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Introduction and Notes to Rokeby.

INTRODUCTION TO THE EDITION OF 1830.

BETWEEN the publication of 'The Lady of the Lake,' which was so eminently successful, and that of 'Rokeby,' in 1813, three years had intervened. I shall not, I believe, be accused of ever having attempted to usurp a superiority over many men of genius, my contemporaries; but, in point of popularity, not of actual talent, the caprice of the public had certainly given me such a temporary superiority over men, of whom, in regard to poetical fancy and feeling, I scarcely thought myself worthy to loose the shoe-latchet. On the other hand, it would be absurd affectation in me to deny that I conceived myself to understand, more perfectly than many of my contemporaries, the manner most likely to interest the great mass of mankind. Yet, even with this belief, I must truly and fairly say that I always considered myself rather as one who held the bets, in time to be paid over to the winner, than as having any pretence to keep them in my own right.

In the meantime years crept on, and not without their usual depredations on the passing generation. My sons had arrived at the age when the paternal home was no longer their best abode, as both were destined to active life. The field-sports, to which I was peculiarly attached, had now less interest, and were replaced by other amusements of a more quiet character; and the means and opportunity of pursuing these were to be sought for. had, indeed, for some years attended to farming, a knowledge of which is, or at least was then, indispensable to the comfort of a family residing in a solitary country house; but although this was the favourite amusement of many of my friends, I have never been able to consider it as a source of pleasure. I never could think it a matter of passing importance that my cattle or crops were better or more plentiful than those of my neighbours, and nevertheless I began to feel the necessity of some more quiet out-door occupation, different from those I had hitherto pursued.

I purchased a small farm of about one hundred acres, with the purpose of planting and improving it, to which property circumstances afterwards enabled me to make considerable additions; and thus an era took place in my life, almost equal to the important one mentioned by the Vicar of Wakefield when he removed from the blue room to the brown. In point of neighbourhood, at least, the change of residence made little more difference. Abbotsford, to which we removed, was only six or seven miles down the Tweed, and lay on the same beautiful stream. It did not possess the romantic character of Ashestiel, my former residence; but it had a stretch of meadow-land along the river, and possessed, in the phrase of the landscape-gardener, considerable capabili ties. Above all, the land was my own, like Uncle Toby's bowling-green, to do what I would with. It had been, though the gratification was long postponed, an early wish of mine to connect myself with my mother earth, and prosecute those experiments by which a species of creative power is exercised over the face of nature. I can trace, even to childhood, a pleasure derived from Dodsley's account of Shenstone's Leasowes, and I envied the poet much more for the pleasure of accomplishing the objects detailed in his friend's sketch of his grounds, than for the possession of pipe, crook, flock, and Phillis to boot. My memory, also, tenacious of quaint expressions, still retained a phrase which it had gathered from an old almanack of Charles the Second's time (when everything down to almanacks affected to be smart), in which the reader, in the month of June, is advised for health's sake to walk a mile or two every day before breakfast, and, if he can possibly so manage, to let his exercise be taken upon his own land.

With the satisfaction of having attained the fulfilment of an early and long-cherished hope, I commenced my improvements, as delightful in their progress as those of the

child who first makes a dress for a new doll. The nakedness of the land was in time hidden by woodlands of considerable extent; the smallest of possible cottages was progressively expanded into a sort of dream of a mansion house, whimsical in the exterior, but convenient within. Nor did I forget what is the natural pleasure of every man who has been a reader; I mean the filling the shelves of a tolerably large library. All these objects I kept in view, to be executed as convenience should serve; and, although I knew many years must elapse before they could be attained, I was of a disposition to comfort myself with the Spanish proverb, 'Time and I against any two.'

The difficult and indispensable point of finding a permanent subject of occupation was now at length attained; but there was annexed to it the necessity of becoming again a candidate for public favour; for, as I was turned improver on the earth of the every day world, it was under condition that the small tenement of Parnassus, which might be accessible to my labours, should not remain uncultivated.

