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O vainly gleams with steel Agueda's shore,
Vainly thy squadrons hide Assuava's plain,
And front the flying thunders as they roar,

With frantic charge and tenfold odds in vain !+

*The French conducted this memorable retreat with much of the fanfarronade proper to their country, by which they attempt to impose upon others, and perhaps on themselves, a belief that they are triumphing in the very moment of their discomfiture. On the 30th March, 1811, their rear-guard was overtaken near Pega by the British cavalry. Being well posted, and conceiving them selves safe from infantry, (who were indeed many miles in the rear,) and from artillery, they indulged themselves in parading their bands of music, and actually performed "God save the King." Their minstrelsy was, however, deranged by the undesired accompaniment of the British horse-artillery, on whose part in the concert they had not calculated. The surprise was sudden, and the rout complete; for the artillery and cavalry did execution upon them for about four miles, pursuing at the gallop as often as they got beyond the range of the guns.

The literal translation of Fuentes d' Honoro.

And what avails thee that, for CAMERON slain,§ Wild from his plaided ranks the yell was givenVengeance and grief gave mountain rage the rein, And, at the bloody spear-point headlong driven, Thy Despot's giant guards fled like the rack of heaven.

XI.

Go, baffled boaster! teach thy haughty mood
To plead at thine imperious master's throne,
Say, thou hast left his legions in their blood,
Deceived his hopes, and frustrated thine own;
Say, that thine utinost skill and valour shown,
By British skill and valour were outvied
Last say, thy conqueror was WELLINGTON!
And if he chafe, be his own fortune tried-
God and our cause to friend, the venture we'll abide.

XII.

But you, ye heroes of that well-fought day,
How shall a bard, unknowing and unknown,
His meed to each victorious leader pay,

Or bind on every brow the laurels won ?
Yet fain my harp would wake its boldest tone,
O'er the wide sea to hail CADOGAN brave;
And he, perchance, the minstrel-note might own,
Mindful of meeting brief that Fortune gave
Mid yon far western isles that hear the Atlantic

rave.

is there one British heart, we believe, that will not feel proud and grateful for all the honours with which British genius can invest their names. In the praises which Mr. Scott bas bestowed, therefore, all his readers will sympathize; but for those which he has withheld, there are some that will not so readily forgive him; and in our eyes, we will confess, it is a sin not easily to be expiated, that in a poein written substantially for the purpose of commemorating the brave who have fought or fallen in Spain or Portugaland written by a Scotchman-there should be no mention of the name of MOORE!-of the only commander-in-chief who has fallen in this memorable contest;-of a commander who was acknowledged as the model and pattern of a British soldier, when British soldiers stood most in need of such an example; and was, at the same time, distinguished not less for every manly virtue and generous aflection, than for skill and gallantry in his profession. A more pure, or a more exalted character, certainly has not appeared upon that scene which Mr. Scott has sought to illustrate with the splendour of his genius; and it is with a mixture of shame and indignation, that we find him grudging a single ray of that profuse and readily yielded glory to gild the grave of his lamented countryman. To offer a lavish tribute of praise to the living, whose task is still incomplete, may be generous and munificent;-but to departed merit, it is due in strictness of justice. Who will deny that Sir John Moore was all that we have now said of him? or who will doubt that bis untimely death in the hour of victory, would have been eagerly seized upon by an im partial poet, as a noble theme for generous lamentation and eloquent praise? But Mr. Scott's political friends have fancied it for their interest to calumniate the memory of this illustrious and accomplished person,-and Mr. Scott has permitted the spirit of party to stand in the way, not only of poetical justice, but of pa

I In the severe action of Fuentes d' Honoro, upon 5th May, 1811, the grand mass of the French cavalry attacked the right of the British position, covered by two guns of the horse-artillery, and two squadrons of cavalry. After suffering considerably from the fire of the guns, which annoyed them in every attempt at formation, the enemy turned their wrath entirely towards them, distributed brandy among their troopers, and advanced to carry the field-pieces with the desperation of drunken fury. They were in nowise checked by the heavy loss which they sustained in this daring attempt, but closed, and fairly mingled with the British cavalry, to whom they bore the proportion of ten to one. Captain Ramsay, (let me be permitted to name a gallant countryman, who commanded the two guns, dismissed them at the gallop, and, putting himself at the head of the mounted artillery men, ordered them to fall upon the French, sabre-in-hand. This very unexpected conversion of artillerymen into dragoons, contri-triotic and generous feeling. buted greatly to the defeat of the enemy, already disconcerted by the reception they had met from the two British squadrons; and the appearance of some small reinforcements, notwithstanding the immense disproportion of force, put them to absolute rout. A colonel or major of their cavalry, and many prisoners, (almost all intoxicated,) remained in our possession. Those who con. sider for a moment the difference of the services, and how much an artilleryman is necessarily and naturally led to identify his his own safety and utility with abiding by the tremendous imple-out some emotions of sorrow and resentment. Bat they affect ment of war, to the exercise of which he is chiefly, if not excluavely, trained, will know how to estimate the presence of mind which commanded so bold a manœuvre, and the steadiness and confidence with which it was executed.

