This lay shows how the battle swept through the Trosachs and along the shores of Katrine; how Highland women defended the isle successfully; and how the conflict was stayed when a herald forbade it, with announcement that its issues were decided, – "Bothwell's lord, and Roderick bold, Were both, he said, in captive hold." But as the last notes of the Bard ceased, a nearer change came. The Chieftain's face grew sharp, his hands clenched, his teeth set: "Thus motionless, and moanless, drew His parting breath, stout Roderick Dhu!" And not long thereafter, old Allan-Bane was singing lament for the dead. Meanwhile Ellen, "in lordly bower apart," heard other singing from a turret near by, the "Lay of the Imprisoned Huntsman." It was a "heart-sick lay." We can easily fancy who sang it. As it ceased, a light She welcomed him; and he, now in his turn, became her guide, — not to any wild retreat, but to the King, who, that morning, in the Presence Chamber, held court; and he promised to aid her suit with Majesty for her father, whom she supposed to be then a prisoner in the Castle. The Knight conducted her to the very centre of a brilliant company of courtiers, on whose splendors she hardly could gaze; and yet she gazed, though fearfully, "For him she sought, who own'd this state, The dreaded prince whose will was fate. She gazed on many a princely port, To him each lady's look was lent; And Snowdoun's Knight is Scotland's King!" The apartment in which this delightful surprise occurred must, like other scenes in this canto, be imagined rather in the busy chambers of the mind, than in "Stirling's bowers," so changed are they from the times of this King, ― James V. Yet one can there -or almost anywhere else - recall with uncommon pleasure the ending of this last scene of this charming poem. Ellen, who had kneeled at the monarch's feet, to ask her father's life, and had been raised by the King, learned that "yester even, his prince and he" had "much forgiven;" and that he was thenceforth owned "The friend and bulwark of" the "Throne." The reinstated Douglas and his daughter met. "The monarch drank, that happy hour, The sweetest, holiest draught of Power." Then of Ellen the monarch asked what she sought to claim by the ring she held — pledge of his faith. We know her heart, as did the King, when, "to her generous feeling true, She craved the grace of Roderick Dhu." She learned his end, as the King asserted, "My fairest earldom would I give To bid Clan-Alpine's Chieftain live! — Ellen, blushing, gave the ring to her father, as if desiring him to speak, when King James closed the scene, exclaiming, 'Nay, then, my pledge has lost its force, His chain of gold the King unstrung, Thus ends this poem, and the poet sings, "Harp of the North, farewell,". Enchantress, fare thee well! ” a poem not of the sublimest order of high art perhaps, but a chivalrous poem, telling of chivalrous character in many ranks, from the Highland clansman to the generous, magnanimous, manly King - the poet's self as much as James V.; a poem that is one of the most delightful in literature, than which there is none more exquisitely picturesque, none haunting more fascinatingly the fair scenes of nature in which its action is chiefly laid, - a poem genial and noble in spirit as was its author, genial as the sunlight and the summer breeze on the heathery banks and quiet waters of Katrine; whose enchanted region, long as it endures, will be fondly associated with memories of Sir Walter Scott, and his fairest creation, — "The Lady of the Lake." DU VIII. "THE VISION OF DON RODERICK." URING 1811, the next year after the appearance of "The Lady of the Lake," Scott, then forty years old, among various minor works, published " The Vision of Don Roderick," one of the less important of his poems. It has less story, less localization, less exhibition of character, than is usual in his works. And yet, its Spenserian verse gives it a grander style of its own, and distinguishes it from most of his other poetry. The general scene of this poem is near the ancient city Toledo, in Spain, and there shows that vision of Don Roderick the Goth, in which "his nation's future fate a Spanish King" beheld, through periods when Arabs controlled the country; or when, in turn, it controlled almost the world, and, after various changes, passed the crisis when the famous British Peninsular Army victoriously expelled the invaders directed by Napoleon. Indeed, the poem chiefly recalls those famous