of the richest abbeys in France. It was a retreat for penitents of both sexes, and presided over by an abbess. The old monastic buildings and courtyards, surrounded by walls, and covering from 40 to 50 acres, now form one of the larger prisons of France, i which about 2000 men and boys are confined, and kept at industrial occupations.' See Chambers's' Encyclopaedia,' s. v., and Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, 2d. S, I. 104.

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Stanza XXI. 1. 408. but except that. Cp. Tempest, i. 2.414:-

'And, but he's something stain'd

With grief that's beauty's canker, thou might'st call him
A goodly person.'

1. 414. Byron, writing to Murray on 3 Feb., 1816, expresses his belief that he has unwittingly imitated this passage in Parisina.' ‘I had,' he says, 'completed the story on the passage from Gibbon, which indeed leads to a like scene naturally, without a thought of the kind; but it comes upon me not very comfortably.' Byron is quite right in his assertion that, if he had taken this striking description of Constance as a model for his Parisina, he would have been attempting 'to imitate that which is inimitable.' See 'Parisina,' st. xiv :—

'She stood, I said, all pale and still,

The living cause of Hugo's ill.'

Stanza XXII. 1. 415. a sordid soul, &c. For such a character in the drama see Lightborn in Marlowe's Edward II, and those trusty agents in Richard III, whose avowed hardness of heart drew from Gloucester the appreciative remark :

'Your eyes drop millstones, when fools' eyes drop tears.' Richard III, i. 3. 353. Stanza XXIII. 1. 438. grisly, grim, horrible; still an effective poetic word. It is, e. g., very expressive in Tennyson's ' Princess,' sect. vi, where Ida sees

'The haggard father's face and reverend beard

Of grisly twine, all dabbled with the blood,' &c. See below, III. 382.

Stanza XXV. 1. 468. 'It is well known, that the religious, who broke their vows of chastity, were subjected to the same penalty as the Roman vestals in a similar case. A small niche, sufficient to enclose their bodies, was made in the massive wall of the convent; a slender pittance of food and water was deposited in it, and the awful words, VADE IN PACE, were the signal for immuring the criminal. It is not likely that, in latter times, this punishment was

often resorted to; but among the ruins of the abbey of Coldingham, were some years ago discovered the remains of a female skeleton, which, from the shape of the niche, and position of the figure, seemed be that of an immured nun.'-SCOTT.

Lockhart adds:- The Edinburgh Reviewer, on st. xxxii, post, suggests that the proper reading of the sentence is vade in pacem— not part in peace, but go into peace, or eternal rest, a pretty intelligible mittimus to another world.'

Stanza XXVII. 1. 506. my

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"of me,' retains the old genitive force as in Elizabethan English. Cp. Julius Caesar, i. 1. 55:"In his way

That comes in triumph over Pompey's blood.'

1. 516. The very old fancy of a forsaken lover's revenge has been powerfully utilized in D. G. Rossetti's fascinating ballad, 'Sister Helen':

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'Pale, pale her cheeks, that in pride did glow,

Sister Helen,

'Neath the bridal-wreath three days ago.'

'One morn for pride and three days for woe,

Little brother!'

Stanza XXVIII. 1. 520. plight, woven, united, as in Spenser F. Q., II. vi. 7 :—

'Fresh flowerets dight

About her necke, or rings of rushes plight.'

1. 524-40. The reference in these lines is to what was known as the appeal to the judgment of God. On this subject, Scott at the close of the second head in his Essay on Chivalry,' says, 'In the appeal to this awful criterion, the combatants, whether personally concerned, or appearing as champions, were understood, in martial law, to take on themselves the full risk of all consequences. And, as the defendant, or his champion, in case of being overcome, was subjected to the punishment proper to the crime of which he was accused, so the appellant, if vanquished, was, whether a principal or substitute, condemned to the same doom to which his success would have exposed the accused. Whichever combatant was vanquished he was liable to the penalty of degradation; and, if he survived the combat, the disgrace to which he was subjected was worse than death. His spurs were cut off close to his heels, with a cook's cleaver; his arms were baffled and reversed by the common hangman; his belt was cut to pieces, and his sword broken. Even his horse shared his disgrace, the animal's tail being cut off, close by

the rump, and thrown on a dunghill. The death-bell tolled, and the funeral service was said for a knight thus degraded as for one dead to knightly honour. And if he fell in the appeal to the judgment of God, the same dishonour was done to his senseless corpse. If alive, he was only rescued from death to be confined in the cloister. Such at least were the strict rules of Chivalry, though the courtesy of the victor, or the clemency of the prince, might remit them in favourable cases.'

For illustration of forms observed at such contests, see Richard II, i. 3.

1.524. Each knight declared on oath that he had his quarrel just.' The fall of an unworthy knight is referred to below, VI. 961. Stanza XXIX. 1. 545. This illustrates Henry's impulsive and imperious character, and is not, necessarily, a premonition of his final attitude towards Roman Catholicism.

1. 555. dastard (Icel. doestr = exhausted, breathless; O. Dut. dasaert = a fool) is very appropriately used here, after the description above, st. xxii, to designate the poltroon that quails only before death. Cp. Pope's Iliad, II. 427 :—

'And die the dastard first, who dreads to die.'