I meditated, at first, a poem on the subject of Bruce, in which I made some progress, but afterwards judged it advisable to lay it aside, supposing that an English story might have more novelty; in consequence, the precedence was given to 'Rokeby.'

If subject and scenery could have influenced the fate of a poem, that of 'Rokeby' should have been eminently distinguished; for the grounds belonged to a dear friend with whom I had lived in habits of intimacy for many years, and the place itself united the romantic beauties of the wilds of Scotland with the rich and smiling aspect of the southern portion of the island. But the Cavaliers and Roundheads whom I attempted to summon up to tenant this beautiful region, had for the public neither the novelty nor the peculiar interest of the primitive Highlanders. This, perhaps, was scarcely to be expected, considering that the general mind sympathizes readily and at once with the stamp which nature herself has affixed upon the manners of a people living in a simple and patriarchal state; whereas it has more difficulty in understanding or interesting itself in manners founded upon those peculiar habits of thinking or acting which are produced by the progress of society. We could read with pleasure the tale of the adventures of a Cossack or a Mongol Tartar, while we only wonder and stare over those of the lovers in 'The Pleasing Chinese History,' where the embarrassments turn upon difficulties arising out of unintelligible delicacies peculiar to the customs and manners of that affected people.

The cause of my failure had, however, a far deeper root. The manner, or style, which, by its novelty, attracted the public in an unusual degree, had now, after having been three times before them, exhausted the patience of the reader, and began in the fourth to lose its

charms. The reviewers may be said to have apostrophized the author in the language of Parnell's Edwin

'And here reverse the charm, he cries,

And let it fairly now suffice,

The gambol has been shown.'

The licentious combination of rhymes, in a manner not perhaps very congenial to our language, had not been confined to the author. Indeed, in most similar cases, the inventors of such novelties have their reputation destroyed by their own imitators, as Actaeon fell under the fury of his own dogs. The present author, like Bobadil, had taught his trick of fence to a hundred gentlemen (and ladies) who could fence very nearly or quite as well as himself. For this there was no remedy; the harmony became tiresome and ordinary, and both the original inventor and his invention must have fallen into contempt if he had not found out another road to public favour. What has been said of the metre only, must be considered to apply equally to the structure of the poem and of the style. The very best passages of any popular style are not, perhaps, susceptible of imitation, but they may be approached by men of talent; and those who are less able to copy them at least lay hold of their peculiar features so as to produce a strong burlesque. In either way, the effect of the manner is rendered cheap and common; and, in the latter case, ridicu lous to boot. The evil consequences to an author's reputation are at least as fatal as those which come upon the musical composer when his melody falls into the hands of the street ballad-singer.

Of the unfavourable species of imitation, the author's style gave room to a very large number, owing to an appearance of facility to which some of those who used the measure unquestionably leaned too far. The effect of the more favourable imitations, composed by persons of talent, was almost equally unfortunate to the original minstrel, by showing that they could overshoot him with his own bow. In short, the popularity which once attended the School, as it was called, was now fast decaying.

Besides all this, to have kept his ground at the crisis when 'Rokeby' appeared, its author ought to have put forth his utmost strength, and to have possessed at least all his original advantages, for a mighty and unexpected rival was advancing on the stage-a rival not in poetical powers only, but in that art of attracting popularity in which the present writer had hitherto preceded better men than himself. The reader will easily see that Byron is here meant, who, after a little velitation of no great promise, now appeared as a serious candidate, in the First Two Cantos of 'Childe Harold.' I was astonished at the power evinced by that work, which neither the Hours of Idleness' nor the 'English Bards and Scotch Reviewers' had prepared me to expect from its author. There was a depth in his thought,

an eager abundance in his diction, which argued full confidence in the inexhaustible resources of which he felt himself possessed; and there was some appearance of that labour of the file which indicates that the author is conscious of the necessity of doing every justice to his work that it may pass warrant. Lord Byron was also a traveller, a man whose ideas were fired by having seen, in distant scenes of difficulty and danger, the places whose very names are recorded in our bosoms as the shrines of ancient poetry. For his own misfortune, perhaps, but certainly to the high increase of his poetical character, nature had mixed in Lord Byron's system those passions which agitate the human heart with most violence, and which may be said to have hurried his bright career to an early close. There would have been little wisdom in measuring my force with so formidable an antagonist; and I was as likely to tire of playing the second fiddle in the concert, as my audience of hearing me. Age also was advancing. I was growing insensible to those subjects of excitation by which youth is agitated. I had around me the most pleasant but least exciting of all society, that of kind friends and an affectionate family. My circle of employments was a narrow one; it occupied me constantly, and it became daily more difficult for me to interest myself in poetical composition.

'How happily the days of Thalaba went by!'

Yet, though conscious that I must be, in the opinion of good judges, inferior to the place I had for four or five years held in letters, and feeling alike that the latter was one to which I had only a temporary right, I could

not brook the idea of relinquishing literary occupation, which had been so long iny chief diversion. Neither was I disposed to choose the alternative of sinking into a mere editor and commentator, though that was a species of labour which I had practised, and to which I was attached. But I could not endure to think that I might not, whether known or concealed, do something of more importance. My inmost thoughts were those of the Trojan captain in the galley race

Non jam prima peto Mnestheus, neque vincere

certo:

Quanquam O-sed superent, quibus hoc, Neptune, dedisti.

Extremos pudcat rediisse: hoc vincite, cives,
Et prohibete nefas.'-ÆN. v. 194-197.

I had, indeed, some private reasons for my Quanquam O! which were not worse than those of Mnestheus. I have already hinted that the materials were collected for a poem on the subject of Bruce, and fragments of it had been shown to some of my friends, and received with applause. Notwithstanding, therefore, the eminent success of Byron, and the great chance of his taking the wind out of my sails, there was, I judged, a species of cowardice in desisting from the task which I had undertaken, and it was time enough to retreat when the battle should be more de

cidedly lost. The sale of 'Rokeby,' excepting as compared with that of 'The Lady of the Lake,' was in the highest degree respectable; and as it included fifteen hundred quartos, in those quarto-reading days, the trade had no reason to be dissatisfied.

WALTER SCOTT.

ABBOTSFORD, April 1830.

NOTE I.

NOTES.

On Barnard's towers, and Tees's stream. -P. 313.

'BARNARD CASTLE,' saith old Leland, 'standeth stately upon Tees.' It is founded upon a very high bank, and its ruins impend over the river, including within the area a circuit of six acres and upwards. This once magnificent fortress derives its name from its founder, Barnard Baliol, the ancestor of the short and unfortunate dynasty of that name, which succeeded to the Scottish throne under the patronage of Edward I and Edward III. Baliol's Tower, afterwards mentioned in the poem, is a round tower of great size, situated at the western extremity of the building. It bears marks of great antiquity, and was remarkable for the curious construction of its vaulted roof, which has been lately greatly injured by the opera

tions of some persons, to whom the tower has been leased for the purpose of making patent shot! The prospect from the top of Baliol's Tower commands a rich and magnificent view of the wooded valley of the Tees.

Barnard Castle often changed masters during the middle ages. Upon the forfeiture of the unfortunate John Baliol, the first king of Scotland of that family, Edward I seized this fortress among the other English estates of his refractory vassal. It was afterwards vested in the Beauchamps of Warwick, and in the Staffords of Buckingham, and was also sometimes in the possession of the Bishops of Durham, and sometimes in that of the crown. Richard III is said to have enlarged and strengthened its fortifications, and to have made it for some time his principal residence, for the purpose of bridling and suppressing the Lancastrian faction in the northern counties. From the Staffords, Barnard

Castle passed, probably by marriage, into the possession of the powerful Nevilles, Earls of Westmoreland, and belonged to the last representative of that family, when he engaged with the Earl of Northumberland in the ill-concerted insurrection of the twelfth of Queen Elizabeth. Upon this occasion, however, Sir George Bowes of Sheatlam, who held great possessions in the neighbourhood, anticipated the two insurgent earls, by seizing upon and garrisoning Barnard Castle, which he held out for ten days against all their forces, and then surrendered it upon honourable terms. See Sadler's State Papers, vol. ii. p. 330. In a ballad, contained in Percy's Reliques of Ancient Poetry, vol. i., the siege is thus commemorated :

Then Sir George Bowes he straight way rose,
After them some spoyle to make;
These noble erles turned back againe,

And aye they vowed that knight to take.

