MARMION;

A TALE OF FLODDEN FIELD.

Who, born to guide such high emprise,
For Britain's weal was early wise;
Alas! to whom the Almighty gave,
For Britain's sins, an early grave;
His worth, who, in his mightiest hour,
A bauble held the pride of power,
Spurned at the sordid lust of pelf,
And served his Albion for herself;
Who, when the frantic crowd amain
Strained at subjection's bursting rein,*
O'er their wild mood full conquest gained,
The pride, he would not crush, restrained,
Showed their fierce zeal a worthier cause,
And brought the freeman's arm to aid the free-
man's laws.

Had'st thou but lived, though stripped of power,+
A watchman on the lonely tower,

Thy thrilling trump had roused the land,
When fraud or danger were at hand;
By thee, as by the beacon-light,
Our pilots had kept course aright;

As some proud column, though alone,

Thy strength had propped the tottering throne.
Now is the stately coluinn broke,

The beacon-light is quenched in smoke,
The trumpet's silver sound is still,
The warder silent on the hill!

O, think, how to his latest day,S

When death, just hovering, claimed his prey,
With Palinure's unalter'd mood,
Firm at his dangerous post he stood;
Each call for needful rest repelled,
With dying hand the rudder held,'
Till, in his fall, with fateful sway,
The steerage of the realm gave way!
Then, while on Britain's thousand plains
One unpolluted church remains,
Whose peaceful bells ne'er sent around
The bloody tocsin's maddening sound,
But still, upon the hallowed day,ll
Convoke the swains to praise and
pray
While faith and civil peace are dear,
Grace this cold marble with a tear,-
He, who preserved them, PITT, lies here!

MA

Nor yet suppress the generous sigh,
Because his rival slumbers nigh;
Nor be thy requiescat dumb,
Lest it be said o'er Fox's tomb.T
For talents mourn, untimely lost,
When best employed, and wanted most;
Mourn genius high, and lore profound,
And wit that loved to play, not wound;
And all the reasoning powers divine,
To penetrate, resolve, combine;
And feelings keen, and fancy's glow,-
They sleep with him who sleeps below:

[MS.-"Tugg'd at subjection's cracking rein."]
MS-" Showed their bo`d zeal a worthier cause."]

"And, if thou mourn'st they could not save
From error him who owns this grave,
Be every harsher thought suppressed,
And sacred be the last long rest.
Here, where the end of earthly things
Lays heroes, patriots, bards, and kings;
Where stiff the hand, and still the tongue,
Of those who fought, and spoke, and sung;
Here, where the fretted aisles prolong
The distant notes of holy song,

As if some angel spoke agen,

All peace on earth, good-will to men;
If ever from an English heart,

O here let prejudice depart,

And, partial feeling cast aside,**
Record, that Fox a Briton died!

When Europe crouched to France's yoke,
And Austria bent, and Prussia broke,
And the firm Russian's purpose brave
Was bartered by a timorous slave,
Even then dishonour's peace he spurn'd,
The sullied olive-branch returned,
Stood for his country's glory fast,
And nailed her colours to the mast!
Heaven, to reward his firmness, gave
A portion in this honoured grave;
And ne'er held marble in its trust
Of two such wond'rous men the dust.tt

With more than mortal powers endowed,
How high they soared above the crowd!
Theirs was no common party race,‡‡
Jostling by dark intrigue for place;
Like fabled Gods, their mighty war
Shook realms and nations in its jar:
Beneath each banner proud to stand,
Looked up the noblest of the land,

Till through the British world were known
The names of PITT and Fox alone.
Spells of such force no wizard grave
E'er framed in dark Thessalian cave,
Though his could drain the ocean dry,
And force the planets from the sky.ss
These spells are spent, and, spent with these,
The wine of life is on the lees,

Genius, and taste, and talent gone,

For ever tombed beneath the stone,

Where taming thought to human pride!-
The mighty chiefs sleep side by side.
Drop upon Fox's grave the tear,
"Twill trickle to his rival's bier;
O'er PITT's the mourful requiem sound,
And Fox's shall the notes rebound.
The solemn echo seems to cry,-
"Here let their discord with them die;
Speak not for those a separate doom,
Whom fate made brothers in the tomb;
But search the land of living men,
Where wilt thou find their like agen?"

