"For darkling was the battle tried";
and see Midsummer Night"s Dream, ii. 2. 86; King Lear, i. 4. 237.
Lord Tennyson, like Keats, uses the word as an adj. in "In Memoriam," xcix:--
"Who tremblest through thy darkling red."
Cp. below, V. Introd. 23, "darkling politician." For scholarly discussion of the term, see Notes and Queries, VII iii. 191.
Stanza x.x.x. lines 585-9. Iago understands the "contending flow" of pa.s.sions when in a glow of self-satisfied feeling he exclaims;
"Work on, My medicine, work! Thus credulous fools are caught."
Oth.e.l.lo, iv. I. 44.
Stanza x.x.xI. line 597. "Yode, used by old poets for WENT."--SCOTT.
It is a variant of "yod" or "yede," from A. S. eode, I went. Cp.
Lat. eo, I go. See Clarendon Press "Specimens of Early English," II.
71:--
"Thair scrippes, quer thai rade or YODE, Tham failed neuer o drinc ne fode."
Spenser writes, "Faerie Queene," II. vii. 2:--
"So, long he YODE, yet no adventure found."
line 599. Selle, saddle. Cp. "Faerie Queene," II. v. 4:--
On his horse necke before the quilted SELL."
INTRODUCTION TO CANTO FOURTH.
"James Skene, Esq., of Rubislaw, Aberdeenshire, was Cornet in the Royal Edinburgh Light Horse Volunteers; and Sir Walter Scott was Quartermaster of the same corps."--LOCKHART.
For Skene"s account of the origin of this regiment, due in large measure to "Scott"s ardour," see "Life of Scott," i. 258.
line 2. See Taming of the Shrew, i. 4. 135, and 2 Henry IV, v. 3.
143, where a line of an old song is quoted:--
"Where is the life that late I led?"
line 3. See As you Like It, ii. 7. 12.
line 7. Scott made the acquaintance of Skene, recently returned from a lengthened stay in Saxony, about the end of 1796, and profited much by his friend"s German knowledge and his German books. In later days he utilized suggestions of Skene"s in "Ivanhoe" and "Quentin Durward." See "Life of Scott," Pa.s.sIM, and specially i. 257, and iv.
342.
line 37. Blackhouse, a farm "situated on the Douglas-burn, then tenanted by a remarkable family, to which I have already made allusion--that of William Laidlaw."--"Life," i. 328. Ettrick Pen is a hill in the south of Selkirkshire.
line 46. "Various ill.u.s.trations of the Poetry and Novels of Sir Walter Scott, from designs by Mr. Skene, have since been published."--LOCKHART.
line 48. Probably the first reference in poetry to the Scottish heather is, says Prof. Veitch ("Feeling for Nature," ii. 52), in Thomson"s "Spring," where the bees are represented as daring
"The purple heath, or where the wild thyme grows."
lines 55-97. With this striking typical winter piece, cp. in Thomson"s "Winter," the vivid and pathetic picture beginning:--
"In his own loose-revolving fields, the swain Disastered stands."
See also Burns"s "Winter Night," which by these lines may have suggested Scott"s "beamless sun":--
"When Phoebus gies a short-liv"d glow"r Far south the lift; Dim-dark"ning thro" the flaky show"r, Or whirling drift."
The "tired ploughman," too, may owe something to this farther line of Burns:--
"Poor labour sweet in sleep was lock"d";
while the animals seeking shelter may well follow this inimitable and touching description:--
"List"ning the doors an" winnocks rattle, I thought me on the ourie cattle, Or silly sheep, wha bide this brattle O" winter war, And thro" the drift, deep-lairing, sprattle Beneath a scaur."
line 91. "I cannot help here mentioning that, on the night on which these lines were written, suggested as they were by a sudden fall of snow, beginning after sunset, an unfortunate man perished exactly in the manner here described, and his body was next morning found close to his own house. The accident happened within five miles of the farm of Ashestiel."--SCOTT.
line 101. "The Scottish Harvest-home."--SCOTT. Perhaps the name "kirn" is due to the fact that a churnful of cream is a feature of the night"s entertainment. In Chambers"s Burns, iii. 151, Robert Ainslie gives an account of a kirn at Ellisland in 1790.
line 102. Cp. the "wood-notes wild" with which Milton credits Shakespeare, "L"Allegro," 131.
lines 104-5. The ideal pastoral life of the Golden Age.
line 132. "Sir William Forbes of Pitsligo, Baronet; unequalled, perhaps, in the degree of individual affection entertained for him by his friends, as well as in the general respect and esteem of Scotland at large. His "Life of Beattie," whom he befriended and patronised in life, as well as celebrated after his decease, was not long published, before the benevolent and affectionate biographer was called to follow the subject of his narrative. This melancholy event very shortly succeeded the marriage of the friend, to whom this introduction is addressed, with one of Sir William"s daughters."--SCOTT.
line 133. "The Minstrel" is Beattie"s chief poem; it is one of the few poems in well-written Spenserian stanza.
line 147. Ps. lxviii. 5.
line 151. Prov. xxvii. 10.
line 155. For account of Sir W. Forbes, see his autobiographical "Memoirs of a Banking House"; Chambers"s "Eminent Scotsmen"; and "Dictionary of National Biography."
line 163. Cp. Pope, "Essay on Man," IV. 380, and Boileau, "L"Art Poetique, "Chant I:--
"Heureux qui, dans ses vers, sait d"une voix legere Pa.s.ser du grave au doux, du plaisant an severe."
line 172. "Tirante el Blanco," a Spanish romance by Johann Martorell (1480), praised in "Don Quixote."
line 174. "Camp was a favourite dog of the Poet"s, a bull terrier of extraordinary sagacity. He is introduced in Raeburn"s portrait of Sir Walter Scott, now at Dalkeith Palace."--LOCKHART.
line 181. Cp. Tempest, v. i. 93.
line 191. "Colin Mackenzie, Esq., of Portmore. See "Border Minstrelsy," iv. 351."--LOCKHART. Mackenzie had been Scott"s friend from boyhood, and he received his copy of "Marmion" at Lympstone, where he was, owing to feeble health, as mentioned in the text. He was a son-in-law of Sir William Forbes, and in acknowledging receipt of the poem he said, "I must thank you for the elegant and delicate allusion in which you express your friendship for myself--Forbes-- and, above all, that sweet memorial of his late excellent father."-- "Life of Scott," ii. 152.