314

INTRODUCTION TO THE LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL.

again to encounter the severe course of study indispensable to success in the juridical profession.

me.

On the other hand, my father, whose feelings might have been hurt by my quitting the bar, had been for two or three years dead, so that I had no control to thwart my own inclination; and my income being equal to all the comforts, and some of the elegancies of life, I was not pressed to an irksome labour by necessity, that most powerful of motives; consequently, I was the more easily seduced to choose the employment which was most agreeable to This was yet the easier, that in 1800 I had obtained the preferment of Sheriff of Selkirkshire, about 3001. a-year in value, and which was the more agreeable to me, as in that county I had several friends and relations. But I did not abandon the profession to which I had been educated, without certain prudential resolutions, which, at the risk of some egotism, I will here mention; not without the hope that they may be useful to young persons who may stand in circumstances similar to those in which I then stood. In the first place, upon considering the lives and fortunes of persons who had given themselves up to literature, or to the task of pleasing the public, it seemed to me, that the circumstances which chiefly affected their happiness and character, were those from which Horace has bestowed upon authors the epithet of the Irritable Race. It requires no depth of philosophic reflection to perceive, that the petty warfare of Pope with the Dunces of his period could not have been carried on without his suffering the most acute torture, such as a man must endure from musquitoes, by whose stings he suffers agony, although he can crush them in his grasp by myriads. Nor is it necessary to call to memory the many humiliating instances in which men of the greatest genius have, to avenge some pitiful quarrel, made themselves ridiculous during their lives, to become the still more degraded objects of pity to future times.

Upon the whole, as I had no pretension to the genius of the distinguished persons who had fallen into such errors, I concluded there could be no occasion for imitating them in their mistakes, or what I considered as such; and, in adopting literary pursuits as the principal occupation of my future life, I resolved, if possible, to avoid those weaknesses of temper which seemed to have most easily beset my more celebrated predecessors.

With this view, it was my first resolution to keep as far as was in my power abreast of society, continuing to maintain my place in general company, without yielding to the very natural temptation of narrowing myself to what is called literary society. By doing so, I imagined I should escape the besetting sin of listening to language, which, from one motive or other, is apt to ascribe a very undue degree of consequence to literary pursuits, as if they were, indeed, the business, rather than the amusement, of life. The opposite course can only be compared to the injudicious conduct of one who pampers himself with cordial and luscious draughts, until he is unable to endure wholesome bitters. Like Gil Blas, therefore, I resolved to stick by the society of my com mis, instead of seeking that of a more literary cast, and to maintain my general interest in what was going on around me, reserving the man of letters for the desk and the library.

My second resolution was a corollary from the first. I deter mined that, without shutting my ears to the voice of true criticism, I would pay no regard to that which assumes the form of satire. I therefore resolved to arm myself with that triple brass of Horace, of which those of my profession are seldom held deficient, against all the roving warfare of satire, parody, and sarcasm; to laugh if the jest was a good one, or, if otherwise, to let it hum and buzz itself to sleep.

It is to the observance of these rules, (according to my best be lief) that, after a life of thirty years engaged in literary labours of various kinds, I attribute my never having been entangled in any literary quarrel or controversy; and, which is a still more pleasing result, that I have been distinguished by the personal friendship of my most approved contemporaries of all parties.

I adopted, at the same time, another resolution, on which it may doubtless be remarked, that it was well for me that I had it in my power to do so, and that, therefore, it is a line of conduct which, depending upon accident, can be less generally applicable in other cases. Yet I fail not to record this part of my plan, convinced that, though it may not be in every one's power to adopt exactly the same resolution, he may nevertheless, by his own exertions, in some shape or other, attain the object on which it was founded, namely, to secure the means of subsistence, without relying exclusively on literary talents. In this respect, I determined that literature should be my staff, but not my crutch, and that the profits of my literary labour, however convenient otherwise, should not, if I could help it, become necessary to my ordinary expenses. With this purpose I resolved, if the interests of my friends could so far favour me, to retire upon any of the respecta ble offices of the law, in which persons of that profession are glad to take refuge, when they feel themselves, or are judged by others, incompetent to aspire to its higher honours. Upon such a post an author might hope to retreat, without any perceptible alteration of circumstances, whenever the time should arrive that the public grew weary of his endeavours to please, or he himself should tire of the pen. At this period of my life, I possessed so many friends capable of assisting me in this object of ambition, that I could hardly over rate my own prospects of obtaining the preferment to which I limited my wishes; and, in fact, I obtained in no long period the reversion of a situation which completely met them. Thus far all was well, and the Author had been guilty, perhaps, • Thus it has been often remarked, that, in the opening couplets of Pope's translation of the Iliad, there are two syllables forming a superfluous word in each line, as may be observed by attending to such words as are printed in Italics.