Nelson, Pitt, and Fox, exhibits a remarkable failure. We are

This paragraph was interpolated on the blank page of the unwilling to quarrel with a poet on the score of politics; but the

We insert the lines as they appear there:

"O had he livedl, though stripped of power,

Like a lone watchman on the tower,
His thrilling trumpet through the land
Had warn'd when foemen were at hand,
As by some beacon's lonely light,
By thee our course had steer'd aright;,
Our steady conrse had steer'd aright;
Our pilots kept their course aright;
His single mind, unbent by fate,

Had propp'd his country's tottering weight;
tall column left alone,

As some

vast

manner in which he has chosen to praise the last of these great
men, is more likely, we conceive, to give offence to his admirers,
than the most direct censure. The only deed for which he is
praised is for having broken off the negotiation for peace; and
for this act of firmness, it is added, Heaven rewarded him with
a share in the honoured grave of Pitt! It is then said that his
errors should be forgotten, and that he died a Briton-a pretty
plain insinuation that, in the Author's opinion, he did not live
one; and just such an encomium as he himself pronounces over
the grave of his villain hero, Marmion."-JEFFREY.]
II [MS. Theirs was no common courtier race."]
$$ MS. And force the pale moon from the sky."I
[Reader! remember when thou wert a fad,
Then Pitt was all; or, if not all, so much,
His very rival almost deem'd him such.
We, we have seen the intellectual race
Of giants, stand, like Titans, face to face;
Athos and Ida, with a dashing sea

Of eloquence between, which flowed all free,
As the deep billows of the Ærean roar
Betwixt the Hellenic and the Phrygian shore.
But where are they-the rivals!-a few feet
Of sullen earth divide each winding sheet.
How peaceful and how powerful is the grave,
Which hushes all! a calm unstormy wave
Which oversweeps the world. The theme is old
Of dust to dust; but half its tale untold;
Time tempers not its terrors."-

BYRON'S Age of Bronze.]

Rest, ardent Spirits! till the cries
Of dying Nature bid you rise;

Not even your Britian's groans can pierce
The leaden silence of your hearse:
Then, O, how impotent and vain
This grateful tributary strain!

Though not unmarked, from northern clime,
Ye heard the Border Minstrel's rhyme:

His Gothic harp has o'er you rung;

The bard you deign'd to praise, your deathless
names has sung.

Stay yet allusion, stay awhile,
My wildered fancy still beguile!
From this high theme how can I part,
Ere half unloaded is my heart!
For all the tears e'er sorrow drew,
And all the raptures fancy knew,
And all the keener rush of blood,

That throbs through bard in bard-like mood,
Were here a tribute mean and low,

Though all their mingled streams could flow.
Wo, wonder, and sensation high,
In one spring-tide of ecstasy!-
It will not be-it may not last-
The vision of enchantment's past:
Like frost-work in the morning ray,
The fancied fabric melts away;*
Each Gothic arch, inemorial stone,
And long, dim, lofty aisle are gone,
And, lingering last, deception dear,
The choir's high sounds die on my ear.
Now slow return the lonely down,
The silent pastures bleak and brown,
The farm begirt with copse-wood wild,
The gambols of each frolic child,
Mixing their shrill cries with the tone
Of Tweed's dark waters rushing on.
Prompt on unequal tasks to run,
Thus Nature disciplines her son:
["If but a beam of sober reason play.
Lo! Fancy's fairy frostwork melts away.'
ROGERS' Pleasures of Memory.]
↑ [MS.-" Though oft he stops to wonder still
That his old legends have the skill
To win so well the attentive ear,
Perchance to draw the sigh or tear."1
The Romance of the Morte Arthur contains a sort of abridg
ment of the most celebrated adventures of the Round Table;
and, being written in comparatively modern language, gives the
general reader an excellent idea of what romances of chivalry
actually were. It has also the merit of being written in pure old
Eagle h; and many of the wild adventures which it contains are
told with a simplicity bordering upon the sublime. Several of
these are referred to in the text; and I would have illustrated
tem by more full extracts. but as this curious work is about to
brepublished, I confine myself to the tale of the Chapel Perilous,
and of the quest of Sir Launcelot after the Sangreal.

