Mar. 15. 1851.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



203 



day) the secoml, ami the sacrifices and feasting on 

 the third of Mail, the hist of the Flonilia. 



A. E. B. 

 Leeds, Slareh 4. I80I. 



INBDITEO POETRY, NO. II. 

 CHORUS. 



(Harleiaii MSS., No. 367. fo. 154.) 



" Is, is there notliiiig canii withstand 

 The hand 

 Of Time : but that it must 

 Be shaken into dust ? 

 Then poore, poore Israefites are wee 



Who see, 

 But cannot shuun the Graue's captivitie. 



" Alas, good Browne ! that Nature hath 

 No bath, 

 Or virtuous herbes to strayne. 

 To boyle* thee yong againe ; 

 Yet could she (kind) but back command 



Thy brand. 

 Herself wonld dye ere thou should'st be unman'd. 



" But (ah !) the golden Ewer by [a] stroke, 

 Is broke, 

 And now the Ahnoud Tree 

 With teares, with toares, we see, 

 Doth lowly lye, and with its fall 



Do all 

 The daughters dye, that once were musical!. 



" Thus yf weake builded man cann saye, 

 A day 

 He lives, 'tis all, for why ? 

 He's sure at night to dye. 

 For fading man in fleshly lomef 



Doth roine 

 Till he his graue find, His eternall hcJme. 



" Then farewell, farewell, man of men. 

 Till when 

 (For us the morncrs meet, 

 Pal'd visag'd in the street. 

 To scale up this our Iiritle birth 



In earth,) 

 AVe meet with thee triumphant in our mirth." 



Trinitill Hull's Exequies. 



Now, to what does Hall refer in tlie third 

 stanza, in his mention of the ahaond-tree ? Is it 

 a classical allusion, as in tlie preceding stanza, or 

 luis it some reference to any botanical fact ? I 

 send tlie ballad, trusting lliat as an inedited mor- 

 sel yoa will receive it. 



Kenneth II. II. Mackenzie. 



[We do not take JLjU here to be t!ie name of a man, 

 but Trinity Hall at Cambridge.] 



• The reader will recognise the classical allusion, 

 ■f Loam, earth ; roam. 



ON A PASSAGE IN MARMION. 



I venture for the first time to trespass upon 

 the attention of your readers in making the fol- 

 lowing remarks upon a passage in Marmion, 

 ■which, as far as I know, has escaped the notice of 

 all the critical writers whose comments upon that 

 celebrated poem have iiitherto been published. 



It will probably be remembered, that long after 

 the main action of the poem and interest of the 

 story have been brought to a close by the death 

 of the hero on the field of FlodJen, the following 

 incident is thus pointedly described : — 



" Short i5 my tale: — Fitz-Eustace' care 

 A pierced and mangled body bare 

 To moated Lichfield's lofty pile : 

 And there, beneath the southern aisle, 

 A tomb, with Gothic sculpture fair 

 Did long Lord Marmioii's image bear, 

 &c. &c. &c. 



" There erst was martial jMarmion found. 

 His feet upon a couchaut hound, 



His hands to Heaven upraised : 

 And all around on scutcheon rich. 

 And tablet carved, and fretted niche, 



His arms and feats were blazed. 

 And yet, though all was carved so fair. 

 And priest for Marmion breathed the prayer. 

 The last Lord Marmion lay not there. 

 From Ettrick woods a peasant swain 

 Follow'd his lord to Flodden plain, — 

 &c. &c. &c. 



'• Sore wounded Sybil's Cross he spied, j 



And dragg'd him to its foot, and died. 

 Close by the noble Mannion's side. 

 The spoilers stripp'd and gash'd the slain. 

 And thus their corpses were mista'en ; 

 And thus in the proud Baron'.= tomb. 

 The lowly woodsman took the room." 



Now, I ask, wherefore has the poet dwelt with 

 such minuteness upon this forced and improbable 

 incident? Had it indeed been with no other 

 purpose than to introduce the picturesque de- 

 scriiilion and the moral refle.Kions contained in the 

 following section, the improbability might well be 

 forgiven. But such is not the real object. The 

 critic of the Monthly Review takes the following 

 notice of this passage, which is printed as a note 

 in the last edition of Scott's Poems in 1833 : — 



" A corpse is afterwards conveyed, as that of Marmion, 

 to the cathedral of Lichfield, where a magnificent tomb 

 is erected to his m-.'mory, &c. &c. ; but, by an admira- 

 bly imaijincd act of poeiicnl justice, we are informed that 

 a peas.-iiit"s b )dy was placed beiieatli that costly monu- 

 ment, while the haughty Baron himself wa> buried like 

 a vulgar corpse on the spot where lie died." 



Had the reviewer attempted to penetrate a little 

 deeper into the workings of the author's mind, he 

 would have seen in this circiinistanco much more 

 than "an admirably imagined act of poetical jus- 



