Scott appropriates Sir David Lyndsay to his purpose, presenting him, even as he presents the stately and venerable Angus, with faithful and striking picturesqueness. Bishop Douglas is exactly suited to his share in the development of events; and had room likewise been found for the Court poet Dunbar―author of James’s Epithalamium, the ‘Thrissill and the Rois’―it would have been both a fit and a seemly arrangement. Had Scott remembered that Dunbar was a favourite of Queen Margaret’s he might have introduced him into an interesting episode. The passage devoted to the Queen herself is exquisite and graceful, its restrained and effective pathos making a singularly direct and significant appeal. The other female characters are well conceived and sustained, while Constance in the Trial scene reaches an imposing height of dramatic intensity.

After the descriptions and the characterisation, the remaining important features of the poem are its marked practical irony and its episodes. Marmion, despite his many excellences, is throughout―and for obvious reasons―the victim of a persistent Nemesis. Scott is much interested in his hero; one fancies that if it were only possible he would in the end extend his favour to him, and grant him absolution; but his sense of artistic fitness prevails, and he will abate no jot of the painful ordeal to which he feels bound to submit him. Marmion is a knight with a claim to nothing more than the half of the proverbial qualifications. He is sans peur, but not sans reproche; and it is one expression of the practical irony that constantly lurks to assail him that even his fearlessness quails for a time before the Phantom Knight on Gifford Moor. The whole attitude of the Palmer is ironical; and, after the bitter parting with Angus at Tantallon, Marmion is weighted with the depressing reflection that numerous forces are conspiring against him, and with the knowledge that it is his old rival De Wilton that has thrown off the Palmer’s disguise and preceded him to the scene of war. In his last hour the practical irony of his position bears upon him with a concentration of keen and bitter thrusts. Clare, whom he intended to defraud, ministers to his last needs; he learns that Constance died a bitter death at Lindisfarne; and just when he recognises his greatest need of strength his life speedily ebbs away. There is a certain grandeur of impressive tragical effort in his last struggles, as he feels that whatever he may himself have been he suffers in the end from the merciless machinery of a false ecclesiastical system. The practical irony follows him even after his death, for it is a skilful stroke that leaves his neglected remains on the field of battle and places a nameless stranger in his stately tomb.

As regards the episodes, it may just be said in a word that they are appropriate, and instead of retarding the movement of the piece, as has sometimes been alleged, they serve to give it breadth and massiveness of effect. Of course, there will always be found those who think them too long, just as there are those whose narrowness of view constrains them to wish the Introductions away. If the poet’s conception of Marmion be fully considered, it will be seen that the Host’s Tale is an integral part of his purpose; and there is surely no need to defend either Sir David Lyndsay’s Tale or the weird display at the cross of Edinburgh. The episode of Lady Heron’s singing carries its own defence in itself, seeing that the song of ‘Lochinvar’ holds a place of distinction among lyrics expressive of poetical motion. After all, we must bear in mind that though it pleases Scott to speak of his tale as flowing on ‘wild as cloud, as stream, as gale,’ he was still conscious that he was engaged upon a poem, and that a poem is regulated by certain artistic laws. If we strive to grasp his meaning we shall not be specially inclined to carp at his method. It may at the same time be not unprofitable to look for a moment at some of the notable criticisms of the poem.

IV. CRITICISMS OF THE POEM.

When ‘Marmion’ was little more than begun Scott’s publishers offered him a thousand pounds for the copyright, and as this soon became known it naturally gave rise to varied comment. Lord Byron thought it sufficient to warrant a gratuitous attack on the author in his ‘English Bards and Scotch Reviewers.’ This is a portion of the passage:―

‘And think’st thou, Scott! by vain conceit perchance, On public taste to foist thy stale romance. Though Murray with his Miller may combine To yield thy muse just half-a-crown per line? No! when the sons of song descend to trade, Their bays are sear, their former laurels fade.’

As a matter of fact, there was on Scott’s part no trade whatever in the case. If a publisher chose to secure in advance what he anticipated would be a profitable commodity, that was mainly the publisher’s affair, and the poet would have been a simpleton not to close with the offer if he liked it. Scott admirably disposes of Byron as follows in the 1830 Introduction:―

‘The publishers of the “Lay of the Last Minstrel,” emboldened by the success of that poem, willingly offered a thousand pounds for “Marmion.” The transaction being no secret, afforded Lord Byron, who was then at general war with all who blacked paper, an apology for including me in his satire, entitled “English Bards and Scotch Reviewers.” I never could conceive how an arrangement between an author and his publishers, if satisfactory to the persons concerned, could afford matter of censure to any third party. I had taken no unusual or ungenerous means of enhancing the value of my merchandise―I had never higgled a moment about the bargain, but accepted at once what I considered the handsome offer of my publishers. These gentlemen, at least, were not of opinion that they had been taken advantage of in the transaction, which indeed was one of their own framing; on the contrary, the sale of the Poem was so far beyond their expectation, as to induce them to supply the author’s cellars with what is always an acceptable present to a young Scottish housekeeper, namely, a hogshead of excellent claret.’

A second point on which Scott was attacked was the character of Marmion. It was held that such a knight as he undoubtedly was should have been incapable of forgery. Scott himself; of course, knew better than his critics whether or not this was the case, but, with his usual good nature and generous regard for the opinion of others, he admitted that perhaps he had committed an artistic blunder. Dr. Leyden, in particular, for whose judgment he had special respect, wrote him from India ‘a furious remonstrance on the subject.’ Fortunately, he made no attempt to change what he had written, his main reason being that ‘corrections, however in themselves judicious, have a bad effect after publication.’ He might have added that any modification of the hero’s guilt would have entirely altered the character of the poem, and might have ruined it altogether. He had never, apparently, gone into the question thoroughly after his first impressions of the type of knights existing in feudal times, for though he states that ‘similar instances were found, and might be quoted,’ he is inclined to admit that the attribution of forgery was a ‘gross defect.’ Readers interested in the subject will find by reference to Pike’s ‘History of Crime,’ i. 276, that Scott was perfectly justified in his assumption that a feudal knight was capable of forgery. Those who understand how intimate his knowledge was of the period with which he was dealing will, of course, be the readiest to believe him rather than his critics; but when he seems doubtful of himself, and ready to yield the point, it is well that the strength of his original position can thus be supported by the results of recent investigation.

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