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press-people; and the mystification, aided and abetted by Erskine, in no small degree heightened the interest of its reception. Scott says, in the Introduction to the Lord of the Isles, "As Mr. Erskine was more than suspected of a taste for | poetry, and as I took care, in several places, to mix something that might resemble (as far as was in my power) my friend's feeling and manner, the train easily caught, and two large editions were old." Among the passages to which he here alludes, are no doubt those in which the character of the minstrel Arthur is shaded with the colorings of an almost effeminate gentleness. Yet, in the midst of them, the " mighty minstrel' himself, from time to time, escapes; as, for instance, where the lover bids Lucy, in that exquisite picture of crossing a mountain stream, trust to his "stalwart arm,❞—

"Which could yon oak's prone trunk uprear."

Nor can I pass the compliment to Scott's own fair patroness, where Lucy's admirer is made to confess, with some momentary lapse of gallantry, that he

"Ne'er won-best meed to minstrel trueOne favoring smile from fair Buccleuch ;"

nor the burst of genuine Borderism,

"Bewcastle now must keep the hold,

Speir-Adam's steeds must bide in stall; Of Hartley-burn the bow-men bold Must only shoot from battled wall; And Liddesdale may buckle spur,

And Teviot now may belt the brand, Tarras and Ewes keep nightly stir, And Eskdale foray Cumberland.”—

52

But, above all, the choice of the scenery, both of the Introduc tions and of the story itself, reveals the early and treasured predilections of the poet.

As a whole, the Bridal of Triermain appears to me as char acteristic of Scott as any of his larger poems. His genius pervades and animates it beneath a thin and playful veil, which perhaps adds as much of grace as it takes away of splendor As Wordsworth says of the eclipse on the lake of Lugano

""Tis sunlight sheathed and gently charm'd ;"

and I think there is at once a lightness and a polish o fication beyond what he has elsewhere attained. If it be a miniature, it is such a one as a Cooper might have hung fe lessly beside the masterpieces of Vandyke.

The Introductions contain some of the most exquisite passages he ever produced; but their general effect has always struck me as unfortunate. No art can reconcile us to contemptuous satire of the merest frivolities of modern life-som of them already, in twenty years, grown obsolete-interland between such bright visions of the old world of romance, when

"Strength was gigantic, valor high, And wisdom soar'd beyond the sky, And beauty had such matchless beam As lights not now a lover's dream."

The fall is grievous, from the hoary minstrel of Newark, and his feverish tears on Killecrankie, to a pathetic swain, who can stoop to denounce as objects of his jealousy

"The landaulet and four blood-baysThe Hessian boot and pantaloon."

LOCKHART-- Life of Svol

APPENDIX.

NOTE A.

Like Collins, thread the maze of Fairy-land.-P. 383. COLLINS, according to Johnson, "by indulging some peculiar habits of thought, was eminently delighted with those flights of imagination which pass the bounds of nature, and to which the mind is reconciled only by a passive acquiescence in popular traditions. He loved fairies, genii, giants, and monsters; he delighted to rove through the meanders of enchantment, to gaze on the magnificence of golden palaces, to repose by the waterfalls of Elysian gardens."

NOTE B.

The Baron of Triermain.-P. 383.

Triermain was a fief of the Barony of Gilsland, in Cumber land: it was possessed by a Saxon family at the time of the Conquest, but, "after the death of Gilmore, Lord of Tryermaine and Torcrossock, Hubert Vaux gave Tryermaine and Torcrossock to his second son, Ranulph Vaux; which Ranniph afterwards became heir to his elder brother Robert, the founder of Lanercost, who died without issue. Ranulph, being Lord of all Glisland, gave Gilmore's lands to his younger son, named Roland, and let the Barony descend to his eldest son Robert, son of Ranulph. Roland had issue Alexander, and he Ranulph, after whom succeeded Robert, and they were named Rolands successively, that were lords thereof, until the reign of Edward the Fourth. That house gave for arms, Vert, a bend dexter, chequy, or and gules.”—BURN's Antiquities af Westmoreland and Cumberland, vol. ii. p. 482.