“Rich so Sir Launcelot departed; and when he came to the Chapell Perilous, he alighted downe, and tied his horse to a little cate. And as soon as he was within the church yard, he saw, the front of the chapell, many fayre rich shields turned upside downe, and many of the shields Sir Launcelot had seene knights have before: with that he saw stand by him thartic great knights; te, by a yard, than any man that ever he had seene, and all se grinned and gnashed at Sir Launcelot; and when he saw bir countenance, hee dread them sore, and so put his shield ore him, and tooke his sword in his hand, ready to doc battaile; and they were all armed in black harncis, ready, with their shields and swords drawn. And when Sir Launcelot would have ge through them, they scattered on every side of him, and gave m the way; and therewith he waxed all bold, and entered into the chapell, and then hee saw no light but a dimme lampe barn ing, and then was hee ware of a corps covered with a cleath of ke: then Sir Launcelot stooped downe, and cut a piece of that cloath away, and then it fared under him as the earth had qaked a little, whereof he was afeared, and then he saw a fayre sword lye by the dead knight, and that he gat in his hand, and hed him out of the chapell. As soon as he was in the chapell perd, all the knights spoke to him with a grimly voice, and spid, Knight Sir Launcelot, lay that sword from thee, or else thou shalt die. Whether I live or die,' said Sir Launcelot, with no cheat words get yee it againe, therefore fight for it and yee list." There with be passed through them; and, beyond the chapell yerd. there met him a fair damosel, and said. Sir Launcelot, leave that sword behind thee, or thou wilt die for it. I will not have it,' said Sir Launcelot, for no threats No!' said she. and ye did leave that sword, queene Guenever should ye never SeeThen were I a foole and I would leave this sword,' said Sir Launcelot Now, gentle knight,' said the damosel, 'I rere thee to kiss me once. Nay,' said Sir Lancelot, that, God forbad! Well, Sir,' said she, and thou haddest kissed me, the life dayes had been done; but now, alas !' said she. I have lost all my labour; for I ordained this chapell for thy sake, and for Sir Gawaine and once I had Sir Gawaine within it; and at VOL. L-2 V

Meeter, she says, for me to stray,
And waste the solitary day,

In plucking from yon fen the reed,
And watch it floating down the Tweed:
Or idly list the shrilling lay

With which the milk-maid cheers her way,
Marking its cadence rise and fail,
As from the field, beneath her pail,
She trips it down the uneven dale:
Meeter for me, by yonder cairn,
The ancient shepherd's tale to learn,
Though oft he stop in rustic fear,t
Lest his old legends tire the ear
Of one, who, in his simple mind,
May boast of book-learn'd taste refined.