campaigns contemporaneous with its composition, and especially does it in its motive, for it was written to benefit a fund in aid of Portuguese sufferers by the war. There is thus a deal of peculiar credit belonging to this work. Railways now render so much of Old Spain so comfortably accessible, that many travellers are likely to visit Toledo, placed nearly at the exact geographical centre of the country, and to such an extent abounding in relics of many past ages as to equal, or almost surpass, any other Peninsular city, as a scene for a vision showing the long, eventful course of Spanish history. Scarcely any thing, other than actual view, can more vividly show the general aspect of Toledo than do the opening lines of this poem. Well might the "Monthly Review," when quoting them, assert, that "scarcely any poet, of any age or country, has excelled Mr. Scott in bringing before our sight the very scene he is describing, -in giving a reality of existence to every object on which he dwells." The poet never saw this city, but how graphic does the traveller there find these opening lines!— "Rearing their crests amid the cloudless skies, And darkly clustering in the pale moonlight, As from a trembling lake of silver white." "All sleeps in sullen shade, or silver glow, All save the heavy swell o Teio's ceaseless flow." Out of the wide, bare, mountain country, and above the curving river, high on its steep and rocky hills we see the ancient city rise, its dwellings and lesser works crowned by its mighty square Alcazar, towering, pinnacled Cathedral, Arabic turrets or portals, and Christian spires; while the clear air, brightening all, brings softly to our ears sounds of quiet life, toned by frequent and varied notes of seemingly numberless consecrated bells. The numerous wonders of Toledo are adequately described by two or three excellent English guide-books, and by these travellers can be well directed to its Arabic houses, baths, and arches; to its marvellous San Juan de los Reyes, the "Henry VII. chapel" of Spain; to all its picturesqueness and antiquities; and, chiefest of all, to its sublimely superb Cathedral, that, unravaged, and retaining accumulated treasures of centuries, realizes, as does scarcely another, the richest, stateliest art of the Middle Ages and of the Pointed Style. The sumptuous portals, the five vast aisles, the grand cloisters, the lavishly decorated chapels-espe cially the astonishing Capilla Mayor- of this church show, as scarcely elsewhere is shown, the religious pomp of the times of their origin, and of the period when Spain, with "wealth of Ormus " and "of Ind," ruled half the world. Truly there is enough beside "Don Roderick" to take travellers to Toledo, and pleasantly they may there read or remember Scott's verses, and the Vision of the Gothic King. DURIN URING the period 1804 to 1812, Scott was rapidly shaping his name and fame and personal story, — all the while occupied with literary, professional, social, or public affairs. In the year 1804 he removed from Lasswade Cottage to Ashestiel House, a more commodious and pleasant residence upon the Tweed, about half a dozen miles above Selkirk, and the same distance below Innerleithen. Ashestiel has long been strictly private. It is described in chapter xxxi., when the traveller is led to its neighborhood in search of Saint Ronan's Well. Until May, 1812, when Scott removed to Abbotsford, he held and occupied Ashestiel under lease, and there wrote the larger portion of the great poems already sketched upon these pages, and edited "Dryden " (18 vols., 8vo), and the "Somers" (13 vols., 4to) and "Sadler's" Papers (3 vols., 4to). In 1805 he visited Cumberland, and in 1809, for the first time, the seat of his friend, J. B. S. Morritt, Esq., — Rokeby Park, Yorkshire, a charming estate, destined soon to become associated with one of his chief poems. In 1809, he, with his wife and daughter, made an excursion to the Highlands, and to the scenery of "The Lady of the Lake" (partly written during that year). He made his first visit to the Hebrides in 1810. In 1811, he purchased his first acquired portion of the Abbotsford estate. He did not, however, remove thither until May in the next year; and then, not to his grand "romance in stone and lime" now existing there, but to an humble home, that he described as "the smallest of possible cottages." The "romance" is minutely described in chapter xxxiv. Early in the autumn of 1812, he again visited his friend |