That baron he to his castle fied;

To Barnard Castle then fled he;
The utterinost walles were eathe to won,
The erles have won them presentlie.

The uttermost walles were lime and brick;
But though they won them soon anone,
Long ere they wan the innermost walles,

For they were cut in rock and stone.'

By the suppression of this rebellion, and the consequent forfeiture of the Earl of Westmoreland, Barnard Castle reverted to the crown, and was sold or leased out to Car, Earl of Somerset, the guilty and unhappy favourite of James I. It was afterwards granted to Sir Henry Vane the elder, and was therefore, in all probability, occupied for the Parliament, whose interest during the Civil War was so keenly espoused by the Vanes. It is now, with the other estates of that family, the property of the Right Honourable Earl of Darlington.

NOTE II.

no human ear, Unsharpen'd by revenge and fear, Could e'er distinguish horse's clank. -P. 314.

I have had occasion to remark, in real life, the effect of keen and fervent anxiety in giving acuteness to the organs of sense. My gifted friend, Miss Joanna Baillie, whose dramatic works display such intimate acquaintance with the operations of human passion, has not omitted this remarkable cir

cumstance :

De Montfort. (Of his guard.) 'Tis Rezenvelt: I heard his well-known foot, From the first staircase mounting step by step. Freb. How quick an ear thou hast for distant sound! I heard him not.

(De Montfort looks embarrassed, and is silent.)

NOTE III.

The morion's plumes his visage hide,
And the buff-coat, an ample fold,
Mantles his form's gigantic mould.
-P. 314.

The use of complete suits of armour was fallen into disuse during the Civil War, though they were still worn by leaders of rank and importance. 'In the reign of King James I,' says our military antiquary, 'no great alterations were made in the article of defensive armour, except that the buff-coat, or jerkin, which was originally worn under the cuirass, now became frequently a substi tute for it, it having been found that a good buff leather would of itself resist the stroke of a sword; this, however, only occasionally took place among the light-armed cavalry and infantry, complete suits of armour being still used among the heavy horse. Buff-coats continued to be worn by the city trainedbands till within the memory of persons now living, so that defensive armour may, in some measure, be said to have terminated in the same materials with which it began, that is, the skins of animals, or leather.'-GROSE'S Military Antiquities. Lond. 1801, 4to, vol. ii. p. 323.

Of the buff-coats, which were worn over the corslets, several are yet preserved; and Captain Grose has given an engraving of one which was used in the time of Charles I by Sir Francis Rhodes, Bart. of Balbrough-Hall, Derbyshire. They were usually lined with silk or linen, secured before by buttons, or by a lace, and often richly decorated with gold or silver embroidery. From the folTowing curious account of a dispute respecting a buff-coat between an old roundhead captain and a justice of peace, by whom his arms were seized after the Restoration, we learn, that the value and importance of this defensive garment were considerable:-'A party of horse came to my house, commanded by Mr. Peebles; and he told me he was come for my arms, and that I must deliver them. I asked him for his order. He told me he had a better order than Oliver used to give; and, clapping his hand upon his sword-hilt, he said, that was his order. I told him, if he had none but that, it was not sufficient to take my arms; and then he pulled out his warrant, and I read it. It was signed by Wentworth Armitage, a general warrant to search all persons they suspected, and so left the power to the soldiers at their pleasure. They came to us at Coalley-Hall, about sun-setting; and I caused a candle to be lighted, and conveyed Peebles into the room where my arms were. My arms were near the kitchen fire; and there they took away fowling-pieces, pistols, muskets, carbines, and such like, better than £20. Then Mr. Peebles asked me for my buff-coat; and I told him they had no order to take away my apparel. He told me I was not to dispute their orders;

