Page images
PDF
EPUB

be presented to Cardinal Wolsey or the King, and Clara be delivered from the suit of so unworthy an admirer. The conference of these holy persons, which takes place in a gallery looking down on the street, is suddenly broken off by a strange apparition of figures like heralds and pursuivants, who glide through the air, and, taking their station at the market-cross, summon the Scotish king and most of his nobles, together with Marmion and De Wilton, to appear before the throne of their Sovereign within forty days. The palmer protests and appeals against this citation. The train afterwards proceeds to Tantallon, the Abbess being dropped at a convent in the way; and Marmion growing impatient at the delay of the Scotish herald, and learning that James had advanced into Northumberland at the head of a great army, and that Lord Surrey had marched to oppose him, resolves to join the latter army without further delay, and to stay no longer in the castle of Lord Angus, whose demeanour he observed had recently become very cold and disrepectful.

In the beginning of the last Canto, which is by far the busiest, we learn, that De Wilton, who had obtained the proofs of his innocence from the Abbess, had told his story to Lord Angus, who had agreed to restore him to the rank of knighthood, and, for that purpose, had sought out a suit of old armour, with which he proposed to invest him, and send him forth armed to the English host. Over this armour, as it lay in the castle-yard, to be watched by the knightly candidate, the Lady Clare first stumbles, and then moralizes; when, behold, De Wilton himself stands before her, and, in a few words, recounts his disastrous story, and clears his injured fame. Clara assists in accoutring him as a knight; and forth he rides in the morning on an old steed of the Earl's. Marmion, in the mean time, gets his band set in order, and presents himself to take leave of his host, who refuses to shake hands with him at parting, and some high words pass between them. However, he goes on, accompanied by Clara, in very bad humour; and, by the way, learns the particulars of the extraordinary conversion of the palmer into a knight, and calling to mind the whole particulars of his deportment, becomes satisfied that this mysterious personage is no other than his antient and still dreaded rival. The sight of the two armies, however, soon drives all other thoughts from his mind. He leaves the Lady Clare on an eminence in the rear, and gallops to Lord Surrey, who instantly assigns him a station in the van, where he is received with shouts of joy and exultation. The battle is very finely described. It is represented as seen from the eminence where Clara was left; and the indistinctness of the picture, and the anxiety and uncertainty which results from that indistinctness

A 4

[blocks in formation]

CONTENTS OF No. XXIII.

Scott, Esq.

ART. I. Marmion: a Tale of Flodden Field. By Walter

II. Asiatic Researches, Vol. VIII.

p. 1 36

III. The Satires of Juvenal, translated and illustrated.
By Francis Hodgson, A. M.

50

IV. Lectures on the truly Eminent English Poets. By
Percival Stockdale

62

V. A Description of Ceylon. By the Rev. James Cor-
diner, A. M.

82

VI. The Plays of Philip Massinger; with Notes critical
and explanatory. By W. Gifford, Esq.

VII. Bakerian Lecture on the Force of Percussion. By
W. Hyde Wollaston, M. D Sec. R. S.

✓ VIII. Poems. By the Rev. George Crabbe

[ocr errors]

99

120

[ocr errors]

131

151

IX. Publications respecting Indian Missions
X. The History of the House of Austria, from the
Foundation of the Monarchy to the Death of
Leopold II.

XI. An Introduction to the Study of Moral Evidence.

181

By the Rev. James Edward Gambier, A. M. 202

XII. Travels through the Canadas. By G. Heriot, Esq. 212 XIII. Baring and others on the Orders in Council

[ocr errors]

225.

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

indistinctness, add prodigiously to the interest and grandeur of the representation. His two squires bear back Marmion, mortally wounded, to the spot where Clara is waiting. In his last moments, he learns the fate of Constance, and bursts out into an agony of rage and remorse, which is diverted, however, by the nearer roar of the battle; and he expires in a chivalrous exclamation of encouragement to the English warriors. The poet now hurries to a conclusion; the disastrous issue of Flodden Field is shortly but powerfully represented; and the reader is told, in a few words, of the restoration of De Wilton to his honours, and of his happy marriage with Clara, which closes the story.

