upon the whole, the higher condition of mind, does not bring with it unmixed advantages—they may believe that, if our rugged ancestors gained thereby much of strength and practical energy in the hour of trial, they also lost much on the side of spontaneity and liveliness of feeling, and that this unyielding temper of the Northern nerves was derived, mainly, it may be, from their greater robustness, but also, to a certain degree, from their partial ossification. We can see something of the kind in the case of the Red Indian, who pays to this form of the point of honour an exaggerated devotion. By him we are regarded with pitying contempt, because, though tough enough in all conscience, tears are not absolutely prohibited. The spirit of the white man's heaven That is the view taken by a model Cherokee. Looked at from the other side, we might perhaps have appeared to the Greek of Homer's time much as the Huron, of legend it may be, rather than of history, now appears to us. To return, however, from this digression. The direct intervention of Zeus restores light to the Achæans. On Flodden, the fighting men of England are indebted to nothing more than the ordinary agencies of Nature. At length the freshening western blast A very fine and picturesque simile, by the way. Many of Scott's noble images miss their due meed of admiration, because he makes no fuss about them. Then mark'd they, dashing broad and far, The broken billows of the war, described, as Homer would have described them—the choicest troops of Scotland. It was there that Scotland was the strongest; with her left wing, far in the distance, defeat was busy— But Fortune, on the right, With fickle smile, cheer'd Scotland's fight. But still Lord Marmion's falcon flew The Border slogan rent the sky! Loud were the clanging blows; Advanced, forced back,- -now low, now high, As bends the bark's mast in the gale, When rent are rigging, shrouds, and sail, It waver'd 'mid its foes. Till, at the last, in spite of the gallant onset of Blount and his companions, like pine-tree rooted from the ground,' it falls not to rise again. Of the death of Marmion I shall say little more, than that ominous song of the Fourth Canto In the last battle, borne down by the flying, is repeated here, as it rises up before the soul of the doomed sinner, with solemn effect. But if these struggles of remorse and despair are finely painted, still finer is the poetic art, by the help whereof the warlike Baron is dismissed from life, whilst all the noble qualities of his nature are in the ascendant-like his wounds, it might perhaps be said, all in front. Hence, if we may so speak without irreverence, the first thing to strike the all-seeing eye, when the spirit comes before it for judgment—will not be its heartless treachery against Constance, nor the miserable self-seeking that made light of crime and dishonour to attain its ends; but the unselfish loyalty of a patriotic soldier and statesman, who loves his country so deeply that, when her interests are at stake, even the terrors of the grave cease to appal him; whatever may happen afterwards, it matters not. His last thought must be hers. The fact is, that Scott's ineradicable sympathy with a powerful and masculine character, depraved though it might be, and distorted from its original promise, led him, almost without his own consent, to keep alive an interest for one who died a gallant knight, With sword in hand for England's right. Under some such influence Shakspere also, I fancy, takes leave of Macbeth with a certain tenderness-takes leave of him as of one born for better things. His illusions have ceased to dazzle him; his hopes are maliciously baffled, and his ill-gotten empire is broken up, like morning mists. But when the end comes, calamity acts upon him like a tonic, and his higher qualities are recalled once more to confront the presence of death. He is lifted by the sense of military honour, suspended but not extinguished within him, out of the slough of tyranny, suspicion, and selfish fear; and, therefore, as he has lived the life, so is he allowed to die the death, of a soldier. Before passing on from 'Marmion,' I may just mention a fact, which has, unless I am mistaken, come to light very lately. I mention it as a further illustration of what I meant in my last lecture, when I was talking about the representative power of Scott's imagination, and his justness of thought. One great proof of this, I take to be, the skilful precision with which he fuses together his picturesque fancy, with the conclusions of a wide practical experience, and a keen estimate of all human probabilities. You will recollect, I doubt not, that Marmion was buried, not in Lichfield Cathedral, as proposed, not as a baron of high rank and great position, but carelessly and in a nameless grave; whilst a humble Scotch peasant took his place, by some mistake, under the stately canopy intended for the English baron. Now it has just been ascertained, as I am told, that such a mistake did really occur in the case of the Archbishop of St. Andrews. This Prelate, a natural son of James IV., seems to have been one of those marvellous youths born only to die, who give us a melancholy feeling that whatever man has done, human nature may still have been defrauded of possibilities greater than anything yet brought to perfection. He was little more than a boy when he accompanied his father to Flodden, and fell with him there. His friends, according to the common belief, recovered his body, and buried it under the high altar of St. Andrews. Recent investigations, however, made I know not why, having been made, it turns out that the skeleton so interred, instead of being the skeleton of a young man of twenty, must have belonged to a veteran soldier forty years old at the least. I say a veteran soldier, because the traces of older wounds that had not proved fatal are still discernible upon the remains. It is obvious, therefore, that the quasi-historical details invented by Scott To point a moral, and adorn a tale, are, in a certain sense, actually true-and true of the very battle to which he has appropriated them. This surely has not happened according to blind chance-not through a mere coincidence. But because Scott's insight into the heart of life was unerring. Because he had a power of extracting the spirit 1 I state this fact on the authority of the Dean of Westminster. of history out of vast masses of knowledge, duly assimilated and digested, as the bee gathers her honey from a thousand flowers. The death of Marmion, however, important as it may be to the story before us, still leaves the public character of the battle, and the epic interest of a great war unexhausted, and almost unexplored. The finest statue in the last Paris Exhibition was one of a dying soldier. He still grasps the broken sword; he still confronts in the spirit those implacable enemies, whom his nerveless arm and perishing body can no longer struggle against in the flesh. Upon the pedestal of this statue these memorable words are inscribed Gloria Victis.' Actuated by feelings akin to those of the French sculptor, the greatest among Scotchmen has shed a pathetic light upon the ruins of a terrible national disaster. But as they left the dark'ning heath, That fought around their King. But yet, though thick the shafts as snow, Unbroken was the ring; The stubborn spear-men still made good Each stepping where his comrade stood, The instant that he fell. No thought was there of dastard flight; Groom fought like noble, squire like knight, Till utter darkness closed her wing O'er their thin host and wounded King. Then skilful Surrey's sage commands As mountain-waves, from wasted lands |