NOTES.

Introduction.

The Lady of the Lake was first published in 1810, when Scott was

thirty-nine, and it was dedicated to "the most noble John James, Marquis

of Abercorn." Eight thousand copies were sold between June 2d and

September 22d, 1810, and repeated editions were subsequently called for.

In 1830, the following "Introduction" was prefixed to the poem by the

author:--

After the success of Marmion, I felt inclined to exclaim with Ulysses in

the Odyssey:

[Greek Letters] Odys. X. 5.

"One venturous game my hand has won to-day--

Another, gallants, yet remains to play."

The ancient manners, the habits and customs of the aboriginal race by

whom the Highlands of Scotland were inhabited, had always appeared to

me peculiarly adapted to poetry. The change in their manners, too, had

taken place almost within my own time, or at least I had learned many

particulars concerning the ancient state of the Highlands from the old

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 honourable 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 Lock 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 labour 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. [2] 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. You stand high,--do not rashly attempt

to climb higher, and incur the risk of a fall; for, depend upon it,

a favourite 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,

Or his deserts are small,

Who dares not put it to the touch

To gain or lose it all.'

"If I fail," I said, for the dialogue is strong in my recollection, "it

is a sign that I ought never to have succeeded, and I will write prose

for life: you shall see no change in my temper, nor will I eat a single

meal the worse. But if I succeed,

'Up with the bonnie blue bonnet,

The dirk, and the feather, and a'!'"

Afterwards I showed my affectionate and anxious critic the first canto

of the poem, which reconciled her to my imprudence. Nevertheless,

although I answered thus confidently, with the obstinacy often said to

be proper to those who bear my surname, I acknowledge that my confidence

was considerably shaken by the warning of her excellent taste and

unbiased friendship. Nor was I much comforted by her retraction of

the unfavourable 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 favourable

tints which it formerly exhibited, and throws its defects into the

shade.

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 irregular 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 favourable 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 stag-hunt, 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 denouement of a royal intrigue

takes place as follows:

"He took a bugle frae his side,

He blew both loud and shrill,

And four and twenty belted knights

Came skipping over the hill;

Then he took out a little knife,

Let a' his duddies fa',

And he was the brawest gentleman

That was amang them a'.

And we'll go no more a roving," etc.

This discovery, as Mr. Pepys says of the rent in his camlet cloak, was

but a trifle, yet it troubled me; and I was at a good deal of pains to

efface any marks by which I thought my secret could be traced before the

conclusion, when I relied on it with the same hope of producing effect,

with which the Irish post-boy is said to reserve a "trot for the

avenue."

I took uncommon pains to verify the accuracy of the local circumstances

of this story. I recollect, in particular, that to ascertain whether I

was telling a probable tale, I went into Perthshire, to see whether King

James could actually have ridden from the banks of Loch Vennachar

to Stirling Castle within the time supposed in the poem, and had the

pleasure to satisfy myself that it was quite practicable.

After a considerable delay, The Lady of the Lake appeared in June, 1810;

and its success was certainly so extraordinary as to induce me for the

moment to conclude that I had at last fixed a nail in the proverbially

inconstant wheel of Fortune, whose stability in behalf of an individual

who had so boldly courted her favours for three successive times had not

as yet been shaken. I had attained, perhaps, that degree of reputation

at which prudence, or certainly timidity, would have made a halt, and

discontinued efforts by which I was far more likely to diminish my fame

than to increase it. But, as the celebrated John Wilkes is said to have

explained to his late Majesty, that he himself, amid his full tide of

popularity, was never a Wilkite, so I can, with honest truth, exculpate

myself from having been at any time a partisan of my own poetry, even

when it was in the highest fashion with the million. It must not be

supposed that I was either so ungrateful, or so superabundantly candid,

as to despise or scorn the value of those whose voice had elevated me

so much higher than my own opinion told me I deserved. I felt, on

the contrary, the more grateful to the public, as receiving that from

partiality to me, which I could not have claimed from merit; and I

endeavoured to deserve the partiality, by continuing such exertions as I

was capable of for their amusement.

