Marmion

by Walter Scott

  ‘The most singular tale of this kind is contained in an extract communicated to me by my friend Mr. Surtees of Mainsforth, in the Bishopric, who copied it from a MS. note in a copy of Burthogge “On the Nature of Spirits,” 8vo, 1694, which had been the property of the late Mr. Gill, attorney-general to Egerton, Bishop of Durham. “It was not,” says my obliging correspondent” in Mr. Gill’s own hand, but probably an hundred years older, and was said to be, E libro Convent. Dunelm. per T. C. extract., whom I believe to have been Thomas Cradocke, Esq., barrister, who held several offices under the See of Durham a hundred years ago. Mr. Gill was possessed of most of his manuscripts.” The extract, which, in fact, suggested the introduction of the tale into the present poem, runs thus:-

  “Rem miram hujusmodi que nostris temporibus evenit, teste viro nobili ac fide dignissimo, enarrare haud pigebit. Radulphus Bulmer, cum e castris, quae tunc temporis prope Norham posita erant, oblectationis causa, exiisset, ac in ulteriore Tuedae ripa praaedam cum canibus leporariis insequeretur, forte cum Scoto quodam nobili, sibi antehac, ut videbatur, familiariter cognito, congressus est; ac, ut fas erat inter inimicos, flagrante bello, brevissima interrogationis mora interposita, alterutros invicem incitato cursu infestis animis petiere. Noster, primo occursu, equo praeacerrimo hostis impetu labante, in terram eversus pectore et capite laeso, sanguinem, mortuo similis, evomebat. Quern ut se aegre habentem comiter allocutus est alter, pollicitusque, modo auxilium non abnegaret, monitisque obtemperans ab omni rerum sacrarum cogitatione abstineret, nec Deo, Deiparae Virgini, Sanctove ullo, preces aut vota efferret vel inter sese conciperet, se brevi eum sanum validumque restiturum esse. Prae angore oblata conditio accepta est; ac veterator ille nescio quid obscaeni murmuris insusurrans, prehensa manu, dicto citius in pedes sanum ut antea sublevavit. Noster autem, maxima prae rei inaudita novitate formidine perculsus, MI JESU! exclamat, vel quid simile; ac subito respiciens nec hostem nec ullum alium conspicit, equum solum gravissimo nuper casu afflictum, per summam pacem in rivo fluvii pascentem. Ad castra itaque mirabundus revertens, fidei dubius, rem primo occultavit, dein, confecto bello, Confessori suo totam asseruit. Delusoria procul dubio res tota, ac mala veteratoris illius aperitur fraus, qua hominem Christianum ad vetitum tale auxilium pelliceret. Nomen utcunque illius (nobilis alias ac clari) reticendum duco, cum haud dubium sit quin Diabolus, Deo permittente, formam quam libuerit, immo angeli lucis, sacro oculo Dei teste, posse assumere.”

  ‘The MS. chronicle, from which Mr. Cradocke took this curious extract, cannot now be found in the Chapter Library of Durham, or, at least, has hitherto escaped the researches of my friendly correspondent.

  ‘Lindesay is made to allude to this adventure of Ralph Bulmer, as a well-known story, in the 4th Canto, Stanza xxii. p. 103.

  ‘The northern champions of old were accustomed peculiarly to search for, and delight in, encounters with such military spectres. See a whole chapter on the subject in BARTHOLINUS De Causis contemptae Mortis a Danis, p. 253.’

  line 508. Sir Gilbert Hay, as a faithful adherent of Bruce, was created Lord High Constable of Scotland. See note in ‘Lord of the Isles,’ II. xiii. How ‘the Haies had their beginning of nobilitie’ is told in Holinshed’s ‘Scottish Chronicle,’ I. 308.

  Stanza XXVI. line 510. Quaigh, ‘a wooden cup, composed of staves hooped together.’-SCOTT.

  Stanza XXVIII. line 551. Darkling, adv. (not adj. as in Keats’s ‘darkling way’ in ‘Eve of St. Agnes’), really means ‘in the dark.’ Cp. ‘Lady of the Lake,’ IV. (Alice Brand):-

  ‘For darkling was the battle tried’;

  and see Midsummer Night’s Dream, ii. 2. 86; King Lear, i. 4. 237. Lord Tennyson, like Keats, uses the word as an adj. in ‘In Memoriam,’ xcix:-

  ‘Who tremblest through thy darkling red.’