Stanza XXX. 1. 568. Cp. Julius Caesar, ii. 2. 35:

'It seems to me most strange that men should fear; Seeing that death, a necessary end,

Will come when it will come.'

Stanza XXXI. 1. 573. the fiery Dane. See note on 1. 10 above. Passing northwards after destroying York and Tynemouth, the Danes in 875 burned the monastery on Lindisfarne. The bishop and monks, with their relics and the body of St. Cuthbert, fled over the Kylve hills. See Raine, &c.

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1.576. the crosier bends. Crosier (O. Fr. croiser; Fr. croix cross) is used both for the staff of an archbishop with a cross on the top, and for the staff of a bishop or an abbot, terminating in a carved or ornamented curve or crook. The word is used here metaphorically for Papal power, as Bacon uses it, speaking of Anselm and Becket, 'who with their crosiers did almost try it with the king's sword.' Constance's prophecy refers to Henry VIII's victorious collision with the Pope.

Stanza XXXII. 11. 585-91. It is impossible not to connect this striking picture with that of Virgil's Sibyl (Aeneid, VI. 45) :— 'Ventum erat ad limen, cum virgo, 'poscere fata

Tempus,' ait; 'deus, ecce, deus.' Cui talia fanti

Ante fores subito non voltus, non color unus,
Non comptae mansere comae; sed pectus anhelum,
Et rabie fera corda tument; maiorque videri

Nec mortale sonans, adflata est numine quando

Iam propiore dei.'

1. 588. Stared, stood up stiffly. Cp. Julius Caesar, iv. 3. 280, and Tempest, i. 2. 213, 'with hair upstaring.'

1. 600. See above, 1. 468, and note.

== because of terror.

Stanza XXXIII. 1. 616. for terror's sake
Cp. For fashion's sake,' As You Like It, iii. 2. 55.

1.620. The custom of ringing the passing bell grew out of the belief that a church bell, rung when the soul was passing from the body, terrified the devils that were waiting to attack it at the moment of its escape. The tolling of the passing bell was retained at the Reformation; and the people were instructed that its use was to admonish the living, and excite them to pray for the dying. But by the beginning of the 18th century the passing bell in the proper sense of the term had almost ceased to be heard.' A mourning bell is still rung during funeral services as a mark of respect. See s. v. 'Bell,' Chambers's Encyclopædia. Cp. Byron's 'Parisina,' st. xv.

'The convent bells are ringing,

But mournfully and slow;

In the grey square turret swinging

With a deep sound to and fro.'

In criticising Marmion,' in the Edinburgh Review, Lord Jeffrey says that the sound of the knell rung for Constance is described with great force and solemnity;' while a writer in the Scots Magazine of 1808 considers that 'the whole of this trial and doom presents a high-wrought scene of horror, which, at the close, rises almost to too great a pitch.'

INTRODUCTION TO CANTO THIRD.

'William Erskine, Esq. advocate, sheriff-depute of the Orkneys, became a Judge of the Court of Session by the title of Lord Kinnedder, and died in Edinburgh in August, 1822. He had been from early youth the most intimate of the Poet's friends, and his

chief confidant and adviser as to all literary matters. See a notice of his life and character by the late Mr. Hay Donaldson, to which Sir Walter Scott contributed several paragraphs.'--LOCKHART.

There are frequent references to Erskine throughout Lockhart's Life of Scott. The critics of the time were of his opinion that Scott as a poet was not giving his powers their proper direction. Jeffrey considered Marmion'a misapplication in some degree of extraordinary talents.' Fortunately, Scott decided for himself in the matter, and the self-criticism of this Introduction is characterised not only by good humour and poetic beauty but by discrimination and strong common-sense.

1. 14. a morning dream. This may simply be a poetic way of saying that his method is unsystematic, but Horace's account of the vision he saw when he was once tempted to write Greek verses is irresistibly suggested by the expression :

Vetuit me tali voce Quirinus

Post mediam noctem visus, cum somnia vera :
"In silvam non ligna feras insanius, ac si
Magnas Graecorum malis implere catervas?" '

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Sat. I. x. 32.

1. 24. all too well. This use of 'all too' is a development of the Elizabethan expression all-to' altogether, quite, as 'all to topple,' Pericles, iii. 2. 17; 'all to ruffled,' Comus, 380. In this usage the original force of to as a verbal prefix is lost sight of. Chaucer has 'The pot to breaketh' in Prologue to Chanon Yeomanes Tale. See note in Clarendon Press Milton, i. 290.

1. 26. Desultory song may naturally command a very wide class of those intelligent readers, for whom the Earl of Iddesletgh, in Lectures and Essays,' puts forward a courageous plea in his informing and genial address on the uses of Desultory Reading. 1. 28. The reading of the first edition is an estimate of his own achievements more than the bare assertion of his ability to which is implied in the line as it stands. just quoted from 'Lycidas' may have led to the reading of all subsequent editions.

loftier,' which conveys characteristic of Scott build the lofty rhyme' Perhaps the expression

1. 46. The Duke of Brunswick commanded the Prussian forces at Jena, 14 Oct., 1806, and was mortally wounded. He was 72. For hearse, cp. above, Introd. to I. 199.

54. The reigning house of Prussia comes from the Electors of Brandenburg. In 1415 Frederick VI. of Hohenzollern and Nurem