Walter Scott - Marmion

‘The publishers of the “Lay of the Last Minstrel,” emboldened by the success of that poem, willingly offered a thousand pounds for “Marmion.” The transaction being no secret, afforded Lord Byron, who was then at general war with all who blacked paper, an apology for including me in his satire, entitled “English Bards and Scotch Reviewers.” I never could conceive how an arrangement between an author and his publishers, if satisfactory to the persons concerned, could afford matter of censure to any third party. I had taken no unusual or ungenerous means of enhancing the value of my merchandise―I had never higgled a moment about the bargain, but accepted at once what I considered the handsome offer of my publishers. These gentlemen, at least, were not of opinion that they had been taken advantage of in the transaction, which indeed was one of their own framing; on the contrary, the sale of the Poem was so far beyond their expectation, as to induce them to supply the author’s cellars with what is always an acceptable present to a young Scottish housekeeper, namely, a hogshead of excellent claret.’

A second point on which Scott was attacked was the character of Marmion. It was held that such a knight as he undoubtedly was should have been incapable of forgery. Scott himself; of course, knew better than his critics whether or not this was the case, but, with his usual good nature and generous regard for the opinion of others, he admitted that perhaps he had committed an artistic blunder. Dr. Leyden, in particular, for whose judgment he had special respect, wrote him from India ‘a furious remonstrance on the subject.’ Fortunately, he made no attempt to change what he had written, his main reason being that ‘corrections, however in themselves judicious, have a bad effect after publication.’ He might have added that any modification of the hero’s guilt would have entirely altered the character of the poem, and might have ruined it altogether. He had never, apparently, gone into the question thoroughly after his first impressions of the type of knights existing in feudal times, for though he states that ‘similar instances were found, and might be quoted,’ he is inclined to admit that the attribution of forgery was a ‘gross defect.’ Readers interested in the subject will find by reference to Pike’s ‘History of Crime,’ i. 276, that Scott was perfectly justified in his assumption that a feudal knight was capable of forgery. Those who understand how intimate his knowledge was of the period with which he was dealing will, of course, be the readiest to believe him rather than his critics; but when he seems doubtful of himself, and ready to yield the point, it is well that the strength of his original position can thus be supported by the results of recent investigation.

Jeffrey, in the Edinburgh Review , not being able to understand and appreciate this new devotion to romance, and probably stimulated by his misreading of the reference to Fox in the Introduction to Canto I, did his utmost to cast discredit on ‘Marmion.’ Scott was too large a man to confound the separate spheres of Politics and Literature; whereas it was frequently the case with Jeffrey―as, indeed, it was to some extent with literary critics on the other side as well―to estimate an author’s work in reference to the party in the State to which he was known to belong. It was impossible to deny merits to Scott’s descriptions, and the extraordinary energy of the most striking portions of the Poem, but Jeffrey groaned over the inequalities he professed to discover, and lamented that the poet should waste his strength on the unprofitable effort to resuscitate an old-fashioned enthusiasm. They had been the best of friends previously―and Scott, as we have seen, worked for the Edinburgh Review ―but it was now patent that the old literary intimacy could not pleasantly continue. Nor is it surprising that Scott should have felt that the Edinburgh Review had become too autocratic, and that he should have given a helping hand towards the establishing of the Quarterly Review , as a political and literary organ necessary to the balance of parties.

Scott himself revised ‘Marmion’ in 1831, and the interleaved copy which he used formed the basis of the text given by Lockhart in the uniform edition of the Poetical Works published in 1833. This will remain the standard text. It is that which is followed in the present volume, in which there will be found only three―in reality only two―important instances of divergence from Lockhart’s readings. The earlier editions have been collated with that of 1833, and Mr. W. J. Rolfe’s careful and scholarly Boston edition has likewise been consulted. It has not been considered necessary to follow Mr. Rolfe in several alterations he has made on Lockhart; but he introduces one emendation which readily commends itself to the reader’s intelligence, and it is adopted in the present volume. This is in the punctuation of the opening lines in the first stanza of Canto II. Lockhart completes a sentence at the end of the fifth line, whereas the sense manifestly carries the period on to the eleventh line. In the third Introd., line 228, the reading of the earlier editions is followed in giving ‘From me’ instead of ‘For me,’ as the meaning is thereby simplified and made more direct. In III. xiv. 234, the modern versions of Lockhart’s text give ‘proudest princes veil their eyes,’ where Lockhart himself agrees with the earlier editions in reading ‘ vail ’. The restoration of the latter form needs no defence. The Elizabethan words in the Poem are not infrequent, giving it, as they do, a certain air of archaic dignity, and there can be little doubt that ‘vail’ was Scott’s word here, used in its Shakespearian sense of ‘lower’ or ‘cast down,’ and recalling Venus as ‘she vailed her eyelids.’