1830 59

1831

SCOTT.

THE DOOM OF DEVORGOIL: THE
AYRSHIRE TRAGEDY: Serious apo-
plectic seizure; rapid recovery:
LETTERS ON DEMONOLOGY AND
WITCHCRAFT; and HISTORY OF
FRANCE: Resignation of the Clerk-
ship of Session: His creditors pre-
sent him with the furniture, library,
&c., at Abbotsford, after receiving
a second dividend, reducing the
debt to £54,000.
60 Opposition to Parliamentary Reform:
Goes to Edinburgh to execute his
will: Stroke of paralysis: Persists
in composing COUNT ROBERT OF
PARIS Visited by Miss Ferrier:
Mobbed at Jedburgh at the elec-
tion: Partial recovery: Begins to
write CASTLE DANGEROUS: Visit
to Douglasdale: Publication of his
last two tales: Resolves to winter
at Naples; the King places a frigate
at his service: Visited by Turner at
Abbotsford : Wordsworth comes
to take farewell of him: Leaves
Abbotsford for London 23rd Sep-
tember: The Barham sails on 29th
October Spends three weeks at
Malta: Reaches Naples 17th De-
cember.

CONTEMPORARY EVENTS.

Death of George IV.; acces

sion of William IV.
Second French Revolution.
Earl Grey Premier.
Moore's Life of Byron.
Tennyson's Poems, chiefly
Lyrical.

Marryat's The King's Own.
Mrs. Gore's Women as they
Are.

Reform Bill rejected: Riots
in several large towns.
Death of Henry Mackenzie.
Miss Ferrier's Destiny.

Goes to Rome 16th April; leaves, 11th Reform Bill passed.
May: Reaches Venice 19th May;
Frankfort, 5th June; Nimeguen,
9th June: Another severe paralytic
attack Reaches London 13th June:
Returns to Edinburgh 9th July; to
Abbotsford, 11th July: Dies, 21st
September: Buried in Dryburgh
Abbey on the 26th.

THE LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL.

CHARACTERS OF THE POEM.

LADY SCOTT of Buccleuch and Branksome, | WATT TINLINN of Liddelside.
widow of Lord Walter Scott (died 1552).
The BARON OF BUCCLEUCH, her son, a
minor.

LORD DACRE, the English Warden of the
Marches.

LADY MARGARET SCOTT, her daughter, in
love with Lord Cranstoun.

SIR WILLIAM SCOTT of Deloraine.
The Monk of St. Mary's at Melrose.
HENRY, Baron of Cranstoun.

An Elvish Dwarf, Lord Cranstoun's Page.

LORD HOWARD, the English Warden of the
Western Marches.
RICHARD

Knight.

OF MUSGRAVE, an English

LORD ANGUS, the Regent of Scotland.

Seneschal, Pursuivant, Heralds, &c.

SCENE: Branksome Tower and its Neighbourhood.

DATE: The middle of the Sixteenth Century.
TIME: Three days and three nights.

(318)

INTRODUCTION.

THE way was long, the wind was cold,
The Minstrel was infirm and old;
His withered cheek, and tresses grey,
Seemed to have known a better day;
The harp, his sole remaining joy,
Was carried by an orphan boy.
The last of all the Bards was he,
Who sung of Border chivalry.
For, well-a-day! their date was fled;
His tuneful brethren all were dead;
And he, neglected and oppressed,
Wished to be with them and at rest.
No more, on prancing palfrey borne,
He carolled, light as lark at morn;
No longer, courted and caressed,
High placed in hall, a welcome guest,
He poured, to lord and lady gay,
The unpremeditated lay:

1

10

Old times were changed, old manners gone;
A stranger filled the Stuarts' throne;
The bigots of the iron time

Had called his harmless art a crime.1

A wandering Harper, scorned and poor,
He begged his bread from door to door;
And tuned, to please a peasant's ear,
The harp a king had loved to hear.

