Then, first alarm'd, his sire and train XXXI, The wretched sire beheld, aghast, A lifetime's arts, in vain essay'd, And shall their triumph soar o'er all Appal not vengeance and despair. The murd'ress weeps upon his bierI'll change to real that feigned tear! They all shall share destruction's shock ; Ho! lead the captives to the block!' Slave! to the block!-or I, or they, Shall face the judgment-seat this day!' XXXII. The outmost crowd have heard a sound Like horse's hoof on harden'd ground; Nearer it came, and yet more near,-The very death's-men paused to hear. 'Tis in the churchyard now-the tread Hath waked the dwelling of the dead! Fresh sod, and old sepulchral stone, Return the tramp in varied tone. All eyes upon the gateway hung, When through the Gothic arch there sprung A horseman arm'd, at headlong speed- XXXIII. While yet the smoke the deed conceals, Hail'd upon Bertram as he rose ; ground; But still his struggling force he rears, 'Gainst hacking brands and stabbing spears; Thrice from assailants shook him free, Once gain'd his feet, and twice his knee. By tenfold odds oppress'd at length, And when he died, his parting groan But Basil's voice the deed forbade ; END OF ROKEBY. Introduction and Notes to Rokeby. INTRODUCTION TO THE EDITION OF 1830. BETWEEN the publication of 'The Lady of the Lake,' which was so eminently successful, and that of 'Rokeby,' in 1813, three years had intervened. I shall not, believe, be accused of ever having attempted to usurp a superiority over many men of genius, my contemporaries; but, in point of popularity, rot of actual talent, the caprice of the public had certainly given me such a temporary superiority over men, of whom, in regard to poetical fancy and feeling, I scarcely thought myself worthy to loose the shoe-latchet. On the other hand, it would be absurd affectation in me to deny that I conceived myself to understand, more perfectly than many of my contemporaries, the manner most likely to interest the great mass of mankind. Yet, even with this belief, I must truly and fairly say that I always considered myself rather as one who held the bets, in time to be paid over to the winner, than as having any pretence to keep them in my own right. In the meantime years crept on, and not without their usual depredations on the passing generation. My sons had arrived at the age when the paternal home was no longer their best abode, as both were destined to active life. The field-sports, to which I was peculiarly attached, had now less interest, and were replaced by other amusements of a more quiet character; and the means and opportunity of pursuing these were to be sought for. I had, indeed, for some years attended to farming, a knowledge of which is, or at least was then, indispensable to the comfort of a family residing in a solitary country house; but although this was the favourite amusement of many of my friends, I have never been able to consider it as a source of pleasure. I never could think it a matter of passing importance that my cattle or crops were better or more plentiful than those of my neighbours, and nevertheless I began to feel the necessity of some more quiet out-door occupation, dif ferents from those I had hitherto pursued. I purchased a small farm of about one hundred acres, with the purpose of planting and improving it, to which property circumstances afterwards enabled me to make considerable additions; and thus an era took place in my life, almost equal to the important one mentioned by the Vicar of Wakefield when he removed from the blue room to the brown. In point of neighbourhood, at least, the change of residence made little more difference. "Abbotsford, to which we removed, was only six or seven miles down the Tweed, and lay on the same beautiful stream. It did not possess the romantic character of Ashestiel, my former residence; but it had a stretch of meadow-land along the river, and possessed, in the phrase of the landscape-gardener, considerable capabili ties. Above all, the land was my own, like Uncle Toby's bowling-green, to do what I would with. It had been, though the gratification was long postponed, an early wish of mine to connect myself with my mother earth, and prosecute those experiments by which a species of creative power is exercised over the face of nature. I can trace, even to childhood, a pleasure derived from Dodsley's account of Shenstone's Leasowes, and I envied the poet much more for the pleasure of accomplishing the objects detailed in his friend's sketch of his grounds, than for the possession of pipe, crook, flock, and Phillis to boot. My memory, also, tenacious of quaint expressions, still retained a phrase which it had gathered from an old almanack of Charles the Second's time (when everything down to almanacks affected to be smart), in which the reader, in the month of June, is advised for health's sake to walk a mile or two every day before breakfast, and, if he can possibly so manage, to let his exercise be taken upon his own fand. With the satisfaction of having attained the fulfilment of an early and long-cherished hope, I commenced my improvements, as delightful in their progress as those of the child who first makes a dress for a new