nis harp would otherwise have rung over a field of glory such as Britain never reaped before; and on Lord Byron's account. --because it is melancholy to see a man of genius duped by the mere cant of words and phrases, even when facts are most broadly confronted with them. If the poet has mixed with the original, wild, and magnificent creations of his imagination, prejudices which he could only have caught by the contagion which he most professes to despise, it is he himself that must be the loser. If his lofty muse has soared in all her brilliancy over the field of Waterloo without dropping even one leaf of laurel on the head of Wellington, his merit can dispense even with the praise of Lord Byron. And as when the images of Brutus were excluded from the triumphal procession, his memory became only the more powerfully imprinted on the souls of the Romans-the name of the British hero will be but more eagerly recalled to remem'rance by the very lines in which his praise is forgotten."-Quarterly Review, vol. xvi. 1816. NOTE U. ED. O who shall grudi̟ • him Albuera's bays, And raised fair Lusitania's fallen shield.-P. 282. Nothing during the war of Portugal seems, to a distinct observer. ore deserving of praise, than the self-devotion of Field-Marshal Bered, who was contented to undertake all the hazard of oblegy which might have been founded upon any miscarriage in se highly important experiment of training the Portuguese traps to an improved state of discipline. In exposing his mil y reputation to the censure of imprudence from the most,,derate, and all manner of unutterable caiumnies from the grant and malignant, he placed at stake the dearest pled, which a military man had to offer, and nothing but the dee conviction of the high and essential importance attached to access can be supposed an adequate motive. llow great the chance of miscarriage was supposed, may be estimated from the general opinion of officers of unquestioned talents and experience, possessed of every opportunity of infor mation; how completely the experiment has succeeded, and how much the spirit and patriotism of our ancient allies had been underrated, is evident, not only from those victories in which they have borne a distinguished share, but from the liberal and highly honorable manner in which these opinions have been retracted. The success of this plan, with all its important consequences, we owe to the indefatigable exertions of FieldMarshal Beresford. NOTE V. -a race renown'd of old, Whose war-cry oft has waked the battle-swell. . -the conquering shout of Grame.-P. 283. This stanza alludes to the various achievements of the warlike family of Grame, or Grahame. They are said, by tradition, to have descended from the Scottish chief, under, whose command his country men stormed the wall built by the Emperor Severus between the Friths of Forth and Clyde, the fragments of which are still popularly called Grame's Dyke. Sir John the Græme, "the hardy wight, and wise,' " is well known as the friend of Sir William Wallace. Alderne, Kilsythe, and Tibbermuir, were scenes of the victories of the he roic Marquis of Montrose. The pass of Killycrankie is famous for the action between King William's forces and the Highlanders in 1689, "Where glad Dundee in faint huzzas expired." It is seldom that one line can number so many heroes, and yet more rare when it can appeal to the glory of a living descendant in support of its ancient renown. The allusions to the private history and character of General Grahame, may be illustrated by referring to the eloquent and affecting speech of Mr. Sheridan, upon the vote of thanks t the Victor of Barosa. Rokeby: A POEM, IN SIX CANTOS. NOTICE TO EDITION 1833. SIR WALTER SCOTT commenced the composition of ROKEBY at Abbotsford, on the 15th of September, 1812, and finished it on the last day of the following December. The reader may be interested with the following extracts rom his letters to his friend and printer, Mr. Ballantyne. "Abbotsford, 28th Oct., 1812. "DEAR JAMES,—I send you to-day better than the third sheet of Canto II., and I trust to send the other three sheets in the course of the week. you I expect that will have three cantos complete before I quit this place on the 11th of November. Surely, if you do your part, the poem may be out by Christmas; but you must not daudle over your typographical scruples. I have too much respect for the public to neglect any thing in my poem to attract their attention; and you misunderstood me much when you supposed that I designed any new experiments in point of composition. I only meant to say that knowing well that the said public will never be pleased with exactly the same thing a second time, I saw the necessity of giving a certain degree of novelty, by throwing the interest more on character than in my former poems, without certainly meaning to exclude either incident or description. I think you will see the same sort of difference taken in all my former poemus, of which I would say, if it is fair for me to say any thing, that the force in the Lay is thrown on style, in Marmion on description, and in the Lady of the Lake on incident." "3d November-As for my story, the conduct of the plot, which must be made natural and easy, prevents my introducing any thing light for some time. You must advert, that in order to give poetical effect to any incident, I am often obliged to be much longer than I expected in the detail. You are too much like the country squire in the what d'ye call it, who commands that the play should not only be a tragedy and comedy, but that it should be crowned with a spice of your pastoral. As for what is popular, and what peo ple like, and so forth, it is all a joke. Be interest ing; do the thing well, and the only difference will be, that people will like what they never liked before, and will like it so much the better for the novelty of their feelings towards it. Dulness and tameness are the only irreparable faults." "December 31st.