He passed where Newark's stately tower2
Looks out from Yarrow's birchen bower:
The Minstrel gazed with wishful eye-
No humbler resting-place was nigh.
With hesitating step, at last,
The embattled portal-arch he passed,
Whose ponderous grate and massy bar
Had oft rolled back the tide of war,
But never closed the iron door
Against the desolate and poor.
The Duchess marked his weary pace,3
His timid mien, and reverend face,
And bade her page the menials tell
That they should tend the old man well:
For she had known adversity,

Though born in such a high degree;-
In pride of power, in beauty's bloom,
Had wept o'er Monmouth's bloody tomb!

When kindness had his wants supplied,
And the old man was gratified,
Began to rise his minstrel pride:
And he began to talk anon,

Of good Earl Francis, dead and gone;5
And of Earl Walter,—rest him, God !6
A braver ne'er to battle rode;

And how full many a tale he knew

Of the old warriors of Buccleuch :

And, would the noble Duchess deign

To listen to an old man's strain,

Though stiff his hand, his voice though weak,
He thought even yet, the sooth to speak,

That, if she loved the harp to hear,

He could make music to her ear.

The humble boon was soon obtained;
The aged Minstrel audience gained.
But, when he reached the room of state,
Where she, with all her ladies, sate,

20

30

40

50

60

Perchance he wished his boon denied:
For, when to tune his harp he tried,
His trembling hand had lost the ease
Which marks security to please;
And scenes, long past, of joy and pain,
Came wildering o'er his aged brain-
He tried to tune his harp in vain.
The pitying Duchess praised its chime,
And gave him heart, and gave him time,
Till every string's according glee
Was blended into harmony.

And then, he said, he would full fain
He could recall an ancient strain,

70

But for high dames and mighty earls;

He had played it to King Charles the Good,"

80

When he kept court in Holyrood; 10

And much he wished, yet feared, to try

The long-forgotten melody.

Amid the strings his fingers strayed,

And an uncertain warbling made,

And oft he shook his hoary head.

But when he caught the measure wild,

The old man raised his face and smiled;
And lightened up his faded eye,11
With all a poet's ecstasy!

90

In varying cadence, soft or strong,
He swept the sounding chords along:
The present scene, the future lot,
His toils, his wants, were all forgot:
Cold diffidence, and age's frost,
In the full tide of song were lost;
Each blank, in faithless memory void,12
The poet's glowing thought supplied;
And, while his heart responsive rung,
"Twas thus the LATEST MINSTREL sung.

100

CANTO FIRST.

THE ARGUMENT.

WHILE knights and squires sit in Branksome Hall, some lounging, and others keeping watch, the Ladye, late at night, seeks Lord David's secret bower. She hears the Spirit of the Flood ask the Spirit of the Fell what is to be the fate of the Ladye Margaret. The Mountain Spirit replies that the house of Branksome cannot enjoy peace till pride be quelled and love be free. The Ladye vows that her daughter shall never be her foeman's bride (referring to Lord Cranstoun). She despatches William of Deloraine to Melrose, to tell the Monk of St. Mary's that the hour is come when the treasure is to be won from the tomb of Michael Scott. Though it is late and dark, Deloraine mounts his steed and starts at once. It is past midnight when he reaches Melrose. He stables his steed, and seeks the convent wall and the cell of the monk.

I.

THE feast was over in Branksome Tower,1

And the Ladye had gone to her secret bower;

Her bower that was guarded by word and by spell,
Deadly to hear, and deadly to tell.

No living wight, save the Ladye alone,
Had dared to cross the threshold stone.
The tables were drawn, it was idlesse all;
Knight, and page, and household squire,
Loitered through the lofty hall,

Or crowded round the ample fire.
The stag-hounds, weary with the chase,
Lay stretched upon the rushy floor;
And urged, in dreams, the forest-race,
From Teviot-stone to Eskdale-moor.
Nine-and-twenty knights of fame

Hung their shields in Branksome Hall;
Nine-and-twenty squires of name

Brought them their steeds to bower from stall;
Nine-and-twenty yeomen tall

Waited, duteous, on them all:

They were all knights of mettle true,
Kinsmen to the bold Buccleuch.

Ten of them were sheathed in steel,
With belted sword, and spur on heel:
They quitted not their harness bright,
Neither by day, nor yet by night :
They lay down to rest,

With corslet laced,

Pillowed on buckler cold and hard;

They carved at the meal

With gloves of steel,

And they drank the red wine through the helmet

barred.