doll. The nakedness of the land was in time hidden by woodlands of considerable extent; the smallest of possible cottages was progressively expanded into a sort of dream of a mansion house, whimsical in the exterior, but convenient within. Nor did I forget what is the natural pleasure of every man who has been a reader; I mean the filling the shelves of a tolerably large library. All these objects I kept in view, to be executed as convenience should serve; and, although I knew many years must elapse before they could be attained, I was of a disposition to comfort myself with the Spanish proverb, Time and I against any two.' The difficult and indispensable point of finding a permanent subject of occupation was now at length attained; but there was annexed to it the necessity of becoming again a candidate for public favour; for, as I was turned improver on the earth of the every-day world, it was under condition that the small tenement of Parnassus, which might be accessible to my labours, should not remain uncultivated. I meditated, at first, a poem on the subject of Bruce, in which I made some progress, but afterwards judged it advisable to lay it aside, supposing that an English story might have more novelty; in consequence, the precedence was given to Rokeby." If subject and scenery could have influenced the fate of a poem, that of 'Rokeby' should have been eminently distinguished; for the grounds belonged to a dear friend with whom I had lived in habits of intimacy for many years, and the place itself united the romantic beauties of the wilds of Scotland with the rich and smiling aspect of the southern portion of the island. But the Cavaliers and Roundheads whom I attempted to summon up to tenant this beautiful region, had for the public neither the novelty nor the peculiar interest of the primitive Highlanders. This, perhaps, was scarcely to be expected, considering that the general mind sympathizes readily and at once with the stamp which nature herself has affixed upon the manners of a people living in a simple and patriarchal state; whereas it has more difficulty in understanding or interesting itself in manners founded upon those peculiar habits of thinking or acting which are produced by the progress of society. We could read with pleasure the tale of the adventures of a Cossack or a Mongol Tartar, while we only wonder and stare over those of the lovers in 'The Pleasing Chinese History,' where the embarrassments turn upon difficulties arising out of unintelligible delicacies peculiar to the customs and manners of that affected people. The cause of my failure had, however, a far deeper root. The manner, or style, which, by its novelty, attracted the public in an unusual degree, had now, after having been three times before them, exhausted the patience of the reader, and began in the fourth to lose its charms. The reviewers may be said to have apostrophized the author in the language of Parnell's Edwin And here reverse the charm, he cries, The gambol has been shown.' The licentious combination of rhymes, in a manner not perhaps very congenial to our language, had not been confined to the author. Indeed, in most similar cases, the inventors of such novelties have their reputation destroyed by their own imitators, as Actaeon fell under the fury of his own dogs. The present author, like Bobadil, had taught his trick of fence to a hundred gentlemen (and ladies) who could fence very nearly or quite as well as himself. For this there was no remedy; the harmony became tiresome and ordinary, and both the original inventor and his invention must have fallen into contempt if he had not found out another road to public favour. What has been said of the metre only, must be considered to apply equally to the structure of the poem and of the style. The very best passages of any popular style are not, perhaps, susceptible of imitation, but they may be approached by men of talent; and those who are less able to copy them at least lay hold of their peculiar features so as to produce a strong burlesque. In either way, the effect of the manner is rendered cheap and common; and, in the latter case, ridicu lous to boot. The evil consequences to an author's reputation are at least as fatal as those which come upon the musical composer when his melody falls into the hands of the street ballad-singer. Of the unfavourable species of imitation, the author's style gave room to a very large number, owing to an appearance of facility to which some of those who used the measure unquestionably leaned too far. The effect of the more favourable imitations, composed by persons of talent, was almost equally unfortunate to the original minstrel, by showing that they could overshoot him with his own bow. In short, the popularity which once attended the School, as it was called, was now fast decaying. Besides all this, to have kept his ground at the crisis when 'Rokeby' appeared, its author ought to have put forth his utmost strength, and to have possessed at least all his original advantages, for a mighty and unexpected rival was advancing on the stage-a rival not in poetical powers only, but in that art of attracting popularity in which the present writer had hitherto