-With kindest wishes on the return of the season, I send you the last of the copy of Rokeby. If you are not engaged at home, and like to call in, we will drink good luck to it; but do not derange a family party. "There is something odd and melancholy in concluding a poem with the year, and I could be almost silly and sentimental about it. I hope you think I have done my best. I assure you of my wishes the work may succeed; and my exertions to get out in time were more inspired by your interest and John's, than my own. And so vogue la galère. W.S." INTRODUCTION TO EDITION 1830. Lake," which was so eminently successful, and Between the publication of "The Lady of the vened. I shall not, I believe, be accused of ever that of" Rokeby," in 1813, three years had interhaving attempted to usurp a superiority over many men of genius, my contemporaries; but, in price of the public had certainly given me such a point of popularity, not of actual talent, the catemporary superiority over men, of whom, in regard to poetical fancy and feeling, I scarcely thought myself worthy to loose the shoe-latch. On the other hand, it would be absurd affectation in me to deny, that I conceived myself to understand, more perfectly than many of my contempo raries, the manner most likely to interest the great mass of mankind. Yet, even with this belief, I myself rather as one who held the bets, in time to must truly and fairly say, that I always considered be paid over to the winner, than as having any pretence to keep them in my own right. In the mean time years crept on, and not without their usual depredations on the passing generation. My sons had arrived at the age when the paternal home was no longer their best abode | a dress for a new doll. The nakedness of the land was in time hidden by woodlands of considerable extent-the smallest of possible cottages was progressively expanded into a sort of dream of a mansion-house, whimsical in the exterior, but convenient within. Nor did I forget what is the natural pleasure of every man who has been a reader; I mean the filling the shelves of a tolerably large library. All these objects I kept in view, to be executed as convenience should serve; and, although I knew many years must elapse before they could be attained, I was of a disposition to comfort myself with the Spanish proverb, "Time and I against any two." The difficult and indispensable point, of finding a permanent subject of occupation, was now at length attained; but there was annexed to it the necessity of becoming again a candidate for public favor; for, as I was turned improver on the earth of the every-day world, it was under condition that the small tenement of Parnassus, which might be accessible to my labors, should not remain uncultivated. I meditated, at first, a poem on the subject o Bruce, in which I made some progress, but afterwards judged it advisable to lay it aside, suppo sing that an English story might have more novelty; in consequence, the precedence was given to "Rokeby." as both were destined to active Fife. The fieldsports, to which I was peculiarly attached, had now less interest, and were replaced by other amusements of a more quiet character; and the means and opportunity of pursuing these were to be sought for. I had, indeed, for some years attended to farming, a knowledge of which is, or at least was then, indispensable to the comfort of a family residing in a solitary country-house; but although this was the favorite amusement of many of my friends, I have never been able to consider it as a source of pleasure. I never could think it a matter of passing importance, that my cattle or crops were better or more plentiful than those of my neighbors, and nevertheless I began to feel the necessity of some more quiet out-door occupation, different from those I had hitherto pursued. I purchased a small farm of about one hundred acres, with the purpose of planting and improving it, to which property circumstances afterwards enabled me to make considerable additions; and thus an era took place in my life almost equal to the important one mentioned by the Vicar of Wakefield, when he removed from the Blue-room to the Brown. In point of neighborhood, at least, the change of residence made little more difference. Abbotsford, to which we removed, was only six or seven miles down the Tweed, and lay on the same beautiful stream. It did not possess the romantic character of Ashestiel, my former residence; but it had a stretch of meadow-land along the river, and