It may be that I did not, in this continued course of scribbling,

consult either the interest of the public or my own. But the former had

effectual means of defending themselves, and could, by their coldness,

sufficiently check any approach to intrusion; and for myself, I had now

for several years dedicated my hours so much to literary labour that I

should have felt difficulty in employing myself otherwise; and so,

like Dogberry, I generously bestowed all my tediousness on the public,

comforting myself with the reflection that, if posterity should think

me undeserving of the favour 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, [3] 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 pre-eminence 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 [4] (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 favour without incurring permanent ill-will, so far as is known

to me, among any of my contemporaries.

W.S.

Abbotsford, April, 1830.

Our limits do not permit us to add any extended selections from the many

critical notices of the poem. The verdict of Jeffrey, in the Edinburgh

Review, on its first appearance, has been generally endorsed:--

"Upon the whole, we are inclined to think more highly of The Lady of

the Lake than of either of its author's former publications [the Lay and

Marmion]. We are more sure, however, that it has fewer faults than that

it has greater beauties; and as its beauties bear a strong resemblance

to those with which the public has been already made familiar in these

celebrated works, we should not be surprised if its popularity were less

splendid and remarkable. For our own parts, however, we are of opinion

that it will be oftener read hereafter than either of them; and that,

if it had appeared first in the series, their reception would have been

less favourable than that which it has experienced. It is more polished

in its diction, and more regular in its versification; the story is

constructed with infinitely more skill and address; there is a greater

proportion of pleasing and tender passages, with much less antiquarian

detail; and, upon the whole, a larger variety of characters, more

artfully and judiciously contrasted. There is nothing so fine, perhaps,

as the battle in Marmion, or so picturesque as some of the scattered

sketches in the Lay; but there is a richness and a spirit in the whole

piece which does not pervade either of those poems,--a profusion of

incident and a shifting brilliancy of colouring that reminds us of the

witchery of Ariosto, and a constant elasticity and occasional energy

which seem to belong more peculiarly to the author now before us."

Canto First.

Each canto is introduced by one or more Spenserian stanzas, [5]

forming a kind of prelude to it. Those prefixed to the first canto serve

as an introduction to the whole poem, which is "inspired by the spirit

of the old Scottish minstrelsy."

2. Witch-elm. The broad-leaved or wych elm (Ulmus montana), indigenous

to Scotland. Forked branches of the tree were used in the olden time as

divining-rods, and riding switches from it were supposed to insure good

luck on a journey. In the closing stanzas of the poem (vi. 846) it is

called the "wizard elm." Tennyson (In Memoriam, 89) refers to

"Witch-elms that counterchange the floor

Of this flat lawn with dusk and bright."

Saint Fillan was a Scotch abbot of the seventh century who became famous

as a saint. He had two springs, which appear to be confounded by some

editors of the poem. One was at the eastern end of Loch Earn, where the

pretty modern village of St. Fillans now stands, under the shadow of

Dun Fillan, or St. Fillan's Hills, six hundred feet high, on the top of

which the saint used to say his prayers, as the marks of his knees in

the rock still testify to the credulous. The other spring is at another

village called St. Fillans, nearly thirty miles to the westward, just

outside the limits of our map, on the road to Tyndrum. In this Holy

Pool, as it is called, insane folk were dipped with certain ceremonies,

and then left bound all night in the open air. If they were found loose

the next morning, they were supposed to have been cured. This treatment

was practised as late as 1790, according to Pennant, who adds that

the patients were generally found in the morning relieved of their

troubles--by death. Another writer, in 1843, says that the pool is still

visited, not by people of the vicinity, who have no faith in its virtue,

but by those from distant places. Scott alludes to this spring in

Marmion, i. 29:

"Thence to Saint Fillan's blessed well,

Whose springs can frenzied dreams dispel,

And the crazed brain restore."