preceded better men than himself. The reader will easily see that Byron is here meant, who, after a little velitation of no great promise, now appeared as a serious candidate, in the First Two Cantos of 'Childe Harold.' I was astonished at the power evinced by that work, which neither the 'Hours of Idleness' nor the English Bards and Scotch Reviewers' had prepared me to expect from its author. There was a depth in his thought, an eager abundance in his diction, which argued full confidence in the inexhaustible resources of which he felt himself possessed; and there was some appearance of that labour of the file which indicates that the author is conscious of the necessity of doing every justice to his work that it may pass warrant. Lord Byron was also a traveller, a man whose ideas were fired by having seen, in distant scenes of difficulty and danger, the places whose very names are recorded in our bosoms as the shrines of ancient poetry. For his own misfortune, perhaps, but certainly to the high increase of his poetical character, nature had mixed in Lord Byron's system those passions which agitate the human heart with most violence, and which may be said to have hurried his bright career to an early close. There would have been little wisdom in measuring my force with so formidable an antagonist; and I was as likely to tire of playing the second fiddle in the concert, as my audience of hearing me. Age also was advancing. I was growing insensible to those subjects of excitation by which youth is agitated. I had around me the most pleasant but least exciting of all society, that of kind friends and an affectionate family. My circle of employments was a narrow one; it occupied me constantly, and it became daily more difficult for me to interest myself in poetical composition. How happily the days of Thalaba went by !' Yet, though conscious that I must be, in the opinion of good judges, inferior to the place I had for four or five years held in letters, and feeling alike that the latter was one to which I had only a temporary right, I could not brook the idea of relinquishing literary occupation, which had been so long my chief diversion. Neither was I disposed to choose the alternative of sinking into a mere editor and commentator, though that was a species of labour which I had practised, and to which I was attached. But I could not endure to think that I might not, whether known or concealed, do something of more importance. My inmost thoughts were those of the Trojan captain in the galley race Non jam prima peto Mnestheus, neque vincere certo: Quanquam O-sed superent, quibus hoc, Neptune, dedisti. Extremos pudeat rediisse: hoc vincite, cives, I had, indeed, some private reasons for my Quanquam O! which were not worse than those of Mnestheus. I have already hinted that the materials were collected for a poem on the subject of Bruce, and fragments of it had been shown to some of my friends, and received with applause. Notwithstanding, therefore, the eminent success of Byron, and the great chance of his taking the wind out of my sails, there was, I judged, a species of cowardice in desisting from the task which I had undertaken, and it was time enough to retreat when the battle should be more de cidedly lost. The sale of 'Rokeby,' excepting as compared with that of 'The Lady of the Lake,' was in the highest degree respectable; and as it included fifteen hundred quartos, in those quarto-reading days, the trade had 'no reason to be dissatisfied. WALTER SCOTT. ABBOTSFORD, April 1830. NOTE I. NOTES. On Barnard's towers, and Tees's stream. -P. 313. 'BARNARD CASTLE,' saith old Leland, 'standeth stately upon Tees.' It is founded upon a very high bank, and its ruins impend over the river, including within the area a circuit of six acres and upwards. This once magnificent fortress derives its name from its founder, Barnard Baliol, the ancestor of the short and unfortunate dynasty of that name, which succeeded to the Scottish throne under the patronage of Edward I and Edward III. Baliol's Tower, afterwards mentioned in the poem, is a round tower of great size, situated at the western extremity of the building. It bears marks of great antiquity, and was remarkable for the curious construction of its vaulted roof, which has been lately greatly injured by the opera tions of some persons, to whom the tower has been leased for the purpose of making patent shot! The prospect from the top of Baliol's Tower commands a rich and magnificent view of the wooded valley of the Tees. Barnard Castle often changed masters during the middle ages. Upon the forfeiture of the unfortunate John Baliol, the first king of Scotland of that family, Edward I seized this fortress among the other English estates of his refractory vassal. It was afterwards vested in the Beauchamps of Warwick, and in the Staffords of Buckingham, and was also sometimes in the possession of the Bishops of Durham, and sometimes in that of the crown. Richard III is said to have enlarged and strengthened its fortifications, and to have made it for some time his principal residence, for the purpose of bridling and suppressing the Lancastrian faction" in the northern counties. From the Staffords, Barnard |