Now, upon this narrative, we are led to observe, in the first place, that it forms a very scanty and narrow foundation for a poem of such length as is now before us. There is scarcely matter enough in the main story for a ballad of ordinary dimen sions; and the present work is not so properly diversified with episodes and descriptions, as made up and composed of them. No long poem, however, can maintain its interest without a connected narrative. It should be a grand historical picture, in which all the personages are concerned in one great transaction, and not a mere gallery of detached groupes and portraits. When we accompany the poet in his career of adventure, it is not enough that he points out to us, as we go along, the beauties of the landscape, and the costume of the inhabitants. The people must do something after they are described; and they must do it in concert, or in opposition to each other; while the landscape, with its castles and woods and defiles, must serve merely as the scene of their exploits, and the field of their conspiracies and contentions. There is too little connected incident in Marmion, and a great deal too much gratuitous description.

In the second place, we object to the whole plan and concep¬ tion of the fable, as turning mainly upon incidents unsuitable for poetical narrative, and brought out in the denouement in a very obscure, laborious, and imperfect manner. The events of an epic narrative should all be of a broad, clear, and palpable de scription; and the difficulties and embarrassments of the charac ters, of a nature to be easily comprehended and entered into by readers of all descriptions. Now, the leading incidents in this poem are of a very narrow and peculiar character, and are woven together into a petty intricacy and entanglement which puzzles the reader instead of interesting him, and fatigues instead of exciting his curiosity. The unaccountable conduct of Constance, in first ruining De Wilton in order to forward Marmion's suit with Clara, and then trying to poison Clara, because Marmion's suit seemed likely to succeed with her-but, above all, the pal

try

try device of the forged letters, and the sealed packet given up by Constance at her condemnation, and handed over by the abbess to De Wilton and Lord Angus, are incidents not only unworthy of the dignity of poetry, but really incapable of being made subservient to its legitimate purposes. They are particularly unsuitable, too, to the age and character of the personages to whom they relate; and, instead of forming the instruments of knightly vengeance and redress, remind us of the machinery of a bad German novel, or of the disclosures which might be expected on the trial of a pettifogging attorney. The obscurity and intricacy which they communicate to the whole story, must be very painfully felt by every reader who tries to comprehend it; and is prodigiously increased by the very clumsy and inartificial manner in which the denouement is ultimately brought about by the author. Three several attempts are made by three several persons to beat into the head of the reader the evidence of De Wilton's innocence, and of Marmion's guilt; first, by Constance in her dying speech and confession; secondly, by the abbess in her conference with De Wilton; and, lastly, by this injured inno cent himself, on disclosing himself to Clara in the castle of Lord Angus. After all, the precise nature of the plot and the detection is very imperfectly explained, and, we will venture to say, is not fully understood by one half of those who have fairly read through every word of the quarto now before us. We would object, on the same grounds, to the whole scenery of Constance's condemnation. The subterranean chamber, with its low arches, massive walls, and silent monks with smoky torches,-its old chandelier in an iron chain,-the stern abbots and haughty prioresses, with their flowing black dresses, and book of statutes laid on an iron table, are all images borrowed from the novels of Mrs Ratcliffe and her imitators. The public, we believe, has now supped full of this sort of horrors; or, if any effect is still to be produced by their exhibition, it may certainly be produced at too cheap a rate, to be worthy the ambition of a poet of original imagination.

In the third place, we object to the extreme and monstrous improbability of almost all the incidents which go to the composition of this fable. We know very well, that poetry does not describe what is ordinary; but the marvellous, in which it is privileged to indulge, is the marvellous of performance, and not of accident. One extraordinary rencontre or opportune coincidence may be permitted, perhaps, to bring the parties together, and wind up matters for the catastrophe; but a writer who gets through the whole business of his poem, by a series of lucky hits and incalculable chances, certainly manages matters in a very economical

way

« PreviousContinue »