"slow up the dim aisle afar, With sable cowl and scapular, And snow-white stoles, in order due, In long procession came; Taper and host, and book they bare, And bless'd them as they kneel'd; With holy cross he sign'd them all, And pray'd they might be sage in hall, And fortunate in field. Then mass was sung, and prayers were said, And solemn requiem for the dead; And bells toll'd out their mighty peal, For the departed spirit's weal; And ever in the office close The hymn of intercession rose; DIES IRE, DIES ILLA, SOLVET SÆCLUM IN FAVILLA; While the pealing organ rung: Were it meet with sacred strain HYMN FOR THE DEAD. That day of wrath, that dreadful day, When, shrivelling like a parched scroll, Oh! on that day, that wrathful day, When man to judgment wakes from clay, Be THOU the trembling sinner's stay, Though heaven and earth shall pass away!" And thus closes impressively this poem of Old-World life, in a scene full of suggestions of the noblest aspect of that life; thus, with the majestic service of the ancient Church, glorious with its demonstrative faith and with harmonies of its exalted praise; thus, expressing the poet's very heart, closes this "Lay of the Last Minstrel." And while the measure and the meaning of that grand rendering of Thomas of Celano's sublime hymn linger in our hearts, expressed by the final words of this first great composition by the Great Magician, these words suggest to us how their Latin originals were final words of that greater composition of his own life. And as he has made them seem yet resounding glorifyingly through the mouldering Abbey, telling of its noble past, so also he has made them render beautiful his own passing away; but of that ever telling of life through a far nobler future, in which there shall not only be no decay, but infinite development into the completeness of all beauty. Mr. Lockhart informs us that "in the first week of January, 1805, 'The Lay' was published, and its success at once decided that literature should form the main business of Scott's life." During the next year, accordingly, he published several "Ballads and Lyrical Pieces," and had even begun " Waverley, or 'tis Fifty Years since;" a work laid aside to be completed nearly ten years afterwards. In February, 1808, appeared his next great poem, “Marmion," illustrating much of the East Border of Scotland, as "The Lay" illustrates the Middle Border, and also the vicinity of Edinburgh, and the coasts of East Lothian and Northumberland. VI. "MARMION, — A TALE OF FLODDEN FIELD;" ITS INCIDENTS AND SCENERY. SCOTT COTT began this poem in November, 1806, and composed it while editing John Dryden's voluminous works. It was published on the 23d of February, 1808, "in a splendid quarto, price one guinea and a half." The two thousand copies forming this edition were all disposed of in less than a month. During the poet's life nearly fifty thousand copies were sold. “The poem opens about the commencement of August, and concludes with the defeat of Flodden, 9th September, 1513." Its incidents are perhaps the most stirring of any combined in one of Scott's poetical works. Its scenery is more scattered than that of "The Lay," but the chief portions may be visited during a summer day actively spent near Belford, Northumberland, or Berwick-onTweed. The first scene is a sunset view of Norham Castle on the Tweed, - a view minutely drawn and brilliantly colored, reviving the former grandeur of that once important and famous English stronghold; an example of such as characteristic of the English Border, as is Newark of the Scottish Border. It is easily reached from Melrose, by rail, as well as from Berwick, and by carriage-road from Belford. Almost any approach to Norham town is pretty, and the town itself is interesting as a representative sort of place. It is simply, almost meanly, built upon one long street, with small houses and queer little inns and shops, and has a market-cross midway, the church at one end, and the castle at the other. This church is a venerable, round-arched edifice, quite romantically situated in its green and shaded burial-yard beside the river Tweed. A small extent of field separates the town from the castle-site. One ascends a little, and then, after passing under the mouldering "gloomy portal-arch" yet remaining, enters the spacious area of the court-yard. Embanked and embrasured walls, combining mediæval and more modern styles of defensive architecture, surround it. Near the centre is the chief feature of the ruin, the grand and massive keep, dating from the twelfth century, and still seventy feet high, though shattered enough now, one of its sides and a portion of another being sadly dilapidated. It appears as if double, the western half being the newer. On the south-west side rises a fragment of a bell-turret. The style is English castellated Gothic, simple yet imposing. The material, sandstone, once well hewn and faced, now scaled and furrowed, bleached and worn, has grown a reddish ashy-gray. The keep cannot now be easily ascended (the stair having been removed), nor does it present entire apartments. Perhaps the most complete of these is the vaulted basement. The writer was not, however, induced to explore its recesses; for he found them converted into a particularly offensive cow-house. But a glowing sunset, such as it was his good fortune to behold glorifying the old keep and the pleasant landscape around it, revivifies Norham with the light of romance; and, under such an effect, one may wander delighted over its "castled steep," beneath its ruins, or its thickly growing beeches and alders, or its precipitous rocky banks of dark and light veined strata, that, mostly pale ashengray, rise closely above the placid river. One sees northward rural or forest-mantled grounds, and southward, over town and castle-hill, as far as the long but not prominent forms of the Cheviots in the blue distance. Then may be well imagined how this "Tale of Flodden Field" begins by showing Lord Marmion, a powerful noble and soldier, ushered at twilight into the castle, with presenting of arms by the guard, and by sound of trumpet and "salvo-shot," and minstrels' greeting: "Welcome to Norham, Marmion! Stout heart, and open hand! Well dost thou brook thy gallant roan, "They marshall'd him to the Castle-hall, -'Room, lordlings, room for Lord Marmion, With the crest and helm of gold!"" "Then stepp'd, to meet that noble Lord, Sir Hugh the Heron bold, Baron of Twisell and of Ford, And Captain of the Hold. He led Lord Marmion to the deas, Raised o'er the pavement high, And placed him in the upper place - The Heron invited Lord Marmion to remain with him awhile at Norham; but, with the invitation, he jestingly added words about a certain "gentle page" whom he had seen with Marmion when they last met, at Raby Castle. "Lord Marmion ill could brook such jest; He roll'd his kindling eye, With pain his rising wrath suppress'd, Yet made a calm reply: "That boy thou thought'st so goodly fair, He might not brook the northern air. And the story eventually explains his lordship's ire and the strange character of the page, and how the page was "sick in Lindisfarne." Lord Marmion, in turn, inquired about Lady Heron, then absent; asking, with covert irony, if she had gone on some pious pilgrimage," for he knew that "fame whispered light tales of Heron's dame." The husband, however, did not "mark the taunt; " replying that Norham was too grim a place for her, and that she was at the Court of Queen Margaret of Scotland. Upon which Marmion, instead of accepting Sir Hugh's invitation, continued : Guides of the desirable sort did not appear abundant. It was, however, arranged that Marmion should be accompanied by a palmer just arrived at the castle. Accordingly, "with early dawn Lord Marmion rose," and before long departed with his train, amid flourishes of trumpets and salvos of cannon. The breeze that swept away this artillery smoke was at the same time blowing freshly along the Northumbrian coast, bearing onward a bark, upon the deck of which sat the "Abbess of St. Hilda," "with five fair nuns,” bound “from high Whitby's cloister'd pile" "to St. Cuthbert's Holy Isle." Their progress is graphically and picturesquely sketched in Scott's peculiarly delightful topographic poetry: : "The vessel skirts the strand Of mountainous Northumberland; Of lofty Seaton-Delaval; They saw the Blythe and Wansbeck floods Mother of many a valiant son; At Coquet-isle their beads they tell |