The gallant Colonel Cameron was wounded mortally during the desperate contest in the streets of the village called Fuentes d' Honoro He fell at the head of his native Highlanders, the 71st and 79th, who raised a dreadful shriek of grief and rage. They charged with irresistible fury, the finest body of French grenadiers ever seen, being a part of Bonaparte's selected guard, The officer who led the French, a man remarkable for stature and symmetry, was killed on the spot. The Frenchman who stepped out of his rank to take aim at Colonel Cameron, was also bayo neted, pierced with a thousand wounds, and almost torn to pieces by the furious Highlanders, who, under the command of Colonel Cadogan, bore the enemy out of the contested ground at the point of the bayonet. Massena pays my countrymen a singu lar compliment in his account of the attack and defence of this village, in which he says the British lost many officers, and Scotch.

(The Edinburgh Reviewer offered the following remarks on what he considered as an unjust omission in this part of the

poem:

We are not very apt," he says, "to quarrel with a poet for his politics; and really supposed it next to impossible that Mr. Scott should have given us any ground of dissatisfaction on this score, in the management of his present theme. Lord Wellington and his fellow soldiers well deserved the laurels they have won ;-nor

"It is this for which we grieve, and feel ashamed;-this hardening and deadening effect of political animosities, in cases where politics should have nothing to do:--this apparent perversion, not merely of the judgment but of the heart-this implacable re sentment, which wars not only with the living but with the dead; and thinks it a reason for defrauding a departed warrior of his glory, that a political antagonist has been zealous in his praise. These things are lamentable, and they cannot be alluded to with

not the fame of him on whose account these emotions are suggested. The wars of Spain, and the merits of Sir John Moore, will be commemorated in a more impartial and more imperishable record, than the Vision of Don Roderick; and his humble monument in the Citadel of Corunna, will draw the tears and the admiration of thousands, who concern not themselves about the exploits of his more fortunate associates."-Edinburgh Review, vol. xviii. 1811.

The reader who desires to understand Sir Walter Scott's deliberate opinion on the subject of Sir John Moore's military character and conduct, is referred to the Life of Napoleon Bonaparte. But perhaps it may be neither unamusing nor uninstructive to consider, along with the diatribe just quoted from the Edinburgh Review, some reflections from the pen of Sir Walter Scott himself on the injustice done to a name greater than Moore's in the noble stanzas on the Battle of Waterloo, in the third canto of Childe Harold-an injustice which did not call forth any rebuke from the Edinburgh critics. Sir Walter in reviewing this canto said,

"Childe Harold arrives on Waterloo-a scene where all men, where a poet especially, and a poet such as Lord Byron, must needs pause, and amid the quiet simplicity of whose scenery is excited a moral interest, deeper and more potent even than that which is produced by gazing upon the sublimest eflorts of Nature in her most romantic recesses.

"That Lord Byron's sentiments do not correspond with ours, is obvious, and we are sorry for both our sakes. For our own,because we have lost that note of triumph with which his harp

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O who shall grudge him Albuera's bays,*
Who brought a race regenerate to the field,
Roused them to emulate their fathers' praise,
Temper'd their headlong rage, their courage
steel'd,t

And raised fair Lusitania's fallen shield,

And gave new edge to Lusitania's sword, And taught her sons forgotten arms to wieldShiver'd my harp, and burst its every chord, If it forget thy worth, victorious BERESFORD! XV.‡

Not on that bloody field of battle won,

Though Gaul's proud legions roll'd like mist away,

Was half his self-devoted valour shown,

He gaged but life on that illustrious day; But when he toil'd those squadrons to array, Who fought like Britons in the bloody game, Sharper than Polish pike or assagay,

He braved the shafts of censure and of shame, And, dearer far than life, he pledged a soldier's fame.

