The Scotts, at Edinburgh, dwelt first in George Street, then in South Castle Street, and finally in the house in North Castle Street, where he resided till the time of his misfortunes. The rooms were soon full of old pikes and guns and bows, of old armour3, and of old books. Already Scott’s library was considerable. He had read enormously, and it is curious that a man of his unrivalled memory made so many written notes of his reading. “Reading makes a full man,” but Gillies, an intelligent if unpractical bore, says that, when in the full tide of authorship later, Scott read comparatively little. His summers were passed in a cottage at Lasswade, in the society of his early friends, and of the families of Melville, of the historian, Patrick Fraser Tytler, Woodhouselee, and of Buccleuch. His early friends were around him—William Erskine, a good man and fastidious critic, William
{28}
Clerk, of Penicuik, Fergusson (Sir Adam), and many others. Gillies says that Scott lived “alone,” and doubts “whether there was any one intimately connected with Sir Walter Scott whose mind and habits were exactly congenial.” But it is a commonplace that we all “live alone,” and certainly Scott seems to have believed that he found, especially in “Will Erskine,” all the sympathy, literary and social, that he could expect or desire. In 1798 he made a new acquaintance, Mat Lewis, famous then for his romance, The Monk5, and busy with his Tales of Wonder.
EARLY MARRIED LIFE
Lewis, though no poet, was a neat metrist, and tutored Scott in the practical details of prosody7. To Lewis Scott offered versions of German ballads8, and other materials from his increasing store of original or traditional Volkslieder. He entered the realm of poetry, not by the usual gate of “subjective” lyrics9 about his own emotions, but through the antiquarian and historical gate of old popular ballads, newly opened by Bishop10 Percy, Herd11, Ritson the excitable antiquary, and others. Sir Philip Sidney had loved these songs of “blind crowders,” Addison had praised them, Lady Wardlaw had imitated them, Burns had expressed but a poor opinion of them, but German research and imitation had given a new vogue12 to the ballads, which Scott, in boyhood, had collected when
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ever he possessed13 a shilling to buy a printed chant. The simplicity14 and spirit of the narrative15 folk songs did much to inspire and give vogue to Wolf’s theory that the Homeric poems were, in origin, a kind of highly superior long ballads, handed down by oral tradition. In this theory Scott had no interest, about its truth he had no opinion, sitting silent and bored when it was debated by Coleridge and Morritt. “I never,” he says, “was so bethumped with words.” The vogue of the ballads lent a new blow at the poetical16 theories of the eighteenth century, and at the poetry of Pope. But Scott would not have it said that Pope was no poet, a poet he was, but he dealt with themes that were no longer so much appreciated as they had been in the age of Anne. Though a literary innovator18 Sir Walter was not a literary iconoclast19, and he loved no poetry better than the stately and manly20 melancholy21 of Dr. Johnson’s imitations of Juvenal.
Mat Lewis’s ballads were delayed in publication, but in January 1799 he negotiated with a Mr. Bell for the issue of Scott’s version of Goethe’s Goetz Von Berlichingen, “a very poor and incorrect translation;” so a former owner of my copy of Lockhart has pencilled on the margin22. Goetz, at all events, made no impression on Coleridge’s detested23 “reading public,” and though Scott carried to London, in 1799, an original drama, The
{30}
House of Aspen, which was put in rehearsal24 by Kemble, it never saw the footlights. In later life he expressed disgust at the idea of writing for “low and ignorant actors” (who may be supposed to know their own business); perhaps he had been mortified25 by the ways of managers. At this time his father died of paralysis26; says Lockhart, “I have lived to see the curtain rise and fall once more on a similar scene.” The Glenfinlas ballad was written at this time, founded on a legend of the murderous fairy women of the woods, which I have heard from the lips of a boatman on Loch Awe27, and which Mr. Stevenson found, unmistakably the same, among the natives of Samoa. A more important ballad, the first in which he really showed his hand, was The Eve of St. John, a legend of Smailholme tower. Here we find the true Border spirit, the superstitious29 thrill, the galloping30 metre, the essence of The Lay of the Last Minstrel. Cadyow, a ballad of the murder of the Regent Moray, is also of this period, and though not in the traditional manner, is most spirited.
BEGINNING OF BALLANTYNE
Scott’s destiny was now clear enough, the country had in him a new “maker.” But he had no idea of a life of authorship, agreeing with Kerr of Abbotrule that “a Lord President Scott might well be a famous poet—in the vacation time.
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” Literature, he said, was a good staff, but a bad crutch31, and he looked to advance his worldly prospects32 and secure his livelihood33 by the profession of the Bar. Our other poets, as a rule, have meditated34 the Muse35 in perfect leisure, with no professional distractions36. But Scott’s literary work was all done in hours stolen from an active official life. “I can get on quite as well from recollection of nature, while sitting in the Parliament House, as if wandering through wood and wold,” he said to Gillies, “though liable to be roused out of a descriptive dream, if Balmuto, with a fierce grunt37, demands, ‘Where are your cautioners?’” Shelley composed while watching “the bees in the ivy38 bloom;” Keats, while listening to the nightingale; Scott, in the Parliament House, under the glare of Lord Balmuto. The difference in method is manifest in the difference of the results. But Marmion was composed during gallops40 among the hills of Tweedside.
At this date, the winter of 1799, Scott met his school friend James Ballantyne, then publishing a newspaper at Kelso, and Ballantyne printed twelve copies of the new ballads. Scott liked the typography, thought of a small volume of the old Border ballads, to be executed by his friend, and the die was cast. The success of The Border Minstrelsy made him an author, association with the
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printer helped him on the long road to financial ruin.