"Achilles' wrath to Greece the direful spring
Of woes unnumber'd, heavenly goddess, sing;
That wrath which sent to Pluto's gloomy reign,
The souls of mighty chiefs in battle slain,"
Whose bones, unburied on the desert shore,
Devouring dogs and hungry vultures tore."

The Duchess died in August, 1814. Sir Walter Scott's lines on her death will be found in a subsequent part of this Collection.-Ed.]

|

of no great imprudence, when he relinquished his forensic practice
with the hope of making some figure in the field of literature.
But an established character with the public, in my new capacity,
still remained to be acquired. I have noticed, that the translations
from Burger had been unsuccessful, nor had the original poetry
which appeared under the auspices of Mr. Lewis, in the Tales
of Wonder," in any degree raised my reputation. It is true, I had
private friends disposed to second me in my efforts to obtain
popularity. But I was sportsman enough to know, that if
the greyhound does not run well, the hallove of his patrons will
not obtain the prize for him.
Neither was I ignorant that the practice of ballad-writing was
for the present out of fashion, and that any attempt to revive it,
or to found a poetical character upon it, would certainly fail
of success. The ballad measure itself, which was once lis-
tened to as to an enchanting melody, had become hackney-
ed and sickening, from its being the accompaniment of every
grinding band-organ; and besides, a long work in quatrains,
whether those of the common ballad, or such as are termed
elegiac, has an effect upon the mind like that of the bed of Pro-
crustes upon the human body; for, as it must be both awkward
and difficult to carry on a long sentence from one stanza to ano-
ther, it follows, that the meaning of each period must be compre
hended within four lines, and equally so that it must be extended
so as to fill that space. The alternate dilation and contraction
thus rendered necessary is singularly unfavourable to narrative
composition; and the "Gondibert" of Sir William D'Avenant,
though containing many striking passages, has never become
popular, owing chiefly to its being told in this specios of elegiac

verse.

*

In the dilemma occasioned by this objection, the idea occurred to the Author of using the measured short line, which forms the structure of so much minstrel poetry, that it may be properly termed the Romantic stanza, by way of distinction; and which appears so natural to our language, that the very best of our poets have not been able to protract it into the verse properly called Heroic, without the use of epithets which are, to say the least, unnecessary. But, on the other hand, the extreme facility of the short couplet, which seems congenial to our language, and was, doubtless for that reason, so popular with our old minstrels, is, for the same reason, apt to prove a snare to the composer who uses it in more modern days, by encouraging him in a habit of slovenly composition. The necessity of occasional pauses often forces the young poet to pay more attention to sense, as the boy's kite rises highest when the train is loaded by a due counterpoise. The Author was therefore intimidated by what Byron calls the" fatal facility" of the octo syllabic verse, which was otherwise better adapted to his purpose of imitating the more ancient poetry. I was not less at a loss for a subject which might admit of being treated with the simplicity and wildness of the ancient ballad. But accident dietated both a theme and measure, which decided the subject, as well as the structure of the poem.

The lovely young Countess of Dalkeith, afterwards Harriet Duchess of Buccleuch, had come to the land of her husband with the desire of making herself acquainted with its traditions and customs, as well as its manners and history. All who remember this lady will agree, that the intellectual character of her extreme beauty, the amenity and courtesy of her manners, the soundness of her understanding, and her unbounded benevolence, gave more the idea of an angelic visitant, than of a being belonging to this nether world; and such a thought was but too consistent with the short space she was permitted to tarry among us. Of course, where all made it a pride and pleasure to gratify her wishes, she soon heard enough of Border lore; among others, an aged gentleman of property, near Langholm, communicated to her ladyship the story of Gilpin Horner, a tradition in which the narrator, and many more of that country, were firm believers. The young Countess, much delighted with the legend, and the gravity and full confidence with which it was told, enjoined on me as a task to compose a ballad on the subject. Of course, to hear was to obey; and thus the goblin story, objected to by several critics as an excrescence upon the poem, was, in fact, the occasion of its being written.