But thou, my friend, canst fitly tell,
(For few have read romance so well,)
How still the legendary lay

O'er poet's bosom holds its sway;
How on the ancient minstrel strain
Time lays his palsied hand in vain ;
And how our hearts at doughty deeds,
By warriors wrought in steely weeds,
Still throb for fear and pity's sake;
As when the champion of the lake
Enters Morgana's fated house,
Or in the Chapel Perilous,
Despising spells and demon's force,
Holds converse with the unburied corse ;+
Or when, dame Ganore's grace to move,
(Alas! that lawless was their love,)
He sought proud Tarquin in his den,
And freed full sixty knights; or when,
A sinful man, and unconfessed,
He took the Sangreal's holy quest,
And, slumbering, saw the vision high,
He might not view with waking eye.s

The mightiest chiefs of British song
Scorned not such legends to prolong:

that time he fought with that knight which there lieth dead in yonder chapell. Sir Gilbert the bastard, and at that time he smote off Sir Gilbert the bastard's left hand. And so, Sir Launcelot, now I tell thee, that I have loved thee this seaven yeare; but there may no women have thy love but queene Guenever; but sithen I may not rejoyce to have thy body alive, I had kept no more joy in this world but to have had thy dead body; and I would have balmed it and served, and so have kept it in my life duies, and daily I should have clipped thee, and kissed thee in the despite of queen Guenever.' Yee say well,' said Sir Launcelot, Jesus preserve me from your subtill craft! And therewith he took his horse, and departed from her."

One day, when Arthur was holding a high feast with his knights of the round table, the Sangreal, or vessel out of which the last passover was eaten, a precious relic, which had long remained concealed from human eyes, because of the sins of the land, suddenly appeared to him and all his chivalry. The consequence of this vision was, that all the knights took on them a solemn vow to seck the Sangreal. But, alas! it could only be revealed to a knight at once accomplished in earthly chivalry, and pure and guiltless of evil conversation. All Sir Launcelot's noble accom plishments were therefore rendered vain by his guilty intrigue with queen Guenever, or Ganore; and in his holy quest he encountered only such disgraceful disasters, as that which follows: "But Sir Launcelot rode overthwart and endlong in a wild forest, and held no path, but as wild adventure led him; and at the last, he came unto a stone crosse, which departed two wayes, in wast land; and by the crosse, was a stone that was of narble; but it was so darke, that Sir Launcelot might not well know what it was. Then Sir Launcelot looked by him, and saw an old chappell, and there he wend to have found people. And so Sir Launcelot tied his horse to a tree, and there hee put off his shield, and hung it upon a tree, and then hee went unto the chap pell door, and found it wasted and broken. And within he found a fayre altar, full richly arrayed with cloth of silk, and there stood a faire candlesticke, which beare six great candles, and the cun dlesticke was of silver. And when Sir Launcelot saw this light, hee had a great will for to enter into the chappell, but hee could find no place where he might enter. Then was he passing heavie and disaied. Then he returned, and came againe to his horse, and tooke off his saddle and his bridle, and let him pasture, and unlaced his beline, and ungirded his sword, and laid him downo to sleepe upon his shield before the crosse.

"And so he fell on sleepe, and halfe waking and balfe sleeping, hee saw come by him two palfieys, both faire and white, the which beare a litter, therein lying a sicke knight. And when he was nigh the crosse, he there abode still. All this Sir Launcelot saw and behold, for hee slept not verily, and hee heard him say, 'Oh sweete Lord, when shall this sorrow leave me, and when shall the holy vess-l come by me, where through I shall be blessed, for I have ended thus long for little trespasse And thus a great while complained the knight, and allwates Sir Louncelot heard it. With that. Sir Launcelot saw the candlesticke, with the fire tapers, come before the cresse; but he could see no body that brought it. Also, there came a table of silver, and the

They gleam through Spenser's elfin dream,
And mix in Milton's heavenly theme;
And Dryden, in immortal strain,
Had raised the Table Round again,*
But that a ribald king and court
Bade him toil on, to make them sport;
Demanded for their niggard pay,
Fit for their souls, a looser lay,
Licentious satire, song, and play:†

The world defrauded of the high design,+
Profaned the God-given strength, and marred the
lofty line.

