enables the minstrel to give a lyric effect to any passage susceptible of this most impressive form of poetry, are circumstances which promise to the generality of readers as high a gratification from this, as they are capable of receiving from any species of poetical composition.

The genius of Mr. Scott, has in general known how to avail itself of all these advantages, and the result has been in this, as in his late performance, a poem highly entertaining and possessed of many striking beauties. At the same time, he has allowed himself to fall into many of the faults to which he found the strongest temptation. His versification is, in many instances, not only loose, but negligent, and even awkward. His fancy-characters are not in general extremely interesting, his fable is confused, and not very skilfully interwoven with the historical narration. Other particular imperfections have likewise struck us, which, with their compensating, and more than compensating, beauties, we shall notice in their proper places.

Canto 1. entitled "The Castle"

opens with a view of the English border fortress of Norham. It is lively, but less so than that of Branksome, with which the "Lay" begins. The warden descries from his station the advance of a troop of horsemen, presently, one of them "darting from the crowd," announces the approach of Lord Marmion; and Sir Hugh Heron, the captain of Norham, prepares to receive him with great honour. This opening is happily contrived, it introduces the hero of the piece to our acquaintance, with all the state and ceremony becoming his

character and station.

"Along the bridge lord Marmion rode,
Proudly his red-roan charger trod,
His helm hung at the saddle-bow;
Well, by his visage, you might know
He was a stalworth knight, and keen,
And had in many a battle been ;

and care

Sate on his faded check, but under brows Of dauntless courage and considerate pride Waiting revenge."

The bearings, arms, and accou trements of Marmion and his followers, with the ceremonies of his reception by the heralds and minstrels of Norham, are next described with all the heraldic and antiquarian knowledge that characterizes the writings of Mr. Scott. In the

conversation that ensues between Marmion and Heron, several circumstances important to the story, are artfully disclosed. We learn that our hero has left behind him at

Lindisfarn a pretty page, suspected to be a mistress in disguise, and that command of Henry VIII. to enquire he is proceeding into Scotland, by the purport of the warlike preparations going on throughout the dominious of the Scottish king. He begs Heron to furnish him with a guide, who readily offers some of his retainers, but Marmion objects that the appearance of " plundering border spears," would be both dangerous and unseemly in the train of a king's messenger, and requests some conductor of more pacific

character. This request introduces some portraitures which one should imagine sketched from the life. "The captain mused a little space, And passed his hand across his face. Fain would I find the guide you want,

But ill may spare a pursuivant, The only men that safe can ride Mine errands on the Scotish side; And, though a bishop built this fort, Few holy brethren here resort; Even our good chaplain, as I ween, Since our last siege, we have not scen: The mass he might not sing or say, Upon one stinted meal a day; So, safe he sat in Durham aisle, And prayed for our success the while. Our Norham vicar, woe betide, Is all too well in case to ride. The priest of Shoreswood-he could rein The wildest war-horse in your train; But then no spearman in the hall Will sooner swear, or stab, or brawl. Friar John of Tillmouth were the man; A blythsome 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, 'Twixt Newcastle and Holy-Rood. But that good man, as ill befalls, Hath seldom left our castle walls. Since on the vigil of St. Bede, In evil hour he crossed the Tweed, To teach Dame Alison her creed. Old Bughtrig found him with his wife; And John, an enemy to strife, Sans frock and hood, fled for his life. The jealous churl hath deeply swore, That if again he ventures o'er, He shall shrieve penitent no more. Little he loves such risques, I know; Yet, in your guard, perchance will go."

The inmates of Norham, however, are loth to part with a person of such social and convivial talents as "Brother John," and a palmer is at length found, (a very stately, melancholy, and mysterious personage, strongly suspected of sorcery) who undertakes the office of guide, and with him the ambassador is to depart on

the morrow.

Canto II. "The convent," shows us the abbess of St. Hilda's with "five fair nuns," embarked on a vessel

"bound to St. Cuthbert's Holy Isle." The description that follows is exquisitely pretty, very natural, and we believe perfectly original.

""Twas sweet to see these holy maids,
Like birds escaped to green wood shades,
Their first flight from the cage,
How timid, and how curious too,
For all to them was strange and new,
And all the common sights they view,
Their wonde.ment engage.
One eyed the shrouds and swelling sail,
With many a benedicite ;
One at the rippling surge grew pale,

And would for terror pray ;
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 veil, Disordered by the summer gale, Perchance lest some more worldly eye Her dedicated charms might spy, Perchance, because such action graced Her fair-turned arm and slender waist. Light was each simple bosom there, Save two, who ill might pleasure share,→ The abbess, and the novice Clare,"

The errand of the abbess at Lindisfarn was, to be present at a chapter of St. Benedict called to sit in judgment on two prisoners, accused of attempting the life of the novice, "And if need were, to doom to death." Clara is an unhappy and interesting maiden, whose true love is dishonoured and lost to society, and probably dead. She, to avoid the persecutions of her relations, and of one who loved her for her land," is bent on becoming a nun of St. Hilda's. The vessel skirts the strand" of Northumberland, and every object receives, as they pass, a few picture strokes which bring it before the eye with exquisite vividness. They land at Lindisfarn, or Holy Island, and the meeting of St. Hilda's votresses with those of St. Cuthbert, unfortunately gives occasion to our author to fill several pages of text, and as many of notes, with a string of idle legends respecting those saints which could not by art be rendered highly interesting, and are here told with

negligent prolixity of style, which sinks them to the level of mere gossip in rhyme. The chapter of St. Benedict assembles in a dismal subterranean cell, called "the Vault of Penitence," originally designed as a place of burial for such as died in mortal sin, but now converted into a place of punishment.