would otherwise have rung over a field of glory such as Britain never reaped before; and on Lord Byron's account,-because it is melancholy to see a man of genius duped by the mere cant of words and phrases, even when facts are most broadly confronted with them. If the poet has mixed with the original, wild, and magnificent creations of his imagination, prejudices which he could only have caught by the contagion which he most professes to despise, it is he himself that must be the loser. If his lofty muse has soared in all her brilliancy over the field of Waterloo without dropping even one leaf of laurel on the head of Wellington, his merit can dispense even with the praise of Lord Byron. And as when the images of Brutus were excluded from the triumphal procession, his memory became only the more powerfully im printed on the souls of the Romans-the name of the British hero will be but more eagerly recalled to remembrance by the very lines in which his praise is forgotten."-Quarterly Review, vol. xvi. 1816.]

* [MS.-" O who shall grudge yon chief the victor's bays."] Nothing during the war of Portugal seems, to a distinct observer, more deserving of praise, than the self devotion of FieldMarshal Beresford, who was contented to undertake all the hazard of obloquy which might have been founded upon any miscarriage in the highly important experiment of training the Portuguese troops to an improved state of discipline. In exposing his military reputation to the censure of imprudence from the most moderate, and all manner of unutterable calumnies from the ignorant and malignant, he placed at stake the dearest pledge which a military man had to offer, and nothing but the deepest conviction of the high and essential importance attached to suc cess can be supposed an adequate motive. How great the chanec of miscarriage was supposed, may be estimated from the genera opinion of officers of unquestioned talents and experience. possessed of every opportunity of information; how completely the experiment has succeeded, and how much the spirit and pa triotismn of our ancient allies had been underrated, is evident, not only from those victories in which they have borne a distinguished share, but from the liberal and highly honourable manner in which these opinions have been retracted. The success of this plan, with all its important consequences, we owe to the indefatigable

exertions of Field-Marshal Beresford.

1 [MS. "Not greater on that mount of strife and blood,
While Gaul's proud legions roll'd like mist away,
And tides of gore stained Albuera's flood,
And Poland's shatter'd lines before him lay,
And clarions hail'd him victor of the day.
Not greater when he toil'd yon legions to array,
"Twas life he perill'd in that stubborn game,
And life 'gainst honour when did soldier weigh?
But, self-devoted to his generous aim,
Far dearer than his life, the hero pledged his fame."]
[MS." Nor be his meed o'erpast who sadly tried

With valour's wreath to hide affection's wound,
To whom his wish Heaven for our weal denied."]
MS." From war to war the wanderer went his round,
Yet was his soul in Caledonia still;
Hers was his thought," &c.]

TIMS.

"fairy rill."

These lines excel the noisier and more general panegyrics of the commanders in Portugal, as much as the sweet and thrilling tones of the harp surpass an ordinary flourish of drums and trumpets."--Quarterly Review.

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The wanderer went; yet, Caledonia! still Thine was his thought in march and tented ground;

He dream'd mid Alpine cliffs of Athole's hill, And heard in Ebro's roar his Lyndoch's lovely rill.¶ XVII.

O hero of a race renown'd of old,

Whose war-cry oft has waked the battle-swell, Since first distinguish'd in the onset bold,

Wild sounding when the Roman rampart fell! By Wallace' side it rung the Southron's knell, Alderne, Kilsythe, and Tibber, own'd its fame Tummell's rude pass can of its terrors tell,

But ne'er from prouder field arose the name, Than when wild Ronda learn'd the conquering shout of GREME !**

XVIII.

But all too long, through seas unknown and dark, (With Spenser's parable I close my tale,)†† By shoal and rock hath steer'd my venturous

bark,

And landward now I drive before the gale. And now the blue and distant shore I hail, And nearer now I see the port expand, And now I gladly furl my weary sail,

And as the prow light touches on the strand, I strike my red-cross flag and bind my skiff to land.#

"Perhaps it is our nationality which makes us like better the tribute to General Grahame-though there is something, we be lieve, in the softness of the sentiment that will be felt, even by English readers, as a relief from the exceeding clamour and loud boastings of all the surrounding stanzas."- Edinburgh Review] ** This stanza alludes to the various achievements, of the warlike family of Grame, or Grahame. They are said by tradition, to have descended from the Scottish chief, under whose command his countrymen stormed the wall built by the Emperor Soverus between the Friths of Forth and Clyde, the fragments of which are still popularly called Grame's Dyke. Sir John the Gre "the hardy, wight, and wise," is well known as the friend of Sir William Wallace. Alderne, Kilsythe, and Tibbermuir, were scenes of the victories of the heroic Marquis of Montrose. The pass of Killycrankie is famous for the action between King Wil liam's forces and the Highlanders in 1689,

"Where glad Dundee in faint huzzas expired." It is seldom that one line can number so many heroes, and yet more rare when it can appeal to the glory of a living descendant in support of its ancient renown.

