Page:Marmion - Walter Scott (ed. Bayne, 1889).pdf/229

 for the personified abstractions from l. 300 onwards) Montgomerie's allegory, 'The Cherrie and the Slae.'

'''l. 312. Ytene's oaks.''' 'The New Forest in Hampshire, anciently so called.'—. Gundimore, the residence of W. S. Rose, was in this neighbourhood, and in an unpublished piece entitled 'Gundimore,' Rose thus alludes to a visit of Scott's:—

l. 314. '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:—

'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.'-.

Introduction is written on a basis of regular four-beat couplets, each line being technically an iambic tetrameter; ll. 96, 205, and 283 are Alexandrines, or iambic hexameters, each serving to give emphasis and resonance (like the ninth of the Spenserian stanza) to the passage which it closes. Intensity of expression is given by the