"Whence if so loud a shriek were sent, 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, Did of this penitential aisle Some vague tradition go, Few only, save the Abbot, knew Where the place lay; and still more

few

Were those, who had from him the

clew

To that dread vault to go.
Victim and executioner

Were blind-fold when transported there.
In low dark rounds the arches hung,
From the rude rock the side-walls sprung;
The grave-stones, rudely sculptured o'er,
Half sunk in earth, by time half wore,
Were all the pavement of the floor;
The mildew drops fell one by one,
With tinkling plash, upon the stone.
A cresset,
in an iron chain,
Which served to light this drear domain,
With damp and darkness seemed to
strive,

*

As if it scarce might keep alive;
And yet it dimly served to shew
The awful conclave met below."

We have transcribed the latter part of this passage as an exemplification of the bad manner of the author. How much better might a man of Mr. Scott's talent have expressed himself here! How much is it to be wished that he possessed selfdenial enough to delay publishing till he is able to bring his lines into a state worthy of his own reputation and the public favour! The repetition of the word "go," made also to rhyme to itself, the other rhymes (if they deserve the name)

ANN. REV. VOL. VII.

of "executioner" and "there," "one" and "stone," the gross grammatical error of "wore" for worn, and the word "domain" used very improperly, added to the general poverty of the whole passage, form such an assemblage of palpable and avoidable faults, as we seldom have had occasion to note in any other writer of credit, and if in the course of this article we shall produce no other of the same kind, both our author and the public ought to be aware that our forbearance is more to be thanked than his correctness.

It

The prisoners turn out to be the female pag of lord Marmion, (a non whom he had seduced to desert her convent) and a base minded monk her hired accomplice. appears that Marmion, tempted by the large inheritance of Clara, had falsely accused her lover de Wilton of treason, challenged to single combat, and defeated him. His subsequent endeavours to gain the she had taken refuge at St. Hilda's, hand of Clara, had been vain, and here Constance, the forsaken mistress of Marmion, had attempted her life. Marmion, enraged at this action, secretly connived at her seizure for the breach of her religious vows, by the ecclesiastical power at Lindisfarn. Both prisoners are condemned to be immured alive in niches in the cell of penitence, and there left to perish. A catastrophe on the whole well narrated.

Canto III.

Hb

his hand.

Thou art the torturer of the brave!
Yet fatal strength they boast to steel
Their minds to bear the wounds they feel;
Even while they writhe beneath the smart
Of civil conflict in the heart.

For soon lord Marmion raised his head,
And, smiling, to Fitz-Eustace said:---
"Is it not strange, that, as ye sung,
Seemed in mine ear a death-peal rung.
Such as in nunneries they toll
For some departing sister's soul?

Say, what may this portend?"-
Then first the Palmer silence broke,
(The live-long day he had not spoke,)
"The death of a dear friend."

For moral dignity, this apostrophe to remorse stands unrivalled in the works of its author. Emboldened by the words of the palmer, the host now takes occasion to tell an ancient legendary tale. Alexander I. he says, coming to visit the lord T their village, a famous sorcerer, by him informed, that his desire of

knowing future events might be gratified, if he had the courage to go at midnight and tilt with "an Elfin knight" who stands ready within the mound of an old pictish camp in the neighbourhood, to break a spear, in the shape of his worst enemy, with any champion who may present himself. Should he unhorse the spirit, he might compel him to answer any questions he chose to ask, if otherwise, the sorcerer could not warrant the safety of the monarch's life. Alexander, having overcome the visionary knight, learns of him his future success against the Danes in the battle of Largs; he also sees in remote vision, the late bombard ment of Copenhagen. And thus has that expedition, which even the warmest friends of ministers have only justified on the plea of a lamentable and humiliating neces sity, that successful expedition which the purest lovers of their country have considered as a fouler blot upon her annals than all the disastrous ones that have ever been repulsed from the shores of the continent, found at least, what many a noble deed has wanted, a poet to record its glory! The mind of Mar

mion was in the mood to be worked upon by this wild legend. The song of the squire, the boding words of the palmer, and the sentiments of reviving tenderness with which the recollection of Constance had inspired him, had all contributed to agitate him with remorse for his treatment of her, and anxiety for her present situation. Dark tales of convent punishments rise to his recollection, and nothing but his king's commission restrains him from hurrying back to Lindisfarn. The idea of asking her fate at the Ellin knight (of this gross Scotticism our anthor makes him guilty) seizes upon his imagination, he retires to rest, but unable to banish troublesome thoughts, he at length rises, calls his squire Fitz Eustace, and