Till late, with wonder, grief, and awe, Truce to these thoughts!-for, as they rise, Bodings, or true or false, to change, For Fiction's fair romantic range, Or for Tradition's dubious light, That hovers 'twixt the day and night: Her wavering lamp I'd rather trim, Than gaze abroad on reeky fen, Who loves not more the night of June But who shall teach my harp to gain 1 In January 1796, the exiled Count d'Artois, afterwards Charles X. of France, took up his residence in Holyrood, where he remained until August 1799. When again driven from his country by the Revolution of July 1830, the same unfortunate Prince, with all the immediate members of his family, sought refuge once more in the ancient palace of the Stuarts, and remained there until 18th September 1832. 2 Mr. Ellis, in his valuable Introduction to the "Specimens of Romance,” Famed Beauclerk call'd, for that he loved The weapon from his hand could wring, And bid, reviving in his strain, The gentle poet live again; Thou, who canst give to lightest lay An unpedantic moral gay, Nor less the dullest theme bid flit On wings of unexpected wit; In letters as in life approved, A lesson of thy magic art, To win at once the head and heart, has proved, by the concurring testimony of La Ravaillere, Tressan, but especially the Abbé de la Rue, that the courts of our Anglo-Norman Kings, rather than those of the French monarch, produced the birth of Romance literature. Marie, soon after mentioned, compiled from Armorican originals, and translated into Norman-French, or romance language, the twelve curious Lays, of which Mr. Ellis has given us a precis in the Appendix to his Introduction. The story of Blondel, the famous and faithful minstrel of Richard I., needs no commentary. At once to charm, instruct, and mend, Such minstrel lesson to bestow -What few can practise, all can preach, With even patience to endure Lingering disease and painful cure, And boast affliction's pangs subdued By mild and manly fortitude. Enough, the lesson has been given : Come listen, then! for thou hast known, Waked a wild measure rude and bold, But yet so glowing and so grand,— 1 Come then, my friend, my genius, come along, Oh master of the poet and the song!" Pope to Bollingbroke. 2 At Sunning-hill, Mr. Ellis's seat, near Windsor, part of the first two cantos of Marmion were written. |