Less easy task it were to show Lord Marmion's nameless grave and low. Oozes the slender springlet still. Oft halts the stranger there, For thence may best his curious eye To seek the water-flag and rush, That holds the bones of Marinion brave. 1130 Thou left'st the right path for the wrong, 1140 If every devious step thus trod WHY then a final note prolong, And twined by her he loves the best! What can I wish but faithful knight? What can I wish but lady true? THE LADY OF THE LAKE INTRODUCTORY NOTE The Lady of the Lake, Scott says, was a very sudden thought. It was begun in the fall of 1809, when Marmion had enjoyed a year and a half of popularity. The first hundred lines,' he writes to Lady Abercorn, 'were written, I think, in October, 1809, and the first canto was sent to your Ladyship in Ireland so soon as it was complete, and you were the first who saw them, excepting one friend and the printer, Mr. Ballantyne, who is a great critic as well as an excellent printer. I have been always, God help me, too poor and too impatient to let my poems lie by me for years, or for months either; on the contrary, they have hitherto been always sent to the press before they were a third part finished. This is, to be sure, a very reprehensible practice in many respects, and I hope I shall get the better of it the next time.' He had by this time separated from Constable and made Ballantyne's interests his own. In his Introduction' given below, Scott details in lively fashion the effect which the reading of the poem, while in course of composition, had upon the friend who started in to 'heeze up his hope.' Lockhart quotes also from the recollection of Robert Cadell an account of the interest excited by the poem before it was published. 'James Ballantyne read the cantos from time to time to select coteries, as they advanced at press. Common fame was loud in their favor; a great poem was on all hands anticipated. I do not recollect that any of all the author's works was ever looked for with more intense anxiety, or that any one of them excited a more extraordinary sensation when it did appear. The whole country rang with the praises of the poet-crowds set off to view the scenery of Loch Katrine, till then comparatively unknown; and as the book came out just before the season for excursions, every house and inn in that neighborhood was crammed with a constant succession of visitors.' 'I have tried,' writes Scott to Lady Abercorn, according to promise, to make " a knight of love who never broke a vow." But welladay, though I have succeeded tolerably with the damsel, my lover, spite of my best exertions, is like to turn out what the players call a walking gentleman. It is incredible the pains it has cost me to give him a little dignity.' And then follows this curious and rueful reflection. 'Notwithstanding this, I have had in my time melancholy cause to paint from experience, for I gained no advantage from three years' constancy, except the said experience and some advantage to my conversation and manners. Mrs. Scott's match and mine was of our own making, and proceeded from the most sincere affection on both sides, which has rather increased than diminished during twelve years' marriage. But it was something short of love in all its forms, which I suspect people only feel once in their lives; folks who have been nearly drowned in bathing rarely venturing a second time out of their depth.' In a later letter written to the same lady, he returns to the subject, which plainly gave him some uneasiness. As for my lover, I find with deep regret that, however interesting lovers are to each other, it is no easy matter to render them generally interesting. There was, however, another reason for keeping Malcolm Græme's character a little under, as the painters say, for it must otherwise have interfered with that of the king, which I was more anxious to bring forward in splendor, or something like it.' Once again, in a letter to Miss Smith, who took the part of Ellen in a dramatization of the poem, he wrote: You must know this Mal. colm Græme was a great plague to me from the beginning. You ladies can hardly comprehend how very stupid lovers are to everybody but mistresses. I gave him that dip in the lake by way of making him do something; but wet or dry I could make nothing of him. His insignificance is the greatest defect among many others in the poem; but the canvas was not broad enough to include him, considering I had to group the king, Roderick, and Douglas.' On another point, Scott had been criticised by his vigilant friend Morritt. The only disappointment,' writes Morritt, 'I felt in the poem is your own fault. The character and terrific birth of Brian is so highly wrought that I expected him to appear again in the denouement, and wanted to hear something more of him; but as we do not hear of his death, it is your own fault for introducing us to an acquaintance of so much promise and not tell. ing us how he was afterwards disposed of.' To this Scott replied: Your criticism is quite just as to the Son of the dry bone, Brian. Truth is, I had intended the battle should 152 have been more detailed, and that some of the persons mentioned in the third canto, and Brian in particular, should have been commemorated. I intended he should have been shot like a corbie on a craig as he was excommunicating and anathematizing the Saxons from some of the predominant peaks in the Trosachs. But I found the battle in itself too much displaced to admit of being prolonged by any details which could be spared. For it was in the first place episodical, and then all the principal characters had been disposed of before it came on, and were absent at the time of action, and nothing hinged upon the issue of consequence to the fable. So I e'en left it to the judgment of my reader whether Brian was worried in the Trosachs, or escaped to take earth in his old retreat in Benharrow, near Ardkinlas.' The Lady of the Lake came out early in May, 1810, and its popularity is shown by the haste with which the dramatists laid hold of it, three separate versions being attempted. 'That Mr. Siddons is bringing it out,' Scott writes to the actress, Miss Smith,' is very certain, but it is equally so that I have not seen and do not intend to see a line of it, because I would not willingly have the public of this place [Edinburgh] suppose that I was in any degree responsible for the success of the piece; it would be like submitting to be twice tried for the same offence. My utmost knowledge has been derived from chatting with Mrs. Siddons and Mrs. Young in the green-room, where I have been an occasional lounger since our company has been put on a respectable footing.... Whether the dialogue is in verse or prose I really do not know. There is a third Lady of the Lake on the tapis at Covent Garden, dramatized by no less genius than the united firm of Reynolds and Morton. But though I have these theatrical grandchildren, as I may call them, I have seen none of them. I shall go to the Edinburgh piece when it is rehearsed with lights and scenes, and if I see anything that I think worth your adopting I will write to you. The strength will probably lie in the dumb show, music and decorations, for I have no idea that the language can be rendered very dramatic. If any person can make aught of it, I am sure you will. The mad Lowland captive if well played, should, I think, answer. I wish I could give you an idea of the original, whom I really saw in the Pass of Glencoe many years ago. It is one of the wildest and most tremendous passes in the Highlands, winding through huge masses of rock without a pile of verdure, and between mountains that seem rent asunder by an earthquake. This poor woman had placed herself in the wildest attitude imaginable, upon the very top of one of these huge fragments; she had scarce any covering but a tattered plaid, which left her arms, legs, and neck bare to the weather. Her long shaggy black hair was streaming backwards in the wind, and exposed a face rather wild and wasted than ugly, and bearing a very peculiar expression of frenzy. She had a handful of eagle's feathers in her hand. . . . The lady who plays this part should beware of singing with too stiff regularity; even her music, or rather her style of singing it, should be a little mad.', ... Scott summed up his own analysis of the three long poems thus far published, when he wrote in 1812: The force in the Lay is thrown on style; in Marmion, on description, and in The Lady of the Lake, on incident.' When reissuing the poem in the collective edition of 1830, he prefixed the following INTRODUCTION. men of the last generation. I had always thought the old Scottish Gael highly adapted for poetical composition. The feuds and political dissensions which, half a century earlier, would have rendered the richer and wealthier part of the kingdom indisposed to countenance a poem, the scene of which was laid in the Highlands, were now sunk in the generous compassion which the English, more than any other nation, feel for the misfortunes of an honorable foe. The Poems of Ossian had by their popularity sufficiently shown that if writings on Highland subjects were qualified to interest the reader, mere national prejudices were, in the present day, very unlikely to interfere with their success. I had also read a great deal, seen much, and heard more, of that romantic country where I was in the habit of spending some time every autumn; and the scenery of Loch Katrine was connected with the recollection of many a dear friend and merry expedition of former days. This poem, the action of which lay among scenes so beautiful and so deeply imprinted on my recollections, was a labor of love, and it was no less so to recall the manners and incidents introduced. The frequent custom of James IV., and particularly of James V., to walk through their kingdom in disguise, afforded me the hint of an incident which never fails to be interesting if managed with the slightest address or dexterity. I may now confess, however, that the employment, though attended with great pleasure, was not without its doubts and anxieties. A lady, to whom I was nearly related, and with whom I lived, during her whole life, on the most brotherly terms of affection, was residing with me at the time when the work was in progress, and used to ask me what I could possibly do to rise so early in the morning (that happening to be the most convenient to me for composition). At last I told her the subject of my meditations; and I can never forget the anxiety and affection expressed in her reply. Do not be so rash,' she said, my dearest cousin. You are already popular, -more so, perhaps, than you yourself will believe, or than even I, or other partial friends, can fairly allow to your merit. stand high, - do not rashly attempt to climb higher, and incur the risk of a fall; for, depend upon it, a favorite will not be permitted even to stumble with impunity.' I replied to this affectionate expostulation in the words of Montrose, "He either fears his fate too much, You retractation of the unfavorable judgment, when I recollected how likely a natural partiality was to effect that change of opinion. In such cases affection rises like a light on the canvas, improves any favorable tints which it formerly exhibited, and throws its defects into the shade. 6 I remember that about the same time a friend started in to 'heeze up my hope,' like the sportsman with his cutty gun,' in the old song. He was bred a farmer, but a man of powerful understanding, natural good taste, and warm poetical feeling, perfectly competent to supply the wants of an imperfect or irregu lar education. He was a passionate admirer of field-sports, which we often pursued together. As this friend happened to dine with me at Ashestiel one day, I took the opportunity of reading to him the first canto of The Lady of the Lake, in order to ascertain the effect the poem was likely to produce upon a person who was but too favorable a representative of readers at large. It is of course to be supposed that I determined rather to guide my opinion by what my friend might appear to feel, than by what he might think fit to say. His reception of my recitation, or prelection, was rather singular. He placed his hand across his brow, and listened with great attention, through the whole account of the staghunt, till the dogs threw themselves into the lake to follow their master, who embarks with Ellen Douglas. He then started up with a sudden exclamation, struck his hand on the table, and declared, in a voice of censure calculated for the occasion, that the dogs must have been totally ruined by being permitted to take the water after such a severe chase. I own I was much encouraged by the species of revery which had possessed so zealous a follower of the sports of the ancient Nimrod, who had been completely surprised out of all doubts of the reality of the tale. Another of his remarks gave me less pleasure. He detected the identity of the king with the wandering knight, Fitz-James, when he winds his bugle to summon his attendants. He was probably thinking of the lively, but somewhat licentious, old ballad, in which the dénouement of a royal intrigue takes place as follows: 'He took a bugle frae his side, He blew both loud and shrill, Let a' his duddies fa', And he was the brawest gentleman : And we'll go no more a roving,' etc. This discovery, as Mr. Pepys savs of the rent in his camlet cloak, was but a trifle, yet it troubled me; and I was at a good deal of pains I took uncommon pains to verify the accu- After a considerable delay, The Lady of It may be that I did not, in this continued self with the reflection that, if posterity should think me undeserving of the favor with which I was regarded by my contemporaries, they could not but say I had the crown,' and had enjoyed for a time that popularity which is so much coveted. I conceived, however, that I held the distinguished situation I had obtained, however unworthily, rather like the champion of pugilism, on the condition of being always ready to show proofs of my skill, than in the manner of the champion of chivalry, who performs his duties only on rare and solemn occasions. I was in any case conscious that I could not long hold a situation which the caprice rather than the judgment of the public had bestowed upon me, and preferred being deprived of my precedence by some more worthy rival, to sinking into contempt for my indolence, and losing my reputation by what Scottish lawyers call the negative prescription. Accordingly, those who choose to look at the Introduction to Rokeby, will be able to trace the steps by which I declined as a poet to figure as a novelist; as the ballad says, Queen Eleanor sunk at Charing Cross to rise again at Queenhithe. It only remains for me to say that, during my short preeminence of popularity, I faithfully observed the rules of moderation which I had resolved to follow before I began my course as a man of letters. If a man is determined to make a noise in the world, he is as sure to encounter abuse and ridicule, as he who gallops furiously through a village must reckon on being followed by the curs in full cry. Experienced persons know that in stretching to flog the latter, the rider is very apt to catch a bad fall; nor is an attempt to chastise a malignant critic attended with less danger to the author. On this principle, I let parody, burlesque, and squibs find their own level; and while the latter hissed most fiercely, I was cautious never to catch them up, as schoolboys do, to throw them back against the naughty boy who fired them off, wisely remembering that they are in such cases apt to explode in the handling. Let me add that my reign (since Byron has so called it) was marked by some instances of good-nature as well as patience. I never refused a literary person of merit such services in smoothing his way to the public as were in my power; and I had the advantage- rather an uncommon one with our irritable race to enjoy general favor without incurring permanent ill-will, so far as is known to me, among any of my contempo raries. ABBOTSFORD, April, 1830. |