but if I would not deliver it, he would carry me away prisoner, and had me out of doors. Yet he let me alone unto the next morning, that I must wait upon Sir John, at Halifax; and, coming before him, he threatened me, and said, if I did not send the coat, for it was too good for me to keep. I told him it was not in his power to demand my apparel; and he, growing into a fit, called me rebel and traitor, and said, if I did not send the coat with all speed, he would send me where I did not like well. I told him I was no rebel, and he did not well to call me so before these soldiers and gentlemen, to make me the mark for every one to shoot at. I departed the room; yet, notwithstanding all the threatenings, did not send the coat. "But the next day he sent John Lyster, the son of Mr. Thomas Lyster, of Shipden Hall, for this coat, with a letter, verbatim thus:-"Mr. Hodson, I admire you will play the child so with me as you have done, in writing such an inconsiderate letter. Let me have the buff-coat sent forthwith, otherwise you shall so hear from me as will not very well please you." I was not at home when this messenger came; but I had ordered my wife not to deliver it, but, if they would take it, let them look to it: and he took it away; and one of Sir John's brethren wore it many years after. They sent Captain Butt to compound with my wife about it; but I sent word I would have my own again: but he advised me to take a price for it, and make no more ado. I said, it was hard to take my arms and apparel too; I had laid out a great deal of money for them; I hoped they did not mean to destroy me, by taking my goods illegally from me. He said he would make up the matter, if I pleased, betwixt us; and, it seems, had brought Sir John to a price for my coat. I would not have taken 10 for it; he would have given about £4; but, wanting my receipt for the money, he kept both sides, and I had never satisfaction.'-Memoirs of Captain Hodgson. Edin. 1806, p. 178.

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bands of pirates, gathered from all nations, but chiefly French and English. The engrossing policy of the Spaniards tended greatly to increase the number of these freebooters, from whom their commerce and colonies suffered, in the issue, dreadful calamity. The Windward Islands, which the Spaniards did not deem worthy their own occupation, had been gradually settled by adventurers of the French and English nations. But Frederic of Toledo, who was despatched in 1630 with a powerful fleet against the Dutch, had orders from the Court of Madrid to destroy these colonies, whose vicinity at once offended the pride and excited the jealous suspicions of their Spanish neighbours. This order the Spanish Admiral executed with sufficient rigour; but the only consequence was, that the planters, being rendered desperate by persecution, began, under the wellknown name of Bucaniers, to commence a retaliation so horridly savage, that the perusal makes the reader shudder. When they carried on their depredations at sea, they boarded, without respect to disparity of number, every Spanish vessel that came in their way; and, demeaning themselves, both in the battle and after the conquest, more like demons than human beings, they succeeded in impressing their enemies with a sort of superstitious terror, which rendered them incapable of offering effectual resistance. From piracy at sea, they advanced to making predatory descents on the Spanish territories; in which they displayed the same furious and irresistible valour, the same thirst of spoil, and the same brutal inhumanity to their captives. The large treasures which they acquired in their adventures, they dissipated by the most unbounded licentiousness in gaming, women, wine, and debauchery of every species. When their spoils were thus wasted, they entered into some new association, and undertook new adventures. For farther particulars concerning these extraordinary banditti, the reader may consult Raynal, or the common and popular book called the History of the Bucaniers.

NOTE V.

On Marston heath
Met, front to front, the ranks of death.
-P. 316.

The well-known and desperate battle of Long-Marston Moor, which terminated so unfortunately for the cause of Charles, commenced under very different auspices. Prince Rupert had marched with an army of 20,000 men for the relief of York, then besieged by Sir Thomas Fairfax, at the head of the Parliamentary army, and the Earl of Leven, with the Scottish auxiliary forces. In this he so completely succeeded, that he compelled the besiegers to retreat to Marston Moor, a large open plain, about eight miles distant from the city. Thither they were followed

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