triplet which closes the passage ending with 1. 125. The metrical basis of the movement in the Canto is likewise iambic tetrameter, but the trimeter or three-beat line is freely introduced, and the poet allows himself great scope in his arrangement.

Stanza I. 1. 1. 'The ruinous castle of Norham (anciently called Ubbanford) is situated on the southern bank of the Tweed, about six miles above Berwick, and where that river is still the boundary between England and Scotland. The extent of its ruins, as well as its historical importance, shows it to have been a place of magnificence, as well as strength. Edward I resided there when he was created umpire of the dispute concerning the Scottish succession. It was repeatedly taken and retaken during the wars between England and Scotland; and, indeed, scarce any happened, in which it had not a principal share. Norham Castle is situated on a steep bank, which overhangs the river. The repeated sieges which the castle had sustained, rendered frequent repairs necessary. In 1164, it was almost rebuilt by Hugh Pudsey, Bishop of Durham, who added a huge keep, or donjon; notwithstanding which, King Henry II, in 1174, took the castle from the bishop, and committed the keeping of it to William de Neville. After this period it seems to have been chiefly garrisoned by the King, and considered as a royal fortress. The Greys of Chillinghame Castle were frequently the castellans, or captains of the garrison: Yet, as the castle was situated in the patrimony of St. Cuthbert, the property was in the see of Durham till the Reformation. After that period, it passed through various hands. At the union of the crowns, it was in the possession of Sir Robert Carey, (afterwards Earl of Monmouth,) for his own life, and that of two of his sons. After King James's accession, Carey sold Norham Castle to George Home, Earl of Dunbar, for £6000. See his curious Memoirs, published by Mr. Constable of Edinburgh.

'According to Mr. Pinkerton, there is, in the British Museum. Cal. B. 6. 216, a curious memoir of the Dacres on the state of Norham Castle in 1522, not long after the battle of Flodden. The inner ward, or keep, is represented as impregnable :-"The provisions are three great vats of salt eels, forty-four kine, three hogsheads of salted salmon, forty quarters of grain, besides many cows and four hundred sheep, lying under the castle-wall nightly; but a number of the arrows wanted feathers, and a good Fletcher [i.e. maker of arrows] was required.”—History of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 201, note.

The ruins of the castle are at present considerable, as well as

picturesque. They consist of a large shattered tower, with many vaults, and fragments of other edifices, enclosed within an outward wall of great circuit.'-SCOTT.

1. 4. battled = embattled, furnished with battlements. See Introd. to Canto V. 1. 90, and cp. Tennyson's 'Dream of Fair Women,' 1. 220:

'The valleys of grape-loaded vines that glow

Beneath the battled tower.

the donjon keep. It is perhaps unnecessary to remind my readers, that the donjon, in its proper signification, means the strongest part of a feudal castle; a high square tower, with walls of tremendous thickness, situated in the centre of the other buildings, from which, however, it was usually detached. Here, in case of the outward defences being gained, the garrison retreated to make their last stand. The donjon contained the great hall, and principal rooms of state for solemn occasions, and also the prison of the fortress; from which last circumstance we derive the modern and restricted use of the word dungeon. Ducange (voce DUNJO) conjectures plausibly, that the name is derived from these keeps being usually built upon a hill, which in Celtic is called DUN. Borlase supposes the word came from the darkness of the apartments in these towers, which were thence figuratively called Dungeons; thus deriving the ancient word from the modern application of it.'— SCOTT.

1. 6. flanking walls, walls protecting it on the sides. Cp. the use of flanked in Dryden's 'Annus Mirabilis' xxvi :

By the rich scent we found our perfumed prey,

Which, flanked with rocks, did close in covert lie.'

Stanza II. 1. 14. St. George's banner. St. George's red cross on a white field was the emblem on the English national standard. Saint George is the legendary patron saint who slew the dragon.

Stanza III. 1. 29. Horncliff-hill is one of the numerous hillocks to the east of Norham. There is a village of the same name.

A plump of spears. Scott writes, "This word applies to a flight of water-fowl; but is applied by analogy to a body of horse :"There is a knight of the North Country,

Which leads a lusty plump of spears."
Flodden Field.

1. 33. mettled, same as metalled (mettle being a variant of metal), spirited, ardent. So 'mettled hound' in 'Jock o' Hazeldean.' Cp. Julius Caesar, iv. 2. 23:—

But hollow men, like horses hot at hand,

Make gallant show and promise of their mettle.'

'Metal' in the same sense is frequent in Shakespeare. See Meas. for Meas. i. I; Julius Caesar, i. 2; Hamlet, iii 2.

1. 35. palisade (Fr. palisser, to enclose with pales), a firm row of stakes presenting a sharp point to an advancing party.

1. 38. hasted, Elizabethanism = hastened. Cp. Merch. of Venice, ii. 2. 104-'Let it be so hasted that supper be ready at the farthest by five of the clock.'

1. 42. sewer, taster; squire, knight's attendant; seneschal, steward. See 'Lay of the Last Minstrel,' vi. 6, and note on Par. Lost, ix. 38, in Clarendon Press Milton :

'Then marshalled feast

Served up in hall with sewers, and seneschals.'

Stanza IV. 1. 43. Malvoisie = Malmsey, from Malvasia, now Napoli di Malvasia, in the Morea.

1. 55. portcullis, a strong timber framework within the gateway of a castle, let down in grooves and having iron spikes at the bottom.