The allusions to the private history and character of General Grahame may be illustrated by referring to the eloquent and af fecting speech of Mr. Sheridan, upon the vote of thanks to the Victor of Barosa.

11 ["Now, strike your sailes, yee iolly mariners,
For we be come unto a quiet rode,
Where we must land some of our passengers,
And light this weary vessell of her lode,
Here she a while may make her safe abode,
Till she repaired have her tackles spent
And wants supplide; and then againe abroad
On the long voiage whereto she is bent:
Well may she speede, and fairely finish her intent!"

Faerie Queene, Book i. Canto 12.1 I ["The Vision of Don Roderick has been received with less interest by the public than any of the author's other performan ces; and has been read, we should imagine, with some degree of disappointment even by those who took it up with the most rea sonable expectations. Yet it is written with very considerable spirit, and with more care and effort than most of the authors compositions-with a degree of effort, indeed, which could scarcely have failed of success, if the author had not succeeded so splendidly on other occasions without any effort at all. or had chosen any other subject than that which fills the cry of our ale house politicians, and supplies the gabble of all the quidnunes in this country, our depending campaigns in Spain and Portugal, -with the exploits of Lord Wellington and the spoliations of the French armies. The nominal subject of the poem, indeed, is the Vision of Don Roderick, in the eighth century;-but this is obvi ously a mere prelude to the grand piece of our recent battles, sort of machinery devised to give dignity and effect to their in troduction. In point of fact, the poem begins and ends with Lord Wellington; and being written for the benefit of the plandered Portuguese, and upon a Spanish story, the thing could not well have been otherwise. The public, at this moment, will listen to nothing about Spain, but the history of the Spanish war; and the old Gothic king, and the Moors, are considered, we dare say by Mr. Scott's most impatient readers, as very tedious interlopers in the proper business of the piece... The Poem has scarcely any story, and scarcely any characters; and consists, in truth, almost entirely of a series of descriptions, intermingled with

plaudits and execrations. The descriptions are many of them very fine, though the style is more turgid and verbose than in the better parts of Mr. Scott's other productions; but the invectives and acclamations are too vehement and too frequent to be either graceful or impressive. There is no climax or progression to relieve the ear, or stimulate the imagination. Mr. Scott sets out on the very highest pitch of his voice; and keeps it up to the end of the measure. There are no grand swells, therefore, or overpowering bursts in his song. All, from first to last, is loud, and clamorous, and obtrusive,-indiscriminately noisy, and often ineffectually exaggerated. He has fewer new images than in his other poetry-his tone is less natural and varied, and he moves, upon the whole, with a slower and more laborious space." ."-JEF FREY, 1811.

"No comparison can be fairly instituted between compositions so wholly different in style and designation as the present poem and Mr. Scott's former productions. The present poem neither has, nor, from its nature, could have the interest which arises from an eventful plot, or a detailed delineation of character; and we shall arrive at a far more accurate estimation of its merits by

comparing it with The Bard' of Gray, or that particular scene of Ariosto, where Bradamante beholds the wonders of Merlin's tomb. To this it has many strong and evident features of resemblance; but, in our opinion, greatly surpasses it both in the dignity of the objects represented, and the picturesque effect of the machinery. "We are inclined to rank The Vision of Don Roderick, not only above The Bard,' but, (excepting Adam's Vision from the Mount of Paradise, and the matchless beauties of the sixth book of Virgil,) above all the historical and poetical prospects which have come to our knowledge. The scenic representation is at once gorgeous and natural; and the language, and imagery, is altogether as spirited, and bears the stamp of more care and polish than even the most celebrated of the author's former productions. If it please us less than these, we must attribute it in part perhaps to the want of contrivance, and in a still greater degree to the nature of the subject itself, which is deprived of all the interest derived from suspense or sympathy, and, as far as it is connected with modern politics, represents a scene too near our immediate inspection to admit the interposition of the magic glass of fiction and poetry."-Quarterly Review, October, 1811.]

THE

LORD OF THE ISLES,

A POEM.

IN SIX CANTOS.

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