Part 24 (2/2)

line 509. 'St. Fillan was a Scottish saint of some reputation.

Although Popery is, with us, matter of abomination, yet the common people still retain some of the superst.i.tions connected with it.

There are in Perths.h.i.+re several wells and springs dedicated to St.

Fillan, which are still places of pilgrimage and offerings, even among the Protestants. They are held powerful in cases of madness; and, in some of very late occurrence, lunatics have been left all night bound to the holy stone, in confidence that the saint would cure and unloose them before morning. [See various notes to the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border.]'--SCOTT.

line 513. Cp. Macbeth, v. 3. 40:--

'Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased?'

and Lear, iii. 4. 12:--

'The tempest in my mind Doth from my senses take all feeling else Save what beats there.'

Stanza x.x.x. line 515. With 'midnight draught,' cp. Macbeth's 'drink,' ii. 1. 31, and the 'posset,' ii. 2. 6. See notes to these pa.s.sages in Clarendon Press Macbeth.

Stanza x.x.xI. line 534. 'In Catholic countries, in order to reconcile the pleasures of the great with the observances of religion, it was common, when a party was bent for the chase, to celebrate ma.s.s, abridged and maimed of its rites, called a hunting-ma.s.s, the brevity of which was designed to correspond with the impatience of the audience.'--Note to 'The Abbot,' new edition.

line 538. Stirrup-cup, or stirrup-gla.s.s, is a parting-gla.s.s of liquor given to a guest when on horseback and ready to go.

INTRODUCTION TO CANTO SECOND.

The Rev. John Marriott, A. M., to whom this introductory poem is dedicated, was tutor to George Henry, Lord Scott, son of Charles, Earl of Dalkeith, afterwards fourth Duke of Buccleuch and sixth of Queensberry. Lord Scott died early, in 1808. Marriott, while still at Oxford, proved himself a capable poet, and Scott shewed his appreciation of him by including two of his ballads at the close of the 'Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border.' The concluding lines of this Introduction refer to Marriott's ballads.

line 2. 'Ettrick Forest, now a range of mountainous sheep-walks, was anciently reserved for the pleasure of the royal chase. Since it was disparked, the wood has been, by degrees, almost totally destroyed, although, wherever protected from the sheep, copses soon arise without any planting. When the King hunted there, he often summoned the array of the country to meet and a.s.sist his sport. Thus, in 1528, James V ”made proclamation to all lords, barons, gentlemen, landward-men, and freeholders, that they should compear at Edinburgh, with a month's victuals, to pa.s.s with the King where he pleased, to danton the thieves of Tiviotdale, Annandale, Liddisdale, and other parts of that country; and also warned all gentlemen that had good dogs to bring them, that he might hunt in the said country as he pleased: The whilk the Earl of Argyle, the Earl of Huntley, the Earl of Athole, and so all the rest of the gentlemen of the Highland, did, and brought their hounds with them in like manner, to hunt with the King, as he pleased.

'”The second day of June the King past out of Edinburgh to the hunting, with many of the n.o.bles and gentlemen of Scotland with him, to the number of twelve thousand men; and then past to Meggitland, and hounded and hawked all the country and bounds; that is to say, Crammat, Pappert-law, St. Mary-laws, Carlavirick, Chapel, Ewindoores, and Langhope. I heard say, he slew, in these bounds, eighteen score of harts.” -PITSCOTTIE'S History of Scotland, folio edition, p. 143.

'These huntings had, of course, a military character, and attendance upon them was part of the duty of a va.s.sal. The act for abolis.h.i.+ng ward or military tenures in Scotland, enumerates the services of hunting, hosting, watching and warding, as those which were in future to be illegal.'--SCOTT.

lines 5-11. Cp. Wordsworth's 'Thorn':--

'There is a Thorn--it looks so old, In truth, you'd find it hard to say How it could ever have been young, It looks so old and grey.'

There is a special suggestion of antiquity in the wrinkled, lichen- covered thorn of a wintry landscape, and thus it is a fitting object to stir and sustain the poet's tendency to note 'chance and change'

and to lament the loss of the days that are no more. The exceeding appropriateness of this in a narrative poem dealing with departed habits and customs must be quite apparent. The thorn grows to a very great age, and many an unpretentious Scottish homestead receives a pathetic grace and dignity from the presence of its ancestral thorn- tree.

line 15. The rowan is the mountain ash. One of the most tender and haunting of Scottish songs is Lady Nairne's 'Oh, Rowan tree!'--

'How fair wert thou in summer time, wi' a' thy cl.u.s.ters white, How rich and gay thy autumn dress, wi' berries red and bright.'

line 27. There are some notable allusions in the poets to the moonlight baying of dogs and wolves. Cp. Julius Caesar, iv. 3. 27:--

'I had rather be a dog and bay the moon.'

See also s.h.i.+eld's great English song, 'The Wolf':--

'While the wolf, in nightly prowl, Bays the moon with hideous howl!'

One of the best lines in English verse on the wolf--both skilfully onomatopoeic and suggestively picturesque--is Campbell's, line 66 of 'Pleasures of Hope':--

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