Stanzas V and VI. Marmion, strenuous in arms and prudent in counsel, has a kinship in spirit and achievement with the Homeric heroes. Compare him also with the typical knight in Chaucer's Prologue and the Red Cross Knight at the opening of the 'Faerie Queene.' Scott annotates' Milan steel' and the legend thus :

'The artists of Milan were famous in the middle ages for their skill in armoury, as appears from the following passage, in which Froissart gives an account of the preparations made by Henry, Earl of Hereford, afterwards Henry IV, and Thomas, Duke of Norfolk, Earl Marischal, for their proposed combat in the lists at Coventry : "These two lords made ample provisions of all things necessary for the combat; and the Earl of Derby sent off messengers to Lombardy, to have armour from Sir Galeas, Duke of Milan. The Duke complied with joy, and gave the knight, called Sir Francis, who had brought the message, the choice of all his armour for the Earl of Derby. When he had selected what he wished for in plated and mail armour, the Lord of Milan, out of his abundant love for the Earl, ordered four of the best armourers in Milan to accompany the knight to England, that the Earl of Derby might be more completely armed."-JOHNES' Froissart, vol. iv. p. 597.

'The crest and motto of Marmion are borrowed from the following story:-Sir David de Lindsay, first Earl of Crauford, was, among

other gentlemen of quality, attended, during a visit to London in 1390, by Sir William Dalzell, who was, according to my authority, Bower, not only excelling in wisdom, but also of a lively wit. Chancing to be at the Court, he there saw Sir Piers Courtenay, an English knight, famous for skill in tilting, and for the beauty of his person, parading the palace, arrayed in a new mantle, bearing for device an embroidered falcon, with this rhyme,—

"I bear a falcon, fairest of flight,

Whoso pinches at her, his death is dight1

In graith 2."

'The Scottish knight, being a wag, appeared next day in a dress exactly similar to that of Courtenay, but bearing a magpie instead of the falcon, with a motto ingeniously contrived to rhyme to the vaunting inscription of Sir Piers :—

"I bear a pie picking at a piece,

Whoso picks at her, I shall pick at his nese3,

In faith."

'This affront could only be expiated by a just with sharp lances. In the course, Dalzell left his helmet unlaced, so that it gave way at the touch of his antagonist's lance, and he thus avoided the shock of the encounter. This happened twice:-in the third encounter, the handsome Courtenay lost two of his front teeth. As the Englishman complained bitterly of Dalzell's fraud in not fastening his helmet, the Scottishman agreed to run six courses more, each champion staking in the hand of the King two hundred pounds, to be forfeited, if, on entering the lists, any unequal advantage should be detected. This being agreed to, the wily Scot demanded that Sir Piers, in addition to the loss of his teeth, should consent to the extinction of one of his eyes, he himself having lost an eye in the fight of Otterburn. As Courtenay demurred to this equalisation of optical powers, Dalzell demanded the forfeit; which, after much altercation, the King appointed to be paid to him, saying, he surpassed the English both in wit and valour. This must appear to the reader a singular specimen of the humour of that time. I suspect the Jockey Club would have given a different decision from Henry IV.'

11. 85-6. 'The arms of Marmion would be Vairée, a fesse gules— a simple bearing, testifying to the antiquity of the race. The badge was An ape passant argent, ringed and chained with gold. The Marmions were the hereditary champions of England. The office

passed to the Dymokes, through marriage, in the reign of Edward III.'-'Notes and Queries,' 7th S. III. 37.

Stanza VII. 1. 95. The principal distinction between the independent esquire (terming him such who was attached to no knight's service) and the knight was the spurs, which the esquire might wear of silver, but by no means gilded.'-Scott's Essay on Chivalry,' p. 64.

With the squire's 'courteous precepts' compare those of Chaucer's squire in the Prologue,—

'He cowde songes make and wel endite,

Juste and eek daunce, and wel purtreye and write.

Curteys he was, lowely, and servysable,

And carf byforn his fader at the table.'

Stanza VIII. 1. 108. Him listed is an Early English form. Cp. Chaucer's Prologue, 583,

'Or lyve as scarsly as hym list desire.'

In Elizabethan English, which retains many impersonal forms, list is mainly used as a personal verb, as in Much Ado, iii. 4,–

'I am not such a fool to think what I list,'

and in John iii. 8, The wind bloweth where it listeth.' Even then, however, it was sometimes used impersonally, as in Surrey's translation of Æneid ii. 1064,

'By sliding seas me listed them to lede.'

The

1. 116. Hosen = hose, tight trousers reaching to the knees. form hosen is archaic, though it lingered provincially in Scotland till modern times. For a standard use of the word, see in A. V., Daniel iii. 21, ‘Then these men were bound in their coats, their hosen, and their hats, and their other garments.'

1. 121. The English archers under the Tudors were famous. Holinshed specially mentions that at the battle of Blackheath, in 1496, Dartford bridge was defended by archers 'whose arrows were in length a full cloth yard.'

Stanza IX. 1. 130. morion (Sp. morra, the crown of the head), a kind of helmet without a visor, frequently surmounted with a crest, introduced into England about the beginning of the sixteenth century. 1. 134. linstock (lont, a match, and stok, a stick), ‘a gunner's forked staff to hold a match of lint dipped in saltpetre.'

yare, ready; common as a nautical term. Cp. Tempest, i. 1. 6, 'Cheerly, my hearts! Yare, yare!' and see note to Clarendon Press edition of the play.