672. Not Ellens' spell. That is, not even Ellen's spell. On the passage,
cf. Rokeby, i. 2:
"Sleep came at length, but with a train
Of feelings true and fancies vain,
Mingling, in wild disorder cast,
The expected future with the past."
693. Or is it all a vision now? Lockhart quotes here Thomson's Castle of
Indolence:
"Ye guardian spirits, to whom man is dear,
From these foul demons shield the midnight gloom:
Angels of fancy and love, be near.
And o'er the blank of sleep diffuse a bloom:
Evoke the sacred shades of Greece and Rome,
And let them virtue with a look impart;
But chief, awhile, O! lend us from the tomb
Those long-lost friends for whom in love we smart,
and fill with pious awe and joy-mixt woe the heart.
"Or are you sportive?--bid the morn of youth
Rise to new light, and beam afresh the days
Of innocence, simplicity, and truth;
To cares estranged, and manhood's thorny ways.
What transport, to retrace our boyish plays,
Our easy bliss, when each thing joy supplied;
The woods, the mountains, and the warbling maze
Of the wild books!"
The Critical Review says of the following stanza (xxxiv): "Such a
strange and romantic dream as may be naturally expected to flow from the
extraordinary events of the day. It might, perhaps, be quoted as one
of Mr. Scott's most successful efforts in descriptive poetry. Some
few lines of it are indeed unrivalled for delicacy and melancholy
tenderness."
704. Grisly. Grim, horrible; an obsolete word, much used in old poetry.
Cf. Spenser, F. Q. i. 5. 30: "her darke griesly looke;" Shakespeare,
1 Hen. VI. i. 4. 47: "My grisly countenance made others fly," etc. See
also iv. 322, etc. below.