Walter Scott - Marmion

Ashestiel, whence the Introduction to the First Canto is dated, is on the Tweed, about six miles above Abbotsford. ‘The valley there is narrow,’ says Lockhart, ‘and the aspect in every direction is that of perfect pastoral repose.’ This was Scott’s home from 1804 to l812, when he removed to Abbotsford.

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lines 1-52.This notable winter piece is the best modern contribution to that series of poetical descriptions by Scottish writers which includes Dunbar’s ‘Meditatioun in Winter,’ Gavin Douglas’s Scottish winter scene in the Prologue to his Virgil’s Aeneid VII, Hamilton of Bangour’s Ode III, and, of course, Thomson’s ‘Winter’ in ‘The Seasons.’ The details of the piece are given with admirable skill, and the local place-names are used with characteristic effect. The note of regret over winter’s ravages, common to all early Scottish poets, is skilfully struck and preserved, and thus the contrast designed between the wintry landscape and ‘my Country’s wintry state’ is rendered sharper and more decisive.

line 3. steepy linn. Steepy is Elizabethan = steep, precipitous. Linn (Gael. linne = pool; A.S. hlinna = brook) is variously used for ‘pool under a waterfall,’ ‘cascade,’ ‘precipice,’ and ‘ravine.’ The reference here is to the ravine close by Ashestiel, mentioned in Lockhart’s description of the surroundings:-’On one side, close under the windows, is a deep ravine clothed with venerable trees, down which a mountain rivulet is heard, more than seen, in its progress to the Tweed.’

line 16. our forest hills. Selkirkshire is poetically called ‘Ettrick Forest’; hence the description of the soldiers from that district killed at Flodden as ‘the flowers of the forest.’

line 22. Cp. Hamilton of Bangour’s allusion (Ode III. 43) to the appearance of winter on these heights;-

line 37. imps(Gr. emphutos , Swed. ympa ). See ‘Faery Queene,’ Book I. (Clarendon Press), note to Introd. The word means (1) a graft; (2) a scion of a noble house; (3) a little demon; (4) a mischievous child. The context implies that the last is the sense in which the word is used here. Cp. Beattie’s ‘Minstrel,’ i. 17:-

line 50. round. Strictly speaking, a round is a circular dance in which the performers hold each other by the hands. The term, however, is fairly applicable to the frolicsome gambols of a group of lambs in a spring meadow. Certain rounds became famous enough to be individualised, as e.g. Sellenger’s or St. Leger’s round, mentioned in the May-day song, ‘Come Lasses and Lads.’ Cp. Macbeth, iv. 1; Midsummer Night’s Dream, ii. 2; and see note on Comus, line 144, in ‘English Poems of Milton,’ vol. i. (Clarendon Press).

line 53. Lockhart, in a foot-note to his edition of ‘Marmion,’ quotes from the ‘Monthly Review’ of May, 1808: ‘The “chance and change” of nature-the vicissitudes which are observable in the moral as well as the physical part of the creation-have given occasion to more exquisite poetry than any other general subject.... The Ai, ai, tai Malaki of Moschus is worked up again to some advantage in the following passage- “To mute,” &c.’

lines 61, 62. The inversion of reference in these lines is an illustration of the rhetorical figure ‘chiasmus.’ Cp. the arrangement of the demonstrative pronouns in these sentences from ‘Kenilworth’:-‘Your eyes contradict your tongue. That speaks of a protector, willing and able to watch over you; but these tell me you are ruined.’

line 64. Cp. closing lines of Wordsworth’s ‘Ode on Intimations of Immortality’ (finished in 1806):-

lines 65-8. Nelson fell at Trafalgar, Oct. 21, 1805; Pitt died Jan. 23, 1806.

line 72. Gadite wave.The epithet is derived from Gades , the Roman name of the modern Cadiz.

line 73. Levin= lightning. See Canto I, line 400. Spenser uses the phrase ‘piercing levin’ in the July eclogue of the ‘Shepheards Calendar,’ and in ‘Faery Queene,’ III. v. 48. The word still occasionally occurs in poetry. Cp. Longfellow, ‘Golden Legend,’ v., near end:-

line 76. fated =charged with determination of fate. Cp. All’s Well that Ends Well, i. I. 221-

line 82. Hafnia, is Copenhagen. The three victories are, the battle of the Nile, 1798; the battle of the Baltic, 1801; and Trafalgar, 1805.

lines 84-86. Pitt (1759-1806) became First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1783, and from 1785 onwards the facts of his career are a constituent part of national history. He faced with success difficulties like bread riots, mutinies in the fleet in 1797, disturbances by the ‘United Irishmen,’ and the alarming threats of Napoleon. In 1800 the Union of Ireland with Great Britain gave Irishmen new motives for living, and in 1803 national patriotism, stirred and guided by Pitt, was manifested in the enrolment of over three hundred thousand volunteers prepared to withstand the vaunted ‘Army of England.’ In spite of his distinguished position and eminent services, Pitt died L40,000 in debt, and his responsibilities were promptly met by a vote of the House of Commons.

lines 97-108. These picturesque lines, with their varied and suggestive metaphors, were interpolated on the blank page of the MS. The reference in the expression ‘tottering throne’ in line 104 is to the threatened insanity of George III.

lines 109-125. Pitt’s patriotism was consistent and thorough. The anxious, troubled expression his face, betrayed in his latest appearances in the House of Commons, Wilberforce spoke of as ‘his Austerlitz look,’ and there seems little doubt that the burden of his public cares hastened his end. This gives point to the comparison of his fate with that of Aeneas’s pilot Palinurus (Aeneid v. 833).

lines 127-141. Charles James Fox (1749-1806) was second son of the first Lord Holland, whose indulgence tended to spoil a youth of unusual ability and precocity. Extravagant habits, contracted at an early age, were not easily thrown off afterwards, but they did not interfere with Fox’s efficiency as a statesman. His rivalry with Pitt dates from 1783. Their tombs are near each other in Westminster Abbey.

line 146. Cp. in Gray’s ‘Elegy’:―

line 153. Jeffrey, in his criticism of ‘Marmion’ in the ‘Edinburgh Review,’ found fault with the tribute to Fox, and cavilled in particular at the expression ‘Fox a Briton died.’ He argued that Scott praised only the action of Fox in breaking off the negotiations for peace with Napoleon, while insinuating that the previous part of his career was unpatriotic. Only a special pleader could put such an unworthy interpretation on the words.