Or victory and England's loft.

Muft I bid twice?-hence, varlets! fly!
Leave Marmion here alone-to die. "-
They parted, and alone he lay;
Clare drew her from the fight away,

Till pain wrung forth a lowly moan,

And half he murmured," Is there none,
Of all my halls have nurft,

Page, fquire, or groom, one cup to bring
Of bleffed water from the fpring,

To flake my dying thirst!

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

By the light quivering afpen made;
When pain and anguish wring the brow,

A miniftering angel thou!

Scarce were the piteous accents faid,

When, with the Baron's cafque, the maid

To the nigh ftreamlet ran:

Forgot were hatred, wrongs, and fears;
The plaintive voice alone the hears,
Sees but the dying man.

She stooped her by the runnel's fide,
But in abhorrence backward drew,
For, oozing from the mountain's fide,
Where raged the war, a dark red tide
Was curdling in the ftreamlet blue.
Where fhall fhe turn!-behold her mark
A little fountain-cell,

Where water, clear as diamond-fpark,

In a ftone bason fell.

Above, fome half-worn letters fay,

"Drink. weary. pilgrim. drink. and. pray.

For. the. kind. foul. of. Sybil. Grey.

Who. built. this. crofs. and. well."

She filled the helm, and back fhe hied,' &c. p. 359-363.

"Is it the hand of Clare," he said,
"Or injured Conftance, bathes my head?"
Then, as remembrance rofe,-

"Speak not to me of fhrift or prayer!
I must redress her woes.

Short space, few words, are mine to fpare;
Forgive and liften, gentle Clare!

"Alas!" fhe faid, "the while,-
O think of your immortal weal!
In vain for Conftance is your zeal ;
She died at Holy Ifle. ".

Lord Marmion ftarted from the ground,
As light as if he felt no wound;
Though in the action burst the tide,
In torrents, from his wounded fide.

"Then it was truth!"—he faid—" I knew
That the dark prefage must be true.—
I would the Fiend, to whom belongs
The vengeance due to all her wrongs,
Would fpare me but a day!

For wafting fire, and dying groan,
And priests flain on the altar ftone,
Might bribe him for delay.

It may not be !—this dizzy tranceCurfe on yon base marauder's lance, And doubly curfed my failing brand! A finful heart makes feeble hand. ". p. 364, 365. Clara and a charitable priest now try in vain to soothe his last remorseful agonies: he hears a lady's voice singing reproachful stanzas in his ear, and is deaf to the consolations or hopes of religion. All at once

The war, that for a space did fail,

Now trebly thundering fwelled the gale,

And STANLEY! was the cry ;—

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

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

And fhouted" Victory!—

"Charge, Chefter, charge! On, Stanley, on!"....

Were the laft words of Marmion. '

p. 366.

The lady is now hurried away by the priest; and the close of the day is thus described, with undiminished vigour and spirit. But as they left the dark'ning heath, More defperate grew the ftrife of death. The English fhafts in vollies hailed, In headlong charge their horfe affailed;

Front,

Front, flank, and rear, the fquadrons sweep,
To break the Scottish circle deep,

That fought around their king.

But yet, though thick the fhafts as fnow,
Though, charging knights like whirlwinds go,
Though bill-men deal the ghaftly blow,
Unbroken was the ring;

The ftubborn fpear-men ftill made good
Their dark impenetrable wood,

Each stepping where his comrade ftood,
The inftant that he fell.

No thought was there of daftard flight ;-
Linked in the ferried phalanx tight,
Groom fought like noble, fquire like knight,
As fearlessly and well,

Till utter darknefs clofed her wing
O'er their thin hoft and wounded king.
Then fkilful Surrey's fage commands
Led back from ftrife his shatter'd bands;
And from the charge they drew,

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

Then did their lofs his foemen know;

Their king, their lords, their mightiest low,

They melted from the field; as fnow,

When ftreams are fwoln, and fouth winds blow,

Diffolves in filent dew.

Tweed's echoes heard the ceaseless plash,

While many a broken band,

Disordered, through her currents dafh,

To gain the Scottish land;

To town and tower, to down and dale,

To tell red Flodden's difmal tale,

And raife the univerfal wail.' P. 368-370.