  Cp. below, V. Introd. 23, ‘darkling politician.’ For scholarly discussion of the term, see Notes and Queries, VII iii. 191.

  Stanza XXX. lines 585-9. Iago understands the ‘contending flow’ of passions when in a glow of self-satisfied feeling he exclaims;

  ‘Work on,

  My medicine, work! Thus credulous fools are caught.’

  Othello, iv. I. 44.

  Stanza XXXI. line 597. ‘Yode, used by old poets for went.’-SCOTT. It is a variant of ‘yod’ or ‘yede,’ from A. S. eode, I went. Cp. Lat. eo, I go. See Clarendon Press ‘Specimens of Early English,’ II. 71:-

  ‘Thair scrippes, quer thai rade or yode,

  Tham failed neuer o drinc ne fode.’

  Spenser writes, ‘Faerie Queene,’ II. vii. 2:-

  ‘So, long he yode, yet no adventure found.’

  line 599. Selle, saddle. Cp. ‘Faerie Queene,’ II. v. 4:-

  On his horse necke before the quilted sell.’

  INTRODUCTION TO CANTO FOURTH.

  ‘James Skene, Esq., of Rubislaw, Aberdeenshire, was Cornet in the Royal Edinburgh Light Horse Volunteers; and Sir Walter Scott was Quartermaster of the same corps.’-LOCKHART.

  For Skene’s account of the origin of this regiment, due in large measure to ‘Scott’s ardour,’ see ‘Life of Scott,’ i. 258.

  line 2. See Taming of the Shrew, i. 4. 135, and 2 Henry IV, v. 3. 143, where a line of an old song is quoted:-

  ‘Where is the life that late I led?’

  line 3. See As you Like It, ii. 7. 12.

  line 7. Scott made the acquaintance of Skene, recently returned from a lengthened stay in Saxony, about the end of 1796, and profited much by his friend’s German knowledge and his German books. In later days he utilized suggestions of Skene’s in ‘Ivanhoe’ and ‘Quentin Durward.’ See ‘Life of Scott,’ passim, and specially i. 257, and iv. 342.

  line 37. Blackhouse, a farm ‘situated on the Douglas-burn, then tenanted by a remarkable family, to which I have already made allusion-that of William Laidlaw.’-’Life,’ i. 328. Ettrick Pen is a hill in the south of Selkirkshire.

  line 46. ‘Various illustrations of the Poetry and Novels of Sir Walter Scott, from designs by Mr. Skene, have since been published.’-LOCKHART.

  line 48. Probably the first reference in poetry to the Scottish heather is, says Prof. Veitch (‘Feeling for Nature,’ ii. 52), in Thomson’s ‘Spring,’ where the bees are represented as daring

  ‘The purple heath, or where the wild thyme grows.’

  lines 55-97. With this striking typical winter piece, cp. in Thomson’s ‘Winter,’ the vivid and pathetic picture beginning:―

  ‘In his own loose-revolving fields, the swain

  Disastered stands.’

  See also Burns’s ‘Winter Night,’ which by these lines may have suggested Scott’s ‘beamless sun’:-

  ‘When Phoebus gies a short-liv’d glow’r

  Far south the lift;

  Dim-dark’ning thro’ the flaky show’r,

  Or whirling drift.’

  The ‘tired ploughman,’ too, may owe something to this farther line of Burns:-

  ‘Poor labour sweet in sleep was lock’d’;

  while the animals seeking shelter may well follow this inimitable and touching description:-

  ‘List’ning the doors an’ winnocks rattle,

  I thought me on the ourie cattle,

  Or silly sheep, wha bide this brattle

  O’ winter war,

  And thro’ the drift, deep-lairing, sprattle

  Beneath a scaur.’

  line 91. ‘I cannot help here mentioning that, on the night on which these lines were written, suggested as they were by a sudden fall of snow, beginning after sunset, an unfortunate man perished exactly in the manner here described, and his body was next morning found close to his own house. The accident happened within five miles of the farm of Ashestiel.’-SCOTT.

  line 101. ‘The Scottish Harvest-home.’-SCOTT. Perhaps the name ‘kirn’ is due to the fact that a churnful of cream is a feature of the night’s entertainment. In Chambers’s Burns, iii. 151, Robert Ainslie gives an account of a kirn at Ellisland in 1790.