This branch of Vaux, with its collateral alliances, is now represented by the family of Braddyl of Conishead Priory, in the county palatine of Lancaster; for it appears that about the time above mentioned, the house of Triermain was united to its kindred family Vaux of Caterlen, and, by marriage with the heiress of Delamore and Leybourne, became the representative of those ancient and noble families. The male line falling in John De Vaux, about the year 1665, his daughter and heiress, Mabel, married Christopher Richmond, Esq., of Highhead Castle, in the county of Cumberland, descended from an ancient family of that name, Lords of Corby Castle, in the same county, soon after the Conquest, and which they alienated about the 15th of Edward the Second, to Andrea de Harela, Earl of Carlisle. Of this family was Sir Thomas Je Raigemont (miles auratus), in the reign of King Edward the First, who appears to have greatly distinguished himself at the siege of Kaerlaveroc, with William, Baron of Leybourne. In an ancient heraldic poem, now extant, and preserved in the British Museum, describing that siege, his arms are stated to be, Or, 2 Bars Gemelles Gules, and a chief Or, the same borne by his descendants at the present day. The Richmonds removed to their castle of Highhead in the reign of Henry the Eighth, when the then representative of the family married Margaret, daughter of Sir Hugh Lowther, by the Lady Dorothy de Clifford, only child by a second marriage of Henry Lord Clifford, great-grandson of John Lord Clifford, by Elizabeth Percy, daughter of Henry (surnamed Hotspur), by Elizabeth 1 This Foern has been recently edited by Sir Nicolas Harris Nicholas,

1833

Mortimer, which said Elizabeth was daughter of Edw Mor timer, third Earl of Marche, by Philippa, sole daughter and heiress of Lionel, Duke of Clarence.

The third in descent from the above-mentioned John Rich mond, became the representative of the families of Vans, of Triermain, Caterlen, and Torcrossock, by his marriage wh Mabel de Vaux, the heiress of them. His grandson, Henry Richmond, died without issue, leaving five sisters co-he.resses, four of whom married; but Margaret, who married Wila Gale, Esq., of Whitehaven, was the only one who had male issue surviving. She had a son, and a daughter married to Hes ry Curwen of Workington, Esq., who represented the courty of Cumberland for many years in Parliament, and by her had a daughter married to John Christian, Esq. (now Carwen John, son and heir of William Gale, married Sarah, daughter and heiress of Christopher Wilson of Bardsea Hall, in the county of Lancaster, by Margaret, aunt and co-heiress of Thom as Braddyl, Esq., of Braddyl, and Conishead Priory in the same county, and had issue four sons and two daughters. Ist William Wilson, died an infant; 2d, Wilson, who, spou the death of his cousin, Thomas Braddyl, without issue, succeeded to his estates, and took the name of Braddyl, in pursuance of his will, by the King's sign-manual; 3d, William, died yourg: and, 4th, Henry Richmond, a lieutenant-general of the army, married Sarah, daughter of the Rev. R. Baldwin; Margaret married Richard Greaves Townley, Esq., of Fulbourne, in tre county of Cambridge, and of Bellfield, in the county of La caster; Sarah married to George Bigland of Bigiand Ha the same county. Wilson Braddyl, eldest son of Joan Ga and grandson of Margaret Richmond, married Jane, daugh and heiress of Matthias Gale, Esq., of Cargill Hail, in the county of Cumberland, by Jane, daughter and heiress of the Rev. S. Bennet, D. D.; and, as the eldest surviving mae branch of the families above mentioned, he quarters, in su tion to his own, their paternal coats in the following order, appears by the records in the College of Arms. 1st, Argent, a fess azure, between 3 saltiers of the same, charged with an anchor between 2 lions' heads erased, or,-Gale. Al, Or. 2 bars gemelles gules, and a chief or,-Richmond. 34, Or, fess chequey, or and gules between 9 gerbes gules, -Vant of Caterlen. 4th, Gules, a fess chequey, or and gules between 6 gerbes or,--Vaux of Torerossock. 5th, Argent (not vert, stated by Burn), a bend chequey, or and guies. for Vani of Triermain. 6th, Gales, a cross patonce, or,-Delamore. 7th Gules, 6 lions rampant argent, 3, 2, and 1,-Leybourne.-This more detailed genealogy of the family of Triermain was ob gingly sent to the author by Major Braddyll of Conisbend Priory.

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alry, and the embankment around for the convenience of the pectators.

NOTE D.

Mayburgh's mound.-P. 385.

Higher up the river Eamont than Arthur's Round Table, is a prodigious enclosure of great antiquity, formed by a collection of stones upon the top of a gently sloping hill, called Mayburgh. In the plain which it encloses there stands erect an anhewn stone of twelve feet in height. Two similar masses are said to have been destroyed during the memory of man. The whole appears to be a monument of Druidical times.

There Morolt of the iron mace,

And love-lorn Tristrem there.-P. 391.

The characters named in the stanza are all of them more or less distinguished in the romances which treat of King Arthur and his Round Table, and their names are strung together according to the established custom of minstrels upon such occasions; for example, in the ballad of the Marriage of Sir Gawaine:

"Sir Lancelot, Sir Stephen bolde,
They rode with them that daye,
And, foremost of the companye,
There rode the stewarde Kaye.
"Soe did Sir Banier, and Sir Bore,
And, eke Sir Garratte keen,
Sir Tristrem too, that gentle knight,
To the forest fresh and greene."

