Page:Marmion - Walter Scott (ed. Bayne, 1889).pdf/323

 sive plantations have so much improved the country around. The glen is romantic and delightful, with steep banks on each side, covered with copse, particularly with hawthorn. Beneath a tall rock, near the bridge, is a plentiful fountain, called St. Helen's Well.'—

That James was credited by his contemporaries with military skill and ample courage will be seen by reference to Barclay's 'Ship of Fooles,' formerly referred to. The poet proposes a grand general European movement against the Turks, and suggests James IV as the military leader. The following complimentary acrostic is a feature of the passage:—

l. 583. Sullen is admirably descriptive of the leading feature in the appearance of the Till just below Twisel Bridge. No one con trasting it with the Tweed at Norham will have difficulty in understanding the saying that:

'''Stanza XX. l. 608.' The earlier editions have vails, 'lowers' or 'checks’; as in Venus and Adonis, 956, 'She vailed her eyelids.' The edition of 1833 reads vails'', contr. for 'avails.'

l. 610. Douglas and Randolph were two of Bruce's most trusted leaders.

l. 611. See anecdote in 'Border Minstrelsy,' ii. 245 ( 1833 ed.), with its culmination, 'O, for one hour of Dundee!' Cp. 'Pleasures of Hope' (close of Poland passage):—

and Wordsworth's sonnet, 'In the Pass of Killicranky,' in which the aspiration for 'one hour of that Dundee' is prompted by the fear of an invasion in 1803.

'''Stanza XXI. l. 626.''' Hap what hap, come what may. Cp. above 'tide what tide,' III. 416.

l. 627. Basnet, a light helmet.

'''Stanza XXIII. l. 682.''' 'The reader cannot here expect a full account of the Battle of Flodden: but, so far as is necessary to understand the romance, I beg to remind him, that, when the