Notes and Queries, Number 72, March 15, 1851 | Page 4

monument, while the haughty Baron himself was buried like a vulgar corpse on the spot where he died."
Had the reviewer attempted to penetrate a little deeper into the workings of the author's mind, he would have seen in this circumstance much more than "an admirably imagined act of poetical {204} justice." He would have perceived in it the ultimate and literal fulfilment of the whole penalty foreshadowed to the delinquent baron in the two concluding stanzas of that beautiful and touching song sung by Fitz-Eustace in the Hostelrie of Gifford in the third canto of the poem, which I here transcribe:
"Where shall the traitor rest, He the deceiver, Who could win maiden's breast, Ruin, and leave her? In the lost battle Borne down by the flying, Where mingles war's rattle, With groans of the dying-- There shall he be lying. Her wing shall the eagle flap O'er the false-hearted, His warm blood the wolf shall lap Ere life be parted. Shame and dishonour sit By his grave ever; Blessing shall hallow it, Never, O never!"
Then follows the effect produced upon the conscience of the "Traitor," described in these powerful lines:--
"It ceased. the melancholy sound; And silence sunk on all around. The air was sad; but sadder still It fell on Marmion's ear, And plain'd as if disgrace and ill, And shameful death, were near." &c. &c. &c.
And lastly, when the life of the wounded baron is ebbing forth with his blood on the field of battle, when--
"The Monk, with unavailing cares Exhausted all the Church's prayers-- Ever, he said, that, close and near, A lady's voice was in his ear, And that the priest he could not hear-- For that she ever sung, 'In the lost battle, borne down by the flying, Where mingles war's rattle with groans of the dying!'-- So the notes ring."
I am the more disposed to submit these remarks to your readers, because it is highly interesting to trace an irresistible tendency in the genius of this mighty author towards the fulfilment of prophetic legends and visions of second sight: and not to extend this paper to an inconvenient length, I purpose to resume the subject in a future number, and collate some other examples of a similar character from the works of Sir Walter Scott.
I write from the southern slopes of Cheviot, almost within sight of the Hill of Flodden. During the latter years of the great Border Minstrel, I had the happiness to rank myself among the number of his friends and acquaintances, and I revere his memory as much as I prized his friendship.
A BORDERER.
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GLOUCESTERSHIRE PROVINCIALISMS.
To burl, burling; to shunt, &c.--In the report of the evidence regarding the death of Mrs. Hathway, at Chipping Sodbury, supposed to have been poisoned by her husband, the following dialectical expression occurs, which may deserve notice. One of the witnesses stated that he was invited by Mr. Hathway to go with him into a beer-house in Frampton Cotterell, "and have a tip," but he declined.
"Mr. H. went in and called for a quart of beer, and then came out again, and I went in. He told me 'to burl out the beer, as he was in a hurry;' and I 'burled' out a glass and gave it to him."--Times, Feb. 28.
I am not aware that the use of this verb, as a provincialism, has been noticed; it is not so given by Boucher, Holloway, or Halliwell. In the Cumberland dialect, a birler, or burler, is the master of the revels, who presides over the feast at a Cumberland bidden-wedding, and takes especial care that the drink be plentifully provided. (Westmoreland and Cumberland Dialects, London, 1839.)
Boucher and Jamieson have collected much regarding the obsolete use of the verb to birle, to carouse, to pour out liquor. See also Mr. Dyce's notes on Elynour Rummyng, v. 269. (Skelton's Works, vol. ii. p. 167.). It is a good old Anglo-Saxon word--byrlian, propinare, haurire. In the Wycliffite versions it occurs repeatedly, signifying to give to drink. See the Glossary to the valuable edition lately completed by Sir F. Madden and Mr. Forshall.
In the Promptorium Parvulorum, vol i. p. 51., we find--
"Bryllare of drynke, or schenkare: Bryllyn, or schenk drynke, propino: Bryllynge of drynke," &c.
Whilst on the subject of dialectical expressions, I would mention an obsolete term which has by some singular chance recently been revived, and is actually in daily use throughout England in the railway vocabulary--I mean the verb "to shunt." Nothing is more common than to see announced, that at a certain station the parliamentary "shunts" to let the Express pass; or to hear the order--"shunt that truck," push it aside, off the main line. In the curious ballad put forth in 1550, called "John Nobody" (Strype's Life of Cranmer, App. p. 138.), in derision