NOTE E.

The monarch, breathless and amazed,
Back on the fatal castle gazed-

Nor tower nor donjon could he spy,

Darkening against the morning sky.-P. 390.

"We now gained a view of the Vale of St. John's, a very narrow dell, hemmed in by mountains, through which a small brook makes many meanderings, washing little enclosures of grass-ground, which stretch up the rising of the hills. In the widest part of the dale you are struck with the appearance of an ancient ruined castle, which seems to stand upon the summit of a little mount, the mountains around forming an amphitheatre. This massive bulwark shows a front of various towers, and makes an awful, rude, and Gothic appearance, with its lofty turrets and ragged battlements; we traced the galleries, the bending arches, the buttresses. The greatest antiquity stands characterized in its architecture; the inhabitants near it assert it as an antediluvian structure.

"The traveller's curiosity is roused, and he prepares to make a nearer approach, when that curiosity is put upon the rack, by his being assured, that, if he advances, certain genii who govern the place, by virtue of their supernatural art and necromancy, will strip it of all its beauties, and, by enchantment, transform the magic walls. The vale seems adapted for the habitation of such beings; its gloomy recesses and retirements look like haunts of evil spirits. There was no defusion in the report; we were soon convinced of its truth; for this piece of antiquity, so venerable and noble in its aspect, as we drew near, changed its figure, and proved no other than a shaken massive pile of rocks, which stand in the midst of this little vale, disunited from the adjoining mountains, and have so much the real form and resemblance of a castle, that they bear the name of the Castle Rocks of St. John."-HUTCHINSON'S Excursion to the Lakes, p. 121.

NOTE F.

The flower of Chivalry.

There Galaad sate with manly grace, Yet maiden meekness in his face;

NOTE G.

Lancelot, that ever more

Look'd stolen-wise on the Queen.-P. 391.

Upon this delicate subject hear Richard Robinson, citizen of London, in his Assertion of King Arthur:-" But as it is a thing sufficiently apparent that she (Guenever, wife of King Arthur) was beautiful, so it is a thing doubted whether she was chaste, yea or no. Truly, so far as I can with honestie, I would spare the impayred honour and fame of noble women. But yet the truth of the historie pluckes me by the eare, and willeth not onely, but commandeth me to declare what the ancients have deemed of her. To wrestle or contend with so great authoritie were indeede unto mei a controversie, and that greate."-Assertion of King Arthure. Imprinted by John Wolfe, London, 1582.

NOTE H.

There were two who loved their neighbor's wives,
And one who loved his own.-P. 392.

"In our forefathers' tyme, when Papistrie, as a standyng poole, covered and overflowed all England, fewe books were read in our tongue, savying certaine bookes of chevalrie, as they said, for pastime and pleasure; which, as some say, were made in the monasteries, by idle monks or wanton chanons. As one, for example, La Morte d'Arthure; the whole pleasure of which book standeth in two speciall poynts, in open manslaughter and bold bawdrye; in which booke they be counted the noblest knightes that do kill most men without any quarrell, and commit fowlest adoulteries by sutlest shiftes; as Sir Launcelot, with the wife of King Arthur, his master; Sir Tristram, with the wife of King Marke, his uncle; Sir Lamerocke, with the wife of King Lote, that was his own aunt. This is good stuffe for wise men to laugh at; or honest men to take pleasure at: yet I know when God's Bible was banished the Court, and La Morte d'Arthure received into the Prince's chamber."-ASCHAM's Schoolmaster.

The Lord of the Isles:

A POEM, IN SIX CANTOS.

NOTICE TO EDITION 1833.

THE Composition of "The Lord of the Isles," as we now have it in the Author's MS., seems to have been begun at Abbotsford, in the autumn of 1814, and it ended at Edinburgh the 16th of December. Some part of Canto I. had probably been committed to writing in a rougher form earlier in the year. The original quarto appeared on the 2d of January, 1815.1

It may be mentioned, that those parts of this Poem which were written at Abbotsford, were composed almost all in the presence of Sir Walter Scott's family, and many in that of casual visitors also: the original cottage which he then occupied not affording him any means of retirement. Neither conversation nor music seemed to disturb him.

INTRODUCTION TO EDITION 1833.