A chance similar to that which dictated the subject, gave me also the hint of a new mode of treating it. We had at that time the lease of a pleasant cottage, near Lasswade, on the romantic banks of the Esk, to which we escaped when the vacations of the Court permitted me so much leisure. Here I had the pleasure to receive a visit from Mr. Stoddart, (now Sir John Stoddart, Judge-Advocate at Malta,) who was at that time collecting the particulars which he afterwards embodied in his Remarks on Local Scenery in Scotland.§ I was of some use to him in procuring the information which he desired, and guiding him to the scenes which he wished to see. In return, he made me better acquainted than I had hitherto been with the poetic effusions which have since made the Lakes of Westmoreland, and the authors by whom they have been sung, so famous wherever the English tongue is spoken.

I was already acquainted with the "Joan of Arc," the " Thalaba." and the " Metrical Ballads" of Mr. Southey, which had found their way to Scotland, and were generally admired. But Mr. Stoddart, who had the advantage of personal friendship with the authors, and who possessed a strong memory with an excellent taste, was able to repeat to me many long specimens of their poetry, which had not yet appeared in print. Amongst others, was the striking fragment called Christabel, by Mr. Coleridge, I This was Mr. Beattie of Mickledale, a man then considerably upwards of eighty, of a shrewd and sarcastic temper, which he did not at all times sup press, as the following anecdote will show: A worthy clergyman, now deceas ad, with better good-will than tact, was endeavouring to push the senior forward in his recollection of Border ballads and legends, by expressing reiteratel su prise at his wonderful memory. "No, sir," said old Mickledale; "my memory is good for little, for it cannot retain what ought to be preserved. I can remem ber all these stories about the anld riding days, which are of no earthly import ance; but were you, reverend sir, to repeat your best sermon in this drawingroom, I could not tell you half an hour afterwards what you had been speaking about,"

Two volumes, royal octavo, 1801.

INTRODUCTION TO THE LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL.

which, from the singularly irregular structure of the stanzas, and
the liberty which it allowed the author to adapt the sound to the
sense, seemed to be exactly suited to such an extravaganza as I
meditated on the subject of Gilpin Horner. As applied to comic
and humorous poetry, this mescolanza of measures had been
already used by Anthony Hall, Anstey, Dr. Wolcott, and others;
but it was in Christabel that I first found it used in serious poetry,
and it is to Mr. Coleridge that I am bound to make the acknow
ledzment due from the pupil to his master. I observe that Lord
Bron, in noticing my obligations to Mr. Coleridge, which I have
been always most ready to acknowledge, expressed, or was under-
stood to express, a hope, that I did not write an unfriendly review
en Mr. Coleridge's productions.* On this subject I have only to
say, that I do not even know the review which is alluded to; and
were I ever to take the unbecoming freedom of censuring a man
of Mr. Coleridge's extraordinary talents, it would be on account
of the caprice and indolence with which he has thrown from him,
if in mere wantonness, those unfinished scraps of poetry,
which, like the Torso of antiquity, defy the skill of his poetical
brethren to complete them. The charming fragments which the
thor abandons to their fate, are surely too valuable to be treated
Like the proofs of careless engravers, the sweepings of whose
stadios often make the fortune of some painstaking collector.
I did not immediately proceed upon my projected labour, though
I was now furnished with a subject, and with a structure of verse
which might have the effect of novelty to the public ear, and af
fed the author an opportunity of varying his measure with the
Fanations of a romantic theme. On the contrary, it was, to the
best of my recollection, more than a year after Mr. Stoddart's
, that, by way of experiment, I composed the first two or three
tanzas of "The Lay of the Last Minstrel." I was shortly after-
wards visited by two intimate friends, one of whom still survives.
They were men whose talents might have raised them to the
ghest station in literature, had they not preferred exerting them
their own profession of the law, in which they attained equal
ferment. I was in the habit of consulting them on my attempts
at composition, having equal confidence in their sound taste and
frendly sincerity. In this specimen I had, in the phrase of the
High and servant, packed all that was my own at least, for I had
also included a line of invocation, a little softened, from Cole-
nige-
"Mary, mother, shield us well."

