I venture for the first time to trespass upon the attention of your readers
in making the following remarks upon a passage in _Marmion_, which, as far
as I know, has escaped the notice of all the critical writers whose
comments upon that celebrated poem have hitherto been published.
It will probably be remembered, that long after the main action of the poem
and interest of the story have been brought to a close by the death of the
hero on the field of Flodden, the following incident is thus pointedly
described:--
Short is my tale:--Fitz-Eustace' care
A pierced and mangled body bare
To moated Lichfield's lofty pile:
And there, beneath the southern aisle,
A tomb, with Gothic sculpture fair
Did long Lord Marmion's image bear,
&c. &c. &c.
"There erst was martial Marmion found,
His feet upon a couchant hound,
His hands to Heaven upraised:
And all around on scutcheon rich,
And tablet carved, and fretted niche,
His arms and feats were blazed.
And yet, though all was carved so fair,
And priest for Marmion breathed the prayer,
_The last Lord Marmion lay not there._
From Ettrick woods a peasant swain
Follow'd his lord to Flodden plain,--
&c. &c. &c.
"Sore wounded Sybil's Cross he spied,
And dragg'd him to its foot, and died,
Close by the noble Marmion's side.
The spoilers stripp'd and gash'd the slain,
And thus their corpses were mista'en;
And thus in the proud Baron's tomb,
The lowly woodsman took the room."
Now, I ask, wherefore has the poet dwelt with such minuteness upon this
forced and improbable incident? Had it indeed been with no other purpose
than to introduce the picturesque description and the moral reflexions
contained in the following section, the improbability might well be
forgiven. But such is not the real object. The critic of the _Monthly
Review_ takes the following notice of this passage, which is printed as a
note in the last edition of Scott's _Poems_ in 1833:--
"A corpse is afterwards conveyed, as that of Marmion, to the cathedral
of Lichfield, where a magnificent tomb is erected to his memory, &c.
&c.; but, by an _admirably imagined act of poetical justice_, we are
informed that a peasant's body was placed beneath that costly monument,
while the haughty Baron himself was buried like a vulgar corpse on the
spot where he died."
Had the reviewer attempted to penetrate a little deeper into the workings
of the author's mind, he would have seen in this circumstance much more
than "an admirably imagined act of poetical {204} justice." He would have
perceived in it the ultimate and literal fulfilment of the whole penalty
foreshadowed to the delinquent baron in the two concluding stanzas of that
beautiful and touching song sung by Fitz-Eustace in the Hostelrie of
Gifford in the third canto of the poem, which I here transcribe:
"Where shall the traitor rest,
He the deceiver,
Who could win maiden's breast,
Ruin, and leave her?
In the lost battle
Borne down by the flying,
Where mingles war's rattle,
With groans of the dying--
There shall he be lying.
Her wing shall the eagle flap
O'er the false-hearted,
His warm blood the wolf shall lap
Ere life be parted.
_Shame and dishonour sit_
_By his grave ever;_
_Blessing shall hallow it,_
_Never, O never!_"
Then follows the effect produced upon the conscience of the "Traitor,"
described in these powerful lines:--
"It ceased. the melancholy sound;
And silence sunk on all around.
The air was sad; but sadder still
It fell on Marmion's ear,
And plain'd as if disgrace and ill,
And shameful death, were near."
&c. &c. &c.
And lastly, when the life of the wounded baron is ebbing forth with his
blood on the field of battle, when--
"The Monk, with unavailing cares
Exhausted all the Church's prayers--
Ever, he said, that, close and near,
A lady's voice was in his ear,
And that the priest he could not hear--
For that she ever sung,
'_In the lost battle, borne down by the flying,_
_Where mingles war's rattle with groans of the dying!_'--
So the notes ring."
I am the more disposed to submit these remarks to your readers, because it
is highly interesting to trace an irresistible tendency in the genius of
this mighty author towards the fulfilment of prophetic legends and visions
of second sight: and not to extend this paper to an inconvenient length, I
purpose to resume the subject in a future number, and collate some other
examples of a similar character from the works of Sir Walter Scott.
I write from the southern slopes of Cheviot, almost within sight of the
Hill of Flodden. During the latter years of the great Border Minstrel, I
had the happiness to rank myself among the number of his friends and
acquaintances, and I revere his memory as much as I prized his friendship.