...doubtful whether he was quite the kind of poet who, in Scott's words, could " in immortal strain Have raised the Table Round again, But that a ribald King and Court Bade him toil on to make them sport." Scott's assumption, at any rate, is scarcely 1 Paradise Lost, Book IX. a Discourse on Satire. justified...

...writing an epic on King Arthur, two centuries before Tennyson's Idylls. And Scott reminds us that — " Dryden in immortal strain Had raised the Table Round...king and court Bade him toil on to make them sport" At the time that Shelley was meditating his Prometheus Unbound, two other subjects for lyrical dramas...

...opera on King Arthur, meditated, according to Sir Walter Scott, a larger treatment of the theme: — "And Dryden in immortal strain Had raised the Table...King and Court Bade him toil on to make them sport." Sir Walter himself edited the old metrical romance of ' Sir Tristram,and where the manuscript was defective,...

...legends to prolong: They gleam through Spenser's elfin dream, And mix in Milton's heavenly theme ; And Dryden, in immortal strain, Had raised the Table...king and court Bade him toil on, to make them sport. Marmion shows how heavy a weight of tradition both inspired and embarrassed the romantic revival, for...

...such legends to prolong: They gleam through Spenser's elfin dream, And mix in Milton's heavenly theme; And Dryden, in immortal strain, Had raised the Table...Round again, But that A ribald King and Court Bade them toil on, to make them sport; Demanded for their niggard pay, Fit for their souls, a looser lay,...

...song/ Scorned not such legends to prolong" (27172), a "ribald king and court" in the eighteenth century "Demanded for their niggard pay,/ Fit for their souls,...a looser lay,/ Licentious satire, song, and play" (277-81). As Scott explains in the Britannica article on the romance, the subsequent dependency on...

...through Spenser's elfin dream, And mix in Milton's heavenly theme ; And Dryden, in immortal strain, 275 Had raised the Table Round again, But that a ribald...their niggard pay, Fit for their souls, a looser lay, 280 Licentious satire, song, and play ; The world defrauded of the high design, Profaned the God-given...

...making better use of the subject than he did. Scott alludes to this in Marmion (Intro, to Canto i.) — Dryden in immortal strain Had raised the Table Round...sport ; Demanded for their niggard pay, Fit for their Roula a looser lay, Licentious satire, song, and play ; The world defrauded of the high design, Profaned...

...and his better judgment. Scott has finely lamented the cost at which this popularity was purchased. Dryden, in immortal strain, Had raised the Table Round again, But that a ribald king aud court, Bade him toil on, to make them sport : Demanded for their niggard pay, Fit for their souls,...