The Poetical Works of Sir Walter Scott. Edited, with a critical memoir, by W. M. Rossetti. Illustrated by T. Seccombe

Front matter

THE POETICAL WORKS OF SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART. .'-^Atv st£_L\Vty. ,.x£cJsAt) _n, CticPUAOxC cl/rlÆ. attea&. __£__■ Jll&l __^1___tAa/sU/4C -??2^54Æt-4<6Æ-t^c?t--i5%^ÆÆi. THE POETICAL WORKS OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. EDITED, WITH A CRITICAL MEMOIR, BY WILLIAM MICHAEL ROSSETTI. ILLUSTRATED BY THOMAS SECCOMBE. LONDON : E. MOXON, SON, & CO., DOVER STREET. 1870. CONTENTS FAGE Prefatory Notice by W. M. Rossetti . vii The Lay of the Last Minstrel . . . i Marmion : A Tale of Flodden Field ... 64 The Lady of the Lake . . 188 The Vision of Don Roderick .... 288 Rokeby ....... 307 The Bridal of Triermain ; or, The Vale of St John . ,408 The Lord of the Isles ..... 458 BALLADS. Glenfinlas ; or, Lord Ronald's Coronach . . 550 The Eve of St John ..... 556 Cadyow Castle . . . . . . 561 The Gray Brother. A Fragment . . . 566 Thomas the Rhymer.

In Three Parts . . . 569 War Song of the Royal Edinburgh Light Dragoons 577 MISCELLANEOUS. Helvellyn ...... 579 The Maid of Toro . . . . ' 580 The Palmer ...... 580 Wandering Willie , 581 The Maid of Neidpath ..... CONTENTS. VI PAGE The Bard's Incantation. Written under the threat of Invasion, in the Autumn of 1804 . . . 5^3 To a Lady. With Flowers from a Roman Wall . 584 The Violet ...... 585 Hunting Song ...... 585 The Resolve. In Imitation of an old English Poem . 5S6 The Dying Bard ...... 587 The Norman Horse-Shoe .... 587 The Poacher ...... 5S8 Song ....... 59i Epitaph ....... 592 TRANSLATIONS AND IMITATIONS OF GERMAN BALLADS. The Wild Huntsman ..... 593 William and Helen . . . . . 59S The Fire-King ...... 604 Frederick and Alice ..... 607 The Erl- King. From the German of Goethe ' . . 609 Notes . . . . . . .611 PREFATORY NOTICE.

Walter Scott is, part passu with Lord Byron (and still more signally in the popular sense), the British-born author of by far the greatest world-wide fame among all who have flourished within a century past. Dickens might be added to their company so far as prose-writing is concerned : the double tiara of prose and of poetry belongs to Scott alone among the three. He was born in Edinburgh on the 15th of August 1 771 (the same day of the month as the great Napoleon, but two years later on), and died at Abbotsford, the creation of his own genius and enthusiasm, on the 21st of September 1832. This space of but sixty-one years must always seem short to his admirers for the multifarious product and activity of his life — a life in which literary exertion, though the pre dominant, was by no means the sole, thing open to the notice of his contemporaries.

Preface

TO THE FIRST EDITION, 1805. The Poem now offered to the Public is intended to illustrate the customs and manners, which anciently prevailed on the Borders of England and Scot land. The inhabitants, living in a state partly pastoral and partly warlike, and combining habits of constant depredation with the influence of a rude spirit of chivalry, were often engaged in scenes highly susceptible of poetical ornament. As the description of scenery and manners was more the object of the Author, than a combined and regular narrative, the plan of the ancient metrical romance was adopted, which allows greater latitude, in this respect, than would be consistent with the dignity of a regular poem. The same model offered other facilities, as it permits an occasional alteration of measure, which, in some degree, authorises the changes of rhythm in the text.

The machinery also, adopted from popular belief, would have seemed puerile in a poem, which did not partake of the rudeness of the old Ballad, or Metrical Romance. For these reasons, the Poem was put into the mouth of an ancient Minstrel, the last of the race, who, as he is supposed to have survived the Revolution, might have caught somewhat of the refinement of modern poetry, without losing the simplicity of his-original model. The date of the tale itself is about the middle of the sixteenth century, when most of the personages actually flourished. The time occupied by the action is three nights and three days.