Warmed by such names, well may we then,
Though dwindled sons of little men,
Essay to break a feeble lance

In the fair fields of old Romance;
Or seek the moated castle's cell,

Where long through talisman and spell,
While tyrants ruled, and damsels wept,
Thy Genius, Chivalry, hath slept :
There sound the harpings of the North,
Till he awake and sally forth,
On venturous quest to prick again,
In all his arms, with all his train,

Shield, lance, and brand, and plume, and scarf;
Fay, giant, dragon, squire, and dwarf,
And wizard, with his wand of might,
And errant maid on palfrey white.
Around the Genius weave their spells,
Pure Love, who scarce his passion tells;
Mystery, half veiled and half revealed;
And Honour, with his spotless shield;"
Attention, with fixed eye; and Fear,
That loves the tale she shrinks to hear;

holy vessell of the Sancgreall, the which Sir Launcelot had seen
before that time in King Petchour's house. And therewithall the
sicke knight set him upright, and held up both his hands, and
said, Faire sweete Lord, which is here within the holy vessell,
take heede to mee, that I may be hole of this great malady.'"
And there with upon his hands and upon his knees, he went so
nigh, that he touched the holy vessell, and kissed it: And anon
he was hole, and then he said, 'Lord God, I thank thee, for I am
healed of this malady.' So when the holy vessell had been there
a great while, it went into the chappell againe with the candle-
sticke and the light, so that Sir Launcelot wist not where it be-
came, for he was overtaken with sinne, that hee had no power
to arise against the holy vessell, wherefore afterward many men
said of him shame. But he tooke repentance afterward. Then
the sicke knight dressed him upright, and kissed the crosse. Then
anon his squire brought him his armes, and asked his lord how he
did. Certainly,' said hee, I thanke God, right heartily, for
through the holy vessell I am healed: but I have right great mer-
vaile of this sleeping knight, which hath had neither grace nor
power to awake during the time that this holy vesseli hath beene
here present.'-'I dare it right well say,' said the squire, that
this same knight is defouled with some manner of deadly sinne,
whereof he has never confessed.'- By my faith,' said the knight,
'whatsoever he be, he is unhappie; for, as I deeme, hee is of the
fellowship of the round table, the which is entered into the quest
of the Sancgreall.'- Sir,' said the squire, 'here I have brought
you all your armes, save your helme and your sword; and there-
fore, by mine assent, now may ye take this knight's helme and
his sword,' and so he did. And when he was cleane armed, he
took Sir Launcelot's horse, for he was better than his owne, and
so they departed from the crosse.

Then anon Sir Launcelot awaked, and set himselfe upright. and he thought him what hes had there seene, and whether it were eames or not: right so he heard a voice that said. Sir Launce of, more hardy then is the stone, and more bitter then is the wood, and more naked and bare than is the liefe of the fig tree, therefore go thou from hence, and withdraw thee from this holy place; and when Sir Launcelot heard this, he was passing heavy, and wist not what to do. And so he departed sore weeping, and cursed the time that he was borne; for then he deemed never to have had more worship; for the words went unto his heart; till that he knew wherefore that hee was so called."

Drydea's melancholy account of his projected epic poem, blasted by the selfish and sordid parsimony of his patrons, is contained in an Essay on Satire," addressed to the earl of Dorset, and prefixed to the translation of Juvenal. After mentioning a plan of supplying machinery from the guardian angels of kingdoms, mentioned in the book of Daniel, he adds:

Thus, my lord, I bave, as briefly as I could, given your lordship, and by you the world, a rude draught of what I have been long labouring in my imagination, and what I had intended to have put in practice, (though far unable for the attempt of such a poem,) and to have left the stage, to which my genius never much inclined me, for a work which would have taken up my life in the performance of it. This, too, I had intended chiefly for the honour of my native country, to which a poet is particularly obliged. Of two subjects, both relating to it, I was doubtful whether I should choose that of King Arthur conquering the Saxons, which, being further distant in time, gives the greater scope to my invention; or that of Edward the black prince, in subduing Spain, and restoring it to the lawful prince, though a great tyrant, Don Pedro the Cruel; which, for the compass of

And gentle Courtesy; and Faith,
Unchanged by sufferings, time, or death;
And Valour, fion-mettled lord,'
Leaning upon his own good sword.

