Marmion | Page 3

retiring annuity
provided in such cases, and admitted me to the full benefit of the
office.'
At Ashestiel Scott systematically planned his day. He had his mornings
for his multifarious work, and the after part of the day was given to
necessary recreation and to his friends. He was an ardent member of the
Edinburgh Light Horse, at a time when
volunteers of a practical and
energetic character seemed likely to be needed, and at Ashestiel he
combined a certain military routine with his legal and literary
arrangements. James Skene of Rubislaw, one of his best friends and
most frequent visitors, mentions that 'before beginning his desk-work in
the morning he uniformly visited his favourite steed, and neither

Captain nor Lieutenant, nor the Lieutenant's successor, Brown Adam
(so called after one of the heroes of the Minstrelsy), liked to be fed
except by him.' Skene is the friend to whom Scott addresses the
Introduction to Canto IV, charged with touching and beautiful
reminiscences of earlier days. They were comrades in the Edinburgh
Light Horse Volunteers, Scott being Quartermaster and Skene Cornet.
Their friendship had been one of eleven years' standing when the
dedicatory epistle was written:--
'Eleven years we now may tell,
Since we have known each other well;

Since, riding side by side, our hand
First drew the voluntary brand.'
With regard to the Introductions, it may now be said that they are better
where they are than if the poet had published them
separately, as at
one time he seems to have intended (see Notes, p. 187). It is sometimes
said by those anxious to learn the story that these introductory Epistles
should be steadily ignored, and the cantos read in strict succession. In
answer to an assertion of opinion like this, it is hardly necessary to say
more than that probably those interested in the narrative alone could
not do better than avoid the Introductions. But it will be well for them
to miss various other things besides: will they, for example, care for the
impassioned address of Constance to her judges, for the landlord's tale
of grammarye, for Sir David Lyndsay's narrative, or even for the many
descriptive passages that interrupt the free progress of the tale? Their
reading would appear to be done on the plan of those who get through
novels, or other works of imagination, by carefully omitting the
dialogue and all those passages in which the author pauses to describe
or to reflect. It is needless to say that this is not the spirit in which to
approach 'Marmion' as it stands. Scott wrote with his friends about him,
and it was part of his own enjoyment of his work to interest them in
what for the time was receiving the main part of his attention. His talk
with Mr. Morritt in front of the little cottage at Lasswade is highly
significant as illustrative of his attitude towards his friends. His healthy,
humorous, happy nature wanted sympathy, appreciation, sociality, and
good cheer for its complete normal development, and this alone would
explain the writing of the Introductions. But there is more than this. He
talked over his subject and his progress with friends competent to

discuss and advise, and he showed them portions of the poem as he
advanced. There are indications in the Introductions of certain
discussions that had arisen over his conception and treatment, and
surely few readers would like to miss from the volume the clever and
humorous apology for his own method which the poet advances in the
Introduction to the third canto. William Erskine, refined critic and
life-long friend, is asked to be patient and generous while the poet
proceeds in his own way:--
'Still kind, as is thy wont, attend,
And in the minstrel spare the friend,

Though wild as cloud, as stream, as gale,
Flow forth, flow
unrestrain'd, my Tale!'
Further, the Introductions do not in any case interrupt the progress of
the Poem. Scott was dealing with a great national theme--a cause he
and his friends could understand and appreciate--and both before
starting and at every pause he has something to say that is apposite and
suggestive. His country's wintry state is the key-note of the first
Introduction, which is an appropriate prelude to a great national tragedy;
weird Border legends and the touching and mysterious silences of lone
St. Mary's Lake fitly introduce the 'mysterious Man of Woe'; the third
and the fourth Introductions, with their features of personal interest and
their bright
reminiscences of 'tales that charmed' and scenes on 'the
field-day, or the drill,' are easily connected with the Hostel and the
Camp; Spenser's 'wandering Squire of Dames,' the vigorous description
of the 'Queen of the North,' and the tribute to the notes that 'Marie
translated, Blondel sung,' all tell in their due place as
preparatory to
the canto on The Court; while