogmatic denunciation, but by the more thorough study of the documents and their history. 28 The History and Principles It is not very long since the Biblical criticism of the New Testament was in an equally tentative position. And what have been the results? When our Authorized Version was made, the Greek text was subst.intially that of P>asmus, founded upon a few late and inferior Greek manuscripts, and in the case of the Book of Revelation upon one defective manuscript of the 15th century, so that he had to retranslate a portion of it (some six verses) from the Vulgate into (ireek. Now a science of textual criticism, as exact and thorough as research and scholarship can make it, has discussed and arranged some 1,500 manu scripts, some of them dating from the fourth and fifth cen- turies ; has compared and collated some 150,000 various readings, and has given us a text which with but compara- tively few exceptions we can confidently afifirm to be the ipsissima verba of the writers. Vet the result has not been a revolution but a confirmation of the substantial accuracy of Erasmus and his co-workers. So the genuineness and authenticity of the New Testa- ment writings were challenged. They were subiected to the severest and often the most unfair tests ; yet, even those who have taken the position of hostile critics concede the airthenticity of four, with few exceptions ot eight, of the most important New Testament writings, sufficient to establish every great truth of Christianity. I speak now of the mini- mum of admission of the most pronounced enemies of Evangelical religion. And while there are still problems awaiting solution, the result of this conflict has been to place the historical basis of our faith and its documents upon a stronger foundation than ever, and to confirm the judgment of the Christian Church throughout the ages. of Wycliffe Colic <^l\ , 29 Such, too, will he the result of the present controversies relating to the Old Testament. Some changes may be re- quired in our belief as to the authorship and age of sonic Old Testament books ; some traditional views may have to be replaced by a more accurate and critical estimate of the process by which the Canon of the Old Testament was formed and preserved ; some of our conceptions of God's working in the older dispensation may be modified; but the outcome will be the triumphant vindication of the inerrancy of Him who said " One jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass fromthelaw until allbe fulfilled," andwhocouldaffirm of Him- self as a co-ordinate authority as well as a competent witness, ** Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away." Recent researches into the history and antiqui- ties of the east have vivified our knowledge of the Old Testament, and furnished innumerable corroborations of its truthfulness, so that not too confident is the expectation of Professor Sayce, of Oxford, that the Biblical history will yet be disentombed by pick and spade from the soil of Pales- tine. Moreover, the difficulties of the Bible are the diffi- culties of life ; they are those which inhere in the present constitution of things; and their presence in the Bible is the best demonstration that it is a living book and pro- ceeds from the God of all life and wisdom. Were it otherwise, were the Bible so superficial as to present no problems and create no difficulties, we must either cease to regard it as Divine, or accept the boast of the proud Gnostic, that he knew God as thoroughly as the staff in his hand. But let such impious thoughts begone in the presence of Him whose judgments are unsearchable and His ways past 30 The History and Principles finding out. Surely such a God must transcend our puny reason; hut He cannot contradict it. He would not have us despise His own gift. Let us be»vare lest we incur the cen- sure not unjustly cast upon some Evangelicals, that their hatred of rationalism turned into fear of reason. Intellect- ual timidity is nearly as hurtful, if less criminal, than moral cowardice. Let us seek for large views of God and of His universe. As Bishop Lightfoot has grandly stated it — "the ab- negation of reason is not the evidence of faith, but the confession of despair." Let us be in sympathy with science, with research, with the restless daring spirit of the age which must question, examine, test all things ; a spirit indeed capable of awful perversions, if it be the fruit of self- assertion, akin to the old Babel ambition to build a tower to heaven ; but which may be and is, in its best and true form, a determination to know truth and to stamp out false- ho )d, a passion for the real, a God-given impulse to subdue this great world of matter and of thought and to rule over it and to make it subservient to those supreme moral and spiritual ends for which God created it. So far, then, from having any reason to distrust or to discard that great principle of our Protestantism which leads us to acknowledge no Lord over the conscience, no king of truth, but (iod Himself, the (lod who has given us a revelation of Himself, not only in nature and rea.son, but, above all, in His Son ; we have every reason to hold fast to it as the great anchor of our hope, the impregnable foundation of our faith. The Bible is to day more fresh, more real, more accessible, than it ever was. It speaks now with as paramount authority asof old. It attests itself as decisively by its power to of \V y cliff e College, 31 search the heart, to convict the conscience, to transform the life, and to bring man into that fellowship with God which is at once the necessity and the perfection of his nature. From these two primary principles of Evangelical Protest- antism, logically follow the Evangelical doctrines of the Church, the ministry, and the sacraments. Upon them depends the whole organism of Evangelical truth, which, as a correlative system, must, in all its essential members, stand or fall together. No via media is possible, except in the delusions of illogical minds, or in the compromises of false expediency. The choice must ultimately lie between a thoroughgoing Sacerdotalism and a consistent and decided Evangelicalism. Between these two the con- flict is irrepressible. , Indolence or cowardice may lead us to attempt to evade the issues ; but it will prove impos- sible. Each one of us is called to contend for the truth. Let us see to it that while we speak the truth, we speak it in love. The stronger our confidence in the truth, the greater should be our patience and tenderness towards those who oppose it. We are not contending with men, but with false principles ; and what we desire, as a great English states- man has recently said, is the good of our opponents ; their conversion, not their confusion. : ; Lastly, let us remember that our theology is Christo- centric. The dogmas are but definitions of certain relations in which we stand towards Christ, a relation of obedience to His Word and of confidence in His promise. Not the holding of dogmas saves, but the holding of the Head Him- self. It is possible, let us remember, for those who have but a feeble intellectual grasp of the doctrine to hold fast to the living Christ, to follow Him.truly, and possess His Spirit. 32 ^ ^^3'^'^^ C(}lle