Well has thy fair achievement shown,
A worthy meed may thus be won;
Ytene's caks-beneath whose shade,
Their theme the merry minstrels made,
Of Ascapart, and Bevis bold, T

And that red king,** who, while of old,
Through Boldrewood the chase he led,"
By his loved huntsman's arrow bled-
Ytene's oaks have heard again
Renewed such legendary strain;
For thou hast sung, how he of Gaul,
That Amadis, so famed in hall,
For Oriana, foiled in fight
The necromancer's felon might;
And well in modern verse hast wove
Partenopex's mystic love :++
Hear then, attentive to my lay,
A knightly tale of Albion's elder day.

CANTO FIRST.

THE CASTLE.

I.

Day set on Norham's castled steep,#
And Tweed's fair river, broad and deep,

time, including only the expedition of one year, for the greatness
of the action, and its answerable event, for the magnanimity of
the English hero, opposed to the ingratitude of the person whom
he restored, and for the many beautiful episodes which I had in-
terwoven with the principal design, together with the characters
of the chiefest English persons, (wherein, after Virgil and Spen-
ser, I would have taken occasion to represent my living friends
and patrons of the noblest families, and also shadowed the events
of future ages in the succession of our imperial line.)-with these
helps, and those of the machines which I have mentioned, I
night perhaps have done as well as some of my predecessors.
or at least chalked out a way for others to amend my errors in a
like design; but being encouraged only with fair words by King
Charles II., my little salary ill paid, and no prospect of a future
subsistence, I was then discouraged in the beginning of my at-
tempt; and now age has overtaken me, and want, a more insuf-
ferable evil, through the change of the times, has wholly disa-
bled me."
[MS.-"Licentious song, lampoon, and play."
IIMS.-"The world defrauded of the bold design,
And quenched the heroic fire, and marr'd the lofty
line."
Profaned the heavenly

Again,

Profaned his God-given strength, and marr'd his lofty line."
[In the MS. the rest of the passage stands as follows:--
"Around him wait with all their charins,
spells,
S Virtue only warms,
Pure love which
scarce his passion tells;
Mystery, half seen and half conce l'd;
And Honour, with mospotted shield;
Attention, with fix'd eye; and Fear,
That loves the tale she shrinks to hear;
And gentle Courtesy; and Faith,

And Valour that despises death."]

The New Forest in Hampshire, anciently so called.

The History of Bevis of Hampton" is abridged by my friend Mr. George Ellis, with that liveliness which extracts amusement even out of the most rude and unpromising of our old tales of chivalry. Ascapart, a most important personage in the romance, is thus described in an extract:

This geaunt was mighty and strong,
And full thirty foot was long.

He was bristled like a sow:

A foot he had between each brow;
His lips were great, and hung aside:

His eyen were hollow, his mouth was w de;
Lothly he was to look on than,

And liker a devil than a man.

His staff was a young mak,

Hard and heavy was his stroke,"

Specimens of Metrical Romances, vol. îì. p. 136. I am happy to say, that the memory of Sir Bevis is still fragrant in his town of Southampton; the gate of which is sentinelled by the effigies of that doughty knight errant, and his gigantic associate. ** William Rufus.

[Partenoper de Blois, a pocm, by W. S. Rose, Esq., was pub lished in 1808.-ED.]

1: The ruinous castle of Norham, (anciently called Ubbandford.) is situated on the southern bank of the Tweed, about six miles above Berwick, and where that river is still the boundary between England and Scotland. The extent of its ruins, as well as its historical importance, shows it to have been a place of magnifi cence, as well as strength. Edward I. resided there when he