  line 102. Cp. the ‘wood-notes wild�
� with which Milton credits Shakespeare, ‘L’Allegro,’ 131.

  lines 104-5. The ideal pastoral life of the Golden Age.

  line 132. ‘Sir William Forbes of Pitsligo, Baronet; unequalled, perhaps, in the degree of individual affection entertained for him by his friends, as well as in the general respect and esteem of Scotland at large. His “Life of Beattie,” whom he befriended and patronised in life, as well as celebrated after his decease, was not long published, before the benevolent and affectionate biographer was called to follow the subject of his narrative. This melancholy event very shortly succeeded the marriage of the friend, to whom this introduction is addressed, with one of Sir William’s daughters.’-SCOTT.

  line 133. ‘The Minstrel’ is Beattie’s chief poem; it is one of the few poems in well-written Spenserian stanza.

  line 147. Ps. lxviii. 5.

  line 151. Prov. xxvii. 10.

  line 155. For account of Sir W. Forbes, see his autobiographical ‘Memoirs of a Banking House’; Chambers’s ‘Eminent Scotsmen’; and ‘Dictionary of National Biography.’

  line 163. Cp. Pope, ‘Essay on Man,’ IV. 380, and Boileau, ‘L’Art Poetique, ‘Chant I:-

  ‘Heureux qui, dans ses vers, sait d’une voix legere

  Passer du grave au doux, du plaisant an severe.’

  line 172. ‘Tirante el Blanco,’ a Spanish romance by Johann Martorell (1480), praised in ‘Don Quixote.’

  line 174. ‘Camp was a favourite dog of the Poet’s, a bull terrier of extraordinary sagacity. He is introduced in Raeburn’s portrait of Sir Walter Scott, now at Dalkeith Palace.’-LOCKHART.

  line 181. Cp. Tempest, v. i. 93.

  line 191. ‘Colin Mackenzie, Esq., of Portmore. See “Border Minstrelsy,” iv. 351.’-LOCKHART. Mackenzie had been Scott’s friend from boyhood, and he received his copy of ‘Marmion’ at Lympstone, where he was, owing to feeble health, as mentioned in the text. He was a son-in-law of Sir William Forbes, and in acknowledging receipt of the poem he said, ‘I must thank you for the elegant and delicate allusion in which you express your friendship for myself-Forbes-and, above all, that sweet memorial of his late excellent father.’-’Life of Scott,’ ii. 152.

  line 194. ‘Sir William Rae of St. Catherine’s, Bart., subsequently Lord Advocate of Scotland, was a distinguished member of the volunteer corps to which Sir Walter Scott belonged; and he, the Poet, Mr. Skene, Mr. Mackenzie, and a few other friends, had formed themselves into a little semi-military club, the meetings of which were held at their family supper tables in rotation.’-LOCKHART.

  line 195. ‘The late Sir William Forbes of Pitsligo, Bart., son of the author of the “Life of Beattie.”‘-LOCKHART.

  line 196. The Mimosa pudica, or sensitive plant. See Shelley’s poem on the subject:-

  ‘The Sensitive Plant was the earliest

  Upgathered into the bosom of rest;

  A sweet child weary of its delight,

  The feeblest and yet the favourite,

  Cradled within the embrace of night.’

  line 200. Cp. ‘L’Allegro,’ 31, ‘Sport that wrinkled Care derides.’

  line 206. See King Lear, iii. 4. 138, where Edgar, as Poor Tom, says that he has had ‘three suits to his back, six shirts to his body, horse to ride, and weapon to wear.’

  CANTO FOURTH.

  line 31. ‘Alias “Will o’ the Wisp.” This personage is a strolling demon or esprit follet, who, once upon a time, got admittance into a monastery as a scullion, and played the monks many pranks. He was also a sort of Robin Goodfellow, and Jack o’ Lanthern. It is in allusion to this mischievous demon that Milton’s clown speaks,-

  “She was pinched, and pulled, she said,

  And he by Friar’s lanthern led.”

  ‘“The History of Friar Rush” is of extreme rarity, and, for some time, even the existence of such a book was doubted, although it is expressly alluded to by Reginald Scot, in his “Discovery of Witchcraft.” I have perused a copy in the valuable library of my friend Mr. Heber; and I observe, from Mr. Beloe’s “Anecdotes of Literature,” that there is one in the excellent collection of the Marquis of Stafford.’-SCOTT.

  It may be added, on the authority of Keightley, that Friar Rush ‘haunted houses, not fields, and was never the same with Jack-o’-the-Lanthorn.’ See note on Milton’s ‘L’Allegro,’ 104, in Clarendon Press edition, also Preface to Midsummer Night’s Dream in same series.

  Stanza IV. line 69. Humbie and Saltoun are adjoining parishes in S. W. of Haddingtonshire. To this day there is a charm in the remote rural character of the district. There are, about Humble in particular, wooded glades that might well represent the remains of the scene witnessed by Marmion and his troopers. East and West Saltoun are two decayed villages, about five miles S. W. of the county town. Between them is Saltoun Hall, the seat of the Fletchers.

  line 91. ‘William Caxton, the earliest English printer, was born in Kent, A. D. 1412, and died 1401. Wynken de Worde was his next successor in the production of those

  “Rare volumes, dark with tarnished gold,”

  which are now the delight of bibliomaniacs.’-LOCKHART.

  Stanza VI. line 119. The four heraldic terms used are for the colours-red, silver, gold, and blue.

  line 120, The King-at-arms was superintendent of the heralds.

  Stanza VII. line 133. Sir David Lyndsay’s exposure of ecclesiastical abuses in his various satires, especially in his ‘Complaynts’ and his Dialog, ‘powerfully forwarded the movement that culminated in the Reformation. It would, however, be a mistake to consider him an avowed Protestant reformer. He was concerned about the existing wrongs both of Church and State, and thought of rectifying these without revolutionary measures.

  line 135. The cap of the Lion King’ was of scarlet velvet turned up with ermine.’

  lines 141-4. The double tressure was an ornamental tracing round the shield, at a fixed distance from the border. As to the fleur-de-lis (flower of the lily, emblem of France) Scott quotes Boethius and Buchanan as saying that it was ‘first assumed by Achaius, king of Scotland, contemporary of Charlemagne, and founder of, the celebrated League with France.’ Historical evidence, however, would seem to show that ‘the lion is first seen on the seal of Alexander II, and the tressure on that of Alexander III.’ This is the heraldic description of the arms of Scotland: ‘Or, a lion rampant gules, armed and langued azure, within a double tressure flory counterflory of fleur-de-lis of the second.’ The supporters are ‘two unicorns argent maned and unguled, or gorged with open crowns.’ The crest is ‘a lion sejant affronte gules crowned or,’ &c. The adoption of the thistle as the national Scottish emblem is wrapt in obscurity, although an early poet attributes it to a suggestion of Venus.

  line 153. Scott mentions Chalmers’s edition of Lyndsay’s works, published in 1806. More recent and very satisfactory editions are those of Dr. David Laing, (1) a library edition in three volumes, and (2) a popular edition in two. Lyndsay was born about 1490 and died about 1555. The Mount was his estate, near Cupar-Fife. ‘I am uncertain,’ says Scott, ‘if I abuse poetic license, by introducing Sir David Lindesay in the character of Lion-Herald, sixteen years before he obtained that office. At any rate, I am not the first who has been guilty of that anachronism; for the author of “Flodden Field” despatches Dallamount, which can mean nobody but Sir David de la Mont, to France on the message of defiance from James IV to Henry VIII. It was often an office imposed on the Lion King-at-arms, to receive foreign ambassadors; and Lindesay himself did this honour to Sir Ralph Sadler, in 1539-40. Indeed, the oath of the Lion, in its first article, bears reference to his frequent employment upon royal messages and embassies. The office of heralds, in feudal times, being held of the utmost importance, the inauguration of the Kings-at-arms, who presided over their colleges, was proportionally solemn. In fact, it was the mimicry of a royal coronation, except that the unction was made with wine instead of oil. In Scotland, a namesake and kinsman of Sir David Lindesay, inaugurated in 1502, “was crowned by King Jame
s with the ancient crown of Scotland, which was used before the Scottish Kings assumed a close Crown;” and, on occasion of the same solemnity, dined at the King’s table, wearing the crown. It is probable that the coronation of his predecessor was not less solemn. So sacred was the herald’s office, that, in 1515, Lord Drummond was by Parliament declared guilty of treason, and his lands forfeited, because he had struck, with his fist, the Lion King-at-arms, when he reproved him for his follies. Nor was he restored, but at the Lion’s earnest solicitation.’