1808.] 
_ The modern poet has not attempted to 
prefix an argument to the different cantos 
of his work, which might have been of 
* somé service in assisting his bewildered 
readers tomakeout hismeaning. But the 
Opening of the first canto furnishes a good 
specimen of the characteristic manner of 
the poet, who employs more than 200 
lines in describing the entrance of Lord 
Marmion into the castle of Norham: and 
the author exclaims with much self-com- 
placency 
*Tis meet that I should tell you now 
How fairly armed and ordered how 
The soldiers of. the Guard, 
- With musquet, pike, and morion, 
To welcome noble Marmion 
Stood in the castle yard, &c. 
This threat, ludicrousas it may be deemed, 
is literally executed. Dryden, on the con- 
trary, says, of the triumphal procession of 
Theseus and Hippolita into the city of 
} Athens, on the victorious return of the 
- Athenian prince from his Scythian expe- 
‘dition, an incident not less important, 
certainly than the entrance of Marmion 
into Norham— 
** I pass their warlike pomp, their proud ar- 
. Tay, 
Their shouts, their songs, their welcome by 
the way,” &c. 
But all these things Mr. Walter Scott 
would certainly have given usat full length; 
and there are modern critics who will un- 
doubtedly applaud the modern poct for 
i$ superior taste and judgment. 
Wiiiat can we pronounce of such verses 
as the following, and much more of the 
same contexture, but that if they are ad- 
tmirable, the poetry of the old school must 
be execrable; 
*£ They marshall’d him to the castle-hall, 
Where the guests stood all aside, 
And loudly flourished the trumpet-call, 
And the heralds loudly cried— 
Room, lordings, room for Lord Marmion 
With the crest and helm of gold, 
) Full well we know the trophies won 
| Inthe lists of Cottiswold,” &c. 
* Iconfessthat the above passage appears 
to me to be the rival in burlesque excel- 
) lence of another which succeeds it at 110 
‘great distance, as chaunted by a northern 
harper rude. 
‘How the fierce Thirlwalls and Ridleys all, 
Stout Willimondswick, 
‘fe And hard-riding Dick, 
And Hughie of Jiawdon, and Will of the 
Wail, 
Remarks on, the Poetic Romance of Marmion. 
99 
Have set on Sir Albany Featherstonhaugh 
And taken his life at the Deadmens Shaw.” 
Sir Hugh Heron, the governor of the- 
castle,gzives an invitation to Lord Marmion 
to bide with him some little space, “I 
pray you(he repeats) for your lady’s grace, 
“ Lord Marmion’s brow grew stern.” The 
governor, by way of diverting the discourse, 
takes a mighty wassel bowl, and calling 
upon Lord Marmion to pledge him, asks 
where he has left that page of his who 
used to serve his cup of wine, and 
whose beauty was sorare; and he inti- 
mates plainly his suspicion that this page 
was some “ gentle paramour” in disguise.’ 
Marmion, scarcely able to suppress his 
wrath, replies, that he left hiin sick in’ 
Lindisfarn. But, returning taunt for 
taunt, he inquires whether the fair and 
sage Lady of Heron was gone on ‘some 
pious pilgrimage? This was spoken in 
“covert scorn,” for fame whispered light 
tales of Heron's “ lovely dame.” 
The governor answered that she pre- 
ferred Queen Margaret’s bower, to the 
darksome fortress of Norham. Lord 
Marmion then informs Heron, that he is 
bound to.the Scottish court to demand 
«¢« Why through all Scotland near and far, 
Their king is mustering troops for war.” 
And he desires, what might be supposed 
very unnecessary, a guide to conduct him 
to Edinburgh. /This occasions much con- 
versation. At length it is settled than an 
antient Palmer, lately from Jerusalem, who 
arrived the preceding night at Norham, 
shall be the guide. But how this « holy 
rambler,” as he is styled, came to know the’ 
way better than Lord Marmion himself, 
isnot explained. The Palmer isdescribed 
as stately in mien, but his gaunt frame was 
worn with toil, his hair was blanched, his 
cheek was sunk, and his eye looked hag- 
gard. Early the next morning, Lord Mar- 
mion aud his train set forward on his’ 
journey; and this is the whole of the 
scanty information we receive from the 
perusal of the first Canto, containing no 
less than five hundred andfifty-eight lines, 
CANTO II. 
The same breeze which swept away 
the smoke rolling around the castle of 
Norham, we are told, bore along the Nor- 
thumbrian seas a gallant bark, bound 
from Whitby’s cloistered pile to the abbey 
of Lindisfarn, situated on the verge of the 
holy isle of St. Cuthbert. On the deck 
was placed in a chair of state, the Abbess 
of St. Hilda, with five feir nuns, all of 
whom, the abbess herself and one of the 
nuns, the novice Clara(excepted)“ who ill 
; might 
? 