I COULD hardly have chosen a subject more popular in Scotland, than any thing connected with the Bruce's history, unless I had attempted that of Wallace. But I am decidedly of opinion, that a popular, or what is called a taking title, though well qualified to ensure the publishers against loss, and clear their shelves of the original impression, is rather apt to be hazardous than otherwise to the reputation of the author. He who attempts a subject of distinguished popularity, has not the privilege of awakening the enthusiasm of his audience; on the contrary, it is already awakened, and glows, it may be, more ardently than that of the author himself. In this case, the warmth of the author is inferior to that of the party whom he addresses, who has, therefore, little chance of being, in Bayes's phrase, "elevated and surprised" by what he has thought of with more enthusiasm than the writer. The sense of this risk, joined to the consciousness

1 Published by Archibald Constable and Co., £2 2s.

2 Sir Walter Scott's Journal of this voyage, some fragments of which were printed in the Edinburgh Annual Register for 1814, is now given entire in his Life by Lockhart, vol. iv. chap. 28-32.

• Harriet, Duchess of Buccleuch, died 24th August, 1814. Sir Walter Scott received the mournful intelligence while

of striving against wind and tide, made the task of composing the proposed Poem somewhat heavy and hopeless; but, like the prize-fighter in "As You Like it," I was to wrestle for my reputation, and not neglect any advantage. In a most agree able pleasure-voyage, which I have tried to commemorate in the Introduction to the new edition of the "Pirate," I visited, in social and friendly company, the coasts and islands of Scotland, and made myself acquainted with the localities of which I meant to treat. But this voyage, which was in every other effect so delightful, was in its conclusion saddened by one of those strokes of fate which so often mingle themselves with our pleasures. The accomplished and excellent person who had recommended to me the subject for “The Lay of the Last Minstrel," and to whom I proposed to inscribe what I already suspected might be the close of my poetical labors, was unexpectedly removed from the world, which she seemed only to have visited for purposes of kindness and benevolence. It is needless to say how the author's feelings, or the composition of his trifling work, were affected by a circumstance which occasioned so many tears and so much sorrow. True it is, that "The Lord of the Isles" was concluded, unwillingly and in haste, under the painful feeling of one who has a task which must be finished, rather than with the ardor of one who endeavors to perform that task well. Although the Poem cannot be said to have made a favorable impression on the public, the sale of fifteen thousand copies enabled the author to retreat from the field with the honors of war.

In the mean time, what was necessarily to be considered as a failure, was much reconciled to my feelings by the success attending my attempt in another species of composition. "Waverley" had, under strict incognito, taken its flight from the press, just before I set out upon the voyage already mentioned; it had now made its way to popularity, and the success of that work and the voluntes

visiting the Giant's Causeway, and immediately returned home.

4"As Scott passed through Edinburgh on his return from his voyage, the negotiation as to the Lord of the Isles, which had been protracted through several months, was completedConstable agreeing to give fifteen hundred guineas for one-half of the copyright, while the other moiety was retained by the author.". -Life, vol. iv. p. 394.

which followed, was sufficient to have satisfied a greater appetite for applause than I have at any time possessed.'

I may as well add in this place, that, being much urged by my intimate friend, now unhappily no more, William Erskine (a Scottish judge, by the title of Lord Kinedder), I agreed to write the little romantic tale called the "Bridal of Triermain;" but it was on the condition, that he should make no serious effort to disown the composition, if report should lay it at his door. As he was more than suspected of a taste for poetry, and as I took care, in several places, to mix something which might resemble (as far as was in my power) my friend's feeling and manner, the train easily caught, and two large editions were sold. A third being called for, Lord Kinedder became unwilling to aid any longer a deception which was going farther than he expected or desired, and the real author's name was given. Upon another occasion, I sent up another of these trifles, which, like schoolboys' kites, served to show how the wind of popular taste was setting. The manner was supposed

1 The first edition of Waverley appeared in July, 1814. "Harold the Dauntless" was first published in a small 2mo volume, January, 1817.

to be that of a rude minstrel or Scald, in opposition to the "Bridal of Triermain," which was designed to belong rather to the Italian school. This new fugitive piece was called "Harold the Dauntless;" and I am still astonished at my having committed the gross error of selecting the very name which Lord Byron had made so famous. It encountered rather an odd fate. My ingenious friend, Mr. James Hogg, had published about the same time, a work called the “Poetic Mirror," containing imitations of the principal living poets. There was in it a very good imitation of my own style, which bore such a resemblance to "Harold the Dauntless," that there was no discovering the original from the imitation; and I believe that many who took the trouble of thinking upon the subject, were rather of opinion that my ingenious friend was the true, and not the fictitious Simon Pure. Since this period, which was in the year 1817, the Author has not been an intruder on the public by any poetical work of importance.

ABBOTSFORD, April, 1830.

W. S.

* Mr. Hogg's "Poetic Mirror" appeared in October, 1810.

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