As neither of my friends said much to me on the subject of the
stanzas I showed them before their departure, I had no doubt that
their disgust had been greater than their good-nature chose to
express Looking upon them, therefore, as a failure, I threw the
Panscript into the fire, and thought as little more as I could of
the matter. Some time afterwards I met one of my two counsel
lars, who inquired, with considerable appearance of interest,
bost the progress of the romance 1 had commenced, and was
really surprised at learning its fate. He confessed that neither
he nor our mutual friend had been at first able to give a precise
apnion on a poem so much out of the common road, but that as
they walked home together to the city, they had talked much on
the subject, and the result was an earnest desire that I would pro-
ed with the composition. He also added, that some sort of
prog might be necessary, to place the mind of the hearers in
the station to understand and enjoy the poem, and recommended
the adoption of such quaint mottoes as Spenser has used to
*Medwin's Conversations of Lord Byron, p. 309.

* Walter, elsewhere, in allusion to "Coleridge's beautiful and tantalizing fragment of Christabel," says, "Has not our own imaginative poet cause bear that future ages will desire to summon him from his place of rest, as Millan outed

To call up him who left half told
The story of Canbuscan bold ?'"

Notes to the Abbot.]

315

announce the contents of the chapters of the Faery Queen, such "Babe's bloody hands may not be cleansed.

as:

The face of gollen Mean:
Her sisters two, Extremities,

Her strive to banish clean."

I entirely agreed with my friendly critic in the necessity of having
some sort of pitch-pipe, which might make readers aware of the
object, or rather the tone, of the publication. But I doubted
whether, in assuming the oracular style of Spenser's mottoes, the
interpreter might not be censured as the harder to be understood
of the two. I therefore introduced the Old Minstrel, as an appro-
priate prolocutor, by whom the lay might be sung, or spoken, and
the introduction of whom betwixt the cantos, might remind the
reader at intervals, of the time, place, and circumstances of the
recitation. This species of cadre, or frame, afterwards afforded
the poemn its name of "The Lay of the Last Minstrel."
The work was subsequently shown to other friends during its
progress, and received the imprimatur of Mr. Francis Jeffrey,
who had been already for some time distinguished by his critical
talent.
The poem, being once licensed by the critics as fit for the mar
ket, was soon finished, proceeding at about the rate of a canto
per week. There was, indeed, little occasion for pause or hesita
tion, when a troublesome rhyme might be accommodated by an
alteration of stanza, or where an incorrect measure might be re-
medied by a variation in the rhyme. It was finally published in
1805, and may be regarded as the first work in which the writer,
who has been since so voluminous, laid his claim to be considered
as an original author.

The book was published by Longman and Company, and Archibald Constable and Company. The principal of the latter firm was then commencing that course of bold and liberal industry which was of so much advantage to his country, and might have been so to himself, but for causes which it is needless to enter into here. The work, brought out on the usual terms of division of profits between the author and publishers, was not long after purchased by them for 5004, to which Messrs. Longman and Company afterwards added 1007., in their own unsolicited kindness, in consequence of the uncommon success of the work. It was handsomely given to supply the loss of a fine horse, which broke down suddenly while the author was riding with one of the worthy publishers.§

expected some success from "The Lay of the Last Minstrel." It would be great affectation not to own frankly, that the author The attempt to return to a more simple and natural style of poetry tired of heroic hexameters, with all the buckram and binding which was likely to be welcomed, at a time when the public had become belong to them of later days. But whatever might have been his expectations, whether moderate or unreasonable, the result left them far behind, for among those who smiled on the adventurous Minstrel, were numbered the great names of William Pitt and Charles Fox. Neither was the extent of the sale inferior to the character of the judges who received the poem with approbation. by the trade; and the author had to perform a task difficult to Upwards of thirty thousand copies of the Lay were disposed of human vanity, when called upon to make the necessary deductions from his own merits, in a calm attempt to account for his popularity. A few additional remarks on the author's literary attempts after this period, will be found in the Introduction to the Poem of Marmion.

ABBOTSFORD, April, 1830.

One of these, William Erskine, Esq. (Lord Kinnedder.) I have often had occasion to mention, and though I may hardly be thanked for disclosing the name of the other, yet I cannot hat state that the second is George Cranstoup Esq, now a Senator of the College of Justice by the title of Lord Corehouse. 1831.

$ [Mr. Owen Rees-Ed.]

THE LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL.

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE CHARLES, EARL OF DALKEITH,

THIS POEM IS INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR.