то JOHN B. S. MORRITT, ESQ. THIS POEM, THE SCENE OF WHICH IS LAID IN HIS BEAUTIFUL DEMESNE OF ROKEBY, IS INSCRIBED, IN TOKEN OF SINCERE FRIENDSHIP, BY WALTER SCOTT. 1 [Dec. 31, 1812.] ADVERTISEMENT. The scene of this poem is laid at Rokeby, near Gretu Bridge, in Yorkshire, and shifts to the adjacent fortress of Barnard Castle, and to other places in that vicinity. The time occupied by the action is a space of five days, three of which are supposed to elapse between the end of the Fifth and beginning of the Sixth Canto. 1644. The date of the supposed events is immediately subsequent to the great Battle of Marston Moor, 3d July This period of public confusion has been chosen, without any purpose of combining the Fable with the military or political events of the Civil War, but only as affording a degree of probability to the fictitious narrative now presented to the public.1 1 ["Behold another lay from the harp of that indefatigable minstrel, who has so often provoked the censure and extorted the admiration of his critics; and who, regardless of both, and following every impulse of his own inclination, has yet raised himself at once, and apparently with little effort, to the pinnacle of public favour. "A poem thus recommended may be presumed to have already reached the whole circle of our readers, and we believe that all those readers will concur with as in considering Rokeby as a composition, which, if it had preceded, |