possessed, in the phrase of the landscape-gardener, considerable capabilities. Above all, the land was my own, like Uncle Toby's Bowling-green, to do what I would with. It had been, though the gratification was long postponed, an early wish of mine to connect myself with my mother earth, and prosecute those exper-Roundheads, whom I attempted to summon up to iments by which a species of creative power is exercised over the face of nature. I can trace, even to childhood, a pleasure derived from Dodsley's account of Shenstone's Leasowes, and I envied the poet much more for the pleasure of accomplishing the objects detailed in his friend's sketch of his grounds, than for the possession of pipe, crook, flock, and Phillis to boot. My memory, also, tenacious of quaint expressions, still retained a phrase which it had gathered from an old almanac of Charles the Second's time (when every thing down to almanacs affected to be smart), in which the reader, in the month of June, is advised for health's sake to walk a mile or two every day before breakfast, and if he can possibly so manage, to let his exercise be taken upon his own land. With the satisfaction of having attained the fulfilment of an early and long-cherished hope, I commenced my improvements, as delightful in their progress as those of the child who first makes If subject and scenery could have influenced the fate of a poem, that of " Rokeby" should have been eminently distinguished; for the grounds belonged to a dear friend, with whom I had lived in habits of intimacy for many years, and the place itself united the romantic beauties of the wilds of Scotland with the rich and smiling aspect of the southern portion of the island. But the Cavaliers and tenant this beautiful region, had for the public neither the novelty nor the peculiar interest of the primitive Highlanders. This, perhaps, was scarcely to be expected, considering that the general mind sympathizes readily and at once with the stamp which nature herself has affixed upon the manners of a people living in a simple and patriarchal state; whereas it has more difficulty in understanding or interesting itself in manners founded upon those peculiar habits of thinking or acting, which are produced by the progress of society. We could read with pleasure the tale of the adventures of a Cossack or a Mongol Tartar, while we only wonder and stare over those of the lovers in the "Pleasing Chinese History," where the embarrassments turn upon difficulties arising out of unintelligible delicacies peculiar to the customs and manners of that affected people. The cause of my failure had, however, a far deeper root. The manner, or style, which, by its novelty, attracted the public in an unusual degree, had now, after having been three times before them, exhausted the patience of the reader, and began in the fourth to lose its charms. The reviewers may be said to have apostrophized the author in the language of Parnell's Edwin: "And here reverse the charm, he cries, And let it fairly now suffice, The gambol has been shown." The licentious combination of rhymes, in a man ner not perhaps very congenial to our language, had not been confined to the author. Indeed, in most similar cases, the inventors of such novelties have their reputation destroyed by their own imitators, as Actæon fell under the fury of his own dogs. The present author, like Bobadil, had taught his trick of fence to a hundred gentlemen (and ladies'), who could fence very nearly, or quite as well as himself. For this there was no remedy; the harmony became tiresome and ordinary, and both the original inventor and his invention must have fallen into contempt if he had not found out another road to public favor. What has been said of the metre only, must be considered to apply equally to the structure of the Poem and of the style. The very best passages of any popular style are not, perhaps, susceptible of imitation, but they may be approached by men of talent; and those who are less able to copy them, at least lay hold of their peculiar features, so as to produce a strong burlesque. In either way, the effect of the manner is rendered cheap and common; and, in the latter case, ridiculous to boot. The evil consequences to an author's reputation are at least as fatal as those which come upon the musical composer, when his melody falls into the hands of the street ballad-singer. Of the unfavorable species of imitation, the author's style gave room to a very large number, owing to an appearance of facility to which some of those who used the measure unquestionably leaned too far. The effect of the more favorable imitations, composed by persons of talent, was almost equally unfortunate to the original minstrel, by showing that they could overshoot him with his own bow. In short, the popularity which once attended the School, as it was called, was now fast decaying. 1"Scott found peculiar favor and imitation among the fair sex there was Miss Halford, and Miss Mitford, and Miss Francis: but, with the greatest respect be it spoken, none of his imitators did much honor to the original, except Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, until the appearance of the Bridal of Triermain' and Harold the Dauntless, which, in the opinion of some, equalled, if not surpassed, him; and lo! after three or four years, they turned out to be the Master's own composiHon."