The powerful poetry of these passages can receive no illustra tion from any praises or observations of ours. It is superior, in our apprehension, to all that this author has hitherto produced; and, with a few faults of diction, equal to any thing that has ever been written upon similar subjects. Though we have extended our extracts to a very unusual length, in order to do justice to these fine conceptions, we have been obliged to leave out a great deal, which serves in the original to give beauty and effect to what we have actually cited. From the moment the author gets in sight of Flodden Field, indeed, to the end of the poem, there is no tame writing, and no intervention of ordinary passages. He does not once flag or grow tedious; and neither stops to describe dresses and ceremonies, nor to commemorate

the

the harsh names of feudal barons from the Border. There is a flight of five or six hundred lines, in short, in which he never stoops his wing, nor wavers in his course; but carries the reader forward with a more rapid, sustained, and lofty movement, than any Epic bard that we can at present remember.

From the contemplation of such distinguished excellence, it is painful to be obliged to turn to the defects and deformities which occur in the same composition. But this, though a less pleasing, is a still more indispensable part of our duty; and one, from the resolute discharge of which, much more beneficial consequences may be expected. In the work which contains the fine passages we have just quoted, and many of nearly equal beauty, there is such a proportion of tedious, hasty, and injudicious composition, as makes it questionable with us, whether it is entitled to go down to posterity as a work of classical merit, or whether the author will retain, with another generation, that high reputation which his genius certainly might make coeval with the language. These are the authors, after all, whose faults it is of most consequence to point out; and criticism performs her best and boldest office,-not when she tramples down the weed, or tears up the bramble, but when she strips the strangling ivy from the oak, or cuts out the canker from the rose. The faults of the fable we have already noticed at sufficient length. Those of the execution we shall now endeavour to enumerate with greater brevity.

And, in the first place, we must beg leave to protest, in the name of a very numerous class of readers, against the insufferable number, and length, and minuteness of those descriptions of antient dresses and manners, and buildings; and ceremonies, and local superstitions; with which the whole poem is overrun,-which render so many notes necessary, and are, after all, but imperfectly understood by those to whom chivalrous antiquity has not hitherto been an object of peculiar attention. We object to these, and to all such details, because they are, for the most part, without dignity or interest in themselves; because, in a modern author, they are evidently unnatural; and because they must always be strange, and, in a good degree, obscure and unintelligible to ordinary readers.

When a great personage is to be introduced, it is right, perhaps, to give the reader some notion of his external appearance; and when a memorable event is to be narrated, it is natural to help the imagination by some picturesque representation of the scenes with which it is connected. Yet, even upon such occasions, it can seldom be adviseable to present the reader with a full inventory of the hero's dress, from his shoebuckle to the plume in his cap, or to enumerate all the drawbridges, portcul

lisses,

lisses, and diamond cut stones in the castle. Mr Scott, however, not only draws out almost all his pictures in these full dimensions, but frequently introduces those pieces of Flemish or Chinese painting to represent persons who are of no consequence, or places and events which are of no importance to the story. It would be endless to go through the poem for examples of this excess of minute description; we shall merely glance at the First Canto as a specimen. We pass the long description of Lord Marmion himself, with his mail of Milan steel; the blue ribbons on his horse's mane; and his blue velvet housings. We pass also the two gallant squires who ride behind him. But our patience is really exhausted, when we are forced to attend to the black stockings and blue jerkins of the inferior persons in the train, and to the whole process of turning out the guard with advanced arms on entering the castle.

• Four men-at-arms came at their backs,
With halberd, bill, and battle-axe :

They bore Lord Marmion's lance fo ftrong,
And led his fumpter mules along,
And ambling palfrey, when at need
Him lifted eafe his battle-fteed.
The laft, and truftieft of the four,
On high his forky pennon bore;
Like fwallow's tail, in fhape and hue,
Flutter'd the ftreamer gloffy blue,
Where, blazoned fable, as before,
The towering falcon feemed to foar.
Laft, twenty yeomen, two and two,
In hofen black, and jerkins blue,
With falcons broider'd on each breaft,
Attended on their lord's beheft.

'Tis meet that I fhould tell you now,
How fairly armed, and ordered how,
The foldiers of the guard,
With mufquet, pike, and morion,
To welcome noble Marmion,
Stood in the Castle-yard;
Minstrels and trumpeters were there,
The gunner held his linfleck yare,
For welcome-fhot prepared-

The guards their morrice pikes advanced,
The trumpets flourished brave,
The cannon from the ramparts glanced,
And thundering welcome gave.
Two purfuivants, whom tabards deck,
With filver fcutcheon round their neck,

Stood