and customs of medieval chivalry.

Marmion's entrance

into Norham Castle, for instance, and his entertainment by Sir Hugh the Heron, are related with a wealth of circumstance that is wasted upon the student who does not consult his dictionary for the significance of unfamiliar terms. Look up the meaning of squire, seneschal, sewer, and pursuivant, of sumpter, housing and palfrey, of linstock, of pennon and scutcheon, and of mail and plate. When each word calls up a clear-cut idea the imagination can combine them into a picture or scene.

Be painstaking from the first to extract the sense from the rhythm. Here, for instance, are the first three lines of the second stanza of Canto I. ::

"Saint George's banner, broad and gay,

Now faded, as the fading ray

Less bright, and less, was flung."

It is quite possible to run over such a passage without getting the meaning. The reader should dwell on the passage until, without transposing the words into a prose order, a clear impression is formed that the gay banner of England, floating out broadly on the evening sky, simply lost its brightness as the sunlight faded away. Unless the subject is unimportant or the reader intends to return, it is a mistake to pass by a sentence with a vague understanding of what it means. As a boy the present writer had an erroneous notion that poetry was written as a sort of melodious rhapsody which no one, not even the writer, was expected to understand fully. The intel

ligent study of this poem will help the student to a clearer view of the usefulness and importance of real poetry. Books of Reference. Scott's part in the literary world has been so great that a list of essays and criticisms bearing on his own works would almost rival the bibliography of Milton or Shakespeare. Four books the student should have. They are a comprehensive dictionary, the Globe edition of Scott's Poetical Works, Lockhart's Life of Scott, and a good atlas of the Border country.

Text. The text adopted for this edition is that collated by Mr. William J. Rolfe, and is here used with his courteous permission. In this text, which is certainly the most correct yet printed, numerous important misprints and misconstructions of the earlier editions have been corrected by Mr. Rolfe, and the whole carefully compared with all of the preceding editions.

MARMION:

A TALE OF FLODDEN FIELD

Alas! that Scottish maid should sing
The combat where her lover fell!
That Scottish Bard should wake the string,
The triumph of our foes to tell!

LEYDEN'S Ode on Visiting Flodden.

MARMION

INTRODUCTION TO CANTO FIRST

TO WILLIAM STEWART ROSE, ESQ.

Ashestiel, Ettrick Forest.

NOVEMBER'S Sky is chill and drear,
November's leaf is red and sear:
Late, gazing down the steepy linn
That hems our little garden in,
Low in its dark and narrow glen,
You scarce the rivulet might ken,
So thick the tangled greenwood grew,
So feeble trilled the streamlet through;
Now, murmuring hoarse, and frequent seen
Through bush and brier, no longer green,
An angry brook, it sweeps the glade,
Brawls over rock and wild cascade,
And, foaming brown with double speed,
Hurries its waters to the Tweed.

No longer autumn's glowing red
Upon our Forest hills is shed;
No more, beneath the evening beam,
Fair Tweed reflects their purple gleam.
Away hath past the heather-bell

That bloomed so rich on Needpath-fell;

ΙΟ

20