-BYRON's Works, vol. xv. p. 96. "These two Cartos were published in London in March, Besides all this, to have kept his ground at the crisis when "Rokeby" appeared, its author ought to have put forth his utmost strength, and to have possessed at least all his original advantages, for a mighty and unexpected rival was advancing on the stage-a rival not in poetical powers only, but in that art of attracting popularity, in which the present writer had hitherto preceded better men than himself. The reader will easily see that Byron is here meant, who, after a little velitation of no great promise, now appeared as a serious candidate, in the "First two Cantos of Childe Harold." I was astonished at the power evinced by that work, which neither the "Hours of Idleness,” nor the "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers,” had prepared me to expect from its author. There was a depth in his thought, an eager abundance in his diction, which argued full confidence in the inexhaustible resources of which he felt himself pos sessed; and there was some appearance of that labor of the file, which indicates that the author is conscious of the necessity of doing every justice to his work, that it may pass warrant. Lord Byron was also a traveller, a man whose ideas wee fired by having seen, in distant scenes of difficulty and danger, the places whose very names are recorded in our bosoms as the shrines of ancient poetry. For his own misfortune, perhaps, but certainly to the high increase of his poetical character, nature had mixed in Lord Byron's system three passions which agitate the human heart with most violence, and which may be said to have hurried his bright career to an early close. There would have been little wisdom in measuring my force with so formidable an antagonist; and I was as likely to tire of playing the second fiddle in the concert, as my audience of hearing me. Age also was advancing. I was growing insensible to those subjects of excitation by which youth is agitated. I had around me the most pleasant but least exciting of all society, that of kind friends and an affectionate family. My circle of employments was a narrow one; it occupied me constantly, and it became daily more difficult for me to interest my self in poetical composition: "How happily the days of Thalaba went by ! Yet, though conscious that I must be, in the opinion of good judges, inferior to the place I had 1812, and immediately placed their author on a level with the very highest names of his age. The impression they created was more uniform, deci e, and triumphant than any that had been witnessed in this country for at least two generations. 'I awoke one morning,' he says, and found myself famous.' In truth, he had fixed himself, at a single bound, on a summit, such as no English poet had ever before attained, but after a long succession of painful and comparatively neglected efforts."-Advertisement to BYRON's Life and Works, vol viii. for four or five years held in letters, and feeling alike that the latter was one to which I had only a temporary right, I could not brook the idea of relinquishing literary occupation, which had been so long my chief diversion. Neither was I disposed † to choose the alternative of sinking into a mere editor and commentator, though that was a species of labor which I had practised, and to which I was attached. But I could not endure to think that I might not, whether known or concealed, do something of more importance. My inmost thoughts were those of the Trojan captain in the galley race,— “Non jam, prima peto. Mnestheus, neque vincere certo: Quanquam O!-sed superent, quibus hoc, Neptune, dedisti; Extremos pudeat rediisse: hoc vincite, cives, Et prohibete nefas."-EN. lib. v. 194. I had, indeed, some private reasons for my * Quanquam O!" which were not worse than those 1 "I seek not now the foremost palm to gain; DRYDEN. 2 George Ellis and Murray have been talking something bou. Scott and me, George pro Scoto,-and very right too. of Mnestheus. I have already hinted that the ma terials were collected for a poem on the subject of Bruce, and fragments of it had been shown to some of my friends, and received with applause. Not withstanding, therefore, the eminent success of Byron, and the great chance of his taking the wind out of my sails, there was, I judged. a species of cowardice in desisting from the task which I had undertaken, and it was time enough to retreat when the battle should be more decidedly lost. The sale of " Rokeby," excepting as compared with that of "The Lady of the Lake," was in the highest degree respectable; and as it included fifteen hundred quartos," in those quarto-reading days, the trade had no reason to be dissatisfied. ABBOTSFORD, April, 1830. W. S. If they want to depose him, I only wish they would not set me up as a competitor. I like the man-and admire his works to what Mr. Braham calls Entusymusy. All such stuff can only vex him, and do me no good."-BYRON's Diary, Nov., 1812 -Works, vol. ii. p. 259. 3 The 4to Edition was published by John Ballantyne and Co £2 28. in January, 1813. |