BALLAD COLLECTING
The same date, December 1799, saw Scott made Sheriff Depute of Selkirkshire, “the Shirra of the Forest.” He at once invited Ballantyne to settle as a printer and publisher in Edinburgh, while in the Forest, when ballad hunting, he made the acquaintance of Leyden, scholar and poet, of William Laidlaw, his lifelong friend, and of James Hogg, then an Ettrick swain, “the most remarkable41 man who ever wore the maud of a shepherd.” Hogg had none of the education of Burns. “Self taught am I,” he might have said, like the minstrel of Odysseus, “but the Muse puts into my heart all manner of lays.” Hogg was indeed the survivor42 of such Borderers as, writes Bishop Lesley (1576), “make their own ballads of adventures for themselves.” He has left a graphic43 account of his first meeting with Scott. “Oh, lad, the Shirra’s come,” said Scott’s groom44. “Are ye the chap that makes the auld45 ballads?” Hogg replied, “I could not say that I had made ony very auld ballads,” but did James tell the truth? He is under suspicion of having made the “very auld ballad” of Auld Maitland, which his mother at once chanted to the Shirra. Scott was as happy as his own Monkbarns, when he overheard Elspeth of the Burntfoot crooning the ballad of Harlaw. The old lady told
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the Shirra that she had learned Auld Maitland “frae auld Andrew Moor47, and he learned it frae auld Baby Metlin” (Maitland) “wha was housekeeper48 to the first” (Anderson) “laird of Tushilaw. She was said to have been another than a gude ane....”
Baby Metlin having this character, I sought for her, aided by the kindness of the minister of Ettrick, in the records of the Kirk Session of Ettrick, hoping to find her under Church censure49 for some lawless love. But there is no documentary trace of Baby, and the question is, could Hogg, then ignorant of libraries, above all of the Maitland MSS., have forged the ballad of Auld Maitland, and made his mother an accomplice50 in the pious51 fraud? It is to be remarked that Scott himself says that he obtained Auld Maitland in manuscript, from a farmer (Laidlaw), and that the copy was derived52 from the recital53 of “an old shepherd” (1802). None the less Mrs. Hogg may also have recited it, having learned it from the old shepherd, Auld Andrew Moor. It is a delicate point in ballad criticism. Such a hoax54, at this date, by the wily shepherd, appears to me to be impossible, and I lean to a theory that Auld Maitland, and The Outlaw55 Murray, are literary imitations of the ballad, compiled late in the seventeenth or early in the eighteenth century, on some Maitland and
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Murray traditions. In any case, Hogg had won the interest of Scott, whose temper he often tried but whose patience he never exhausted56. For Leyden, a more trustworthy collector of ballads, Scott secured an appointment in the East, “a distant and a deadly shore.”
“LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL”
In 1802, the first two volumes of The Border Minstrelsy, later added to and emended, were published in London, with all the treasures of ancient lore57 in prefaces and notes; the first fruits, and noble fruits they are, of Scott as an historian and writer in prose. Ballantyne, still at Kelso, was the printer. Scott remarks that “I observed more strict fidelity58 concerning my originals,” than Bishop Percy had done. To what extent he altered and improved his originals cannot be known. He confesses to “conjectural emendations” in Kinmont Willie, which he found “much mangled59 by reciters.” Mr. Henderson credits him with verses ix-xii, “mainly,” and with “numerous other touches.” I do not think that in the ballad of Otterbourne he interpolated a passage bestowed60 on him by Mr. Henderson, for he twice quoted the lines in moments of great solemnity, and he was not the man to quote himself. The texts, though they passed the scrutiny61 of the fierce Ritson, are much more scientifically handled (with the aid of the Abbotsford and other MSS.) by Professor
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Child, in his noble collection. He notes over forty minute changes, in one ballad, from the MS. copy of Mrs. Brown. But The Border Minstrelsy gives the texts as the world knows them, as far as it does know them, while the prose elevates “a set of men whose worth was hardly known” to a pinnacle63 of romance. In their own days the Border riders were regarded as public nuisances by statesmen, who only attempted to educate them by the method of the gibbet. But now they were the delight of “fine ladies, contending who shall be the most extravagant64 in encomium65.” A blessing66 on such fine ladies, who know what is good when they see it!
“LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL”
Scott says, with his usual acuteness, that we “sometimes impute67 that effect to the poet, which is produced by the recollections and associations which his verses excite.” When a man has been born in the centre of Scott’s sheriffdom, when every name of a place in the ballads and the Lay is dear and familiar to him, he cannot be the most impartial68, though he may be not the least qualified69 critic of the poet, who, we must remember, wrote for his own people. By 1802, Scott announced to Ellis that he was engaged on “a long poem of my own ... a kind of romance of Border chivalry70, in a light horseman sort of stanza71.” This poem was The Lay of the Last Minstrel, which Borderers
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may be excused for thinking the best, the freshest, and the most spontaneous of all his romances in rhyme. The young Countess of Dalkeith (later, Duchess of Buccleuch) had heard from Mr. Beattie of Mickledale a story (known under another form, and as of recent date, in Glencoe) of a mysterious being who made his appearance at a farm house, and there resided. The being uttered the cry Tint72, tint, tint! (Lost, lost, lost!), and was finally summoned away by a Voice calling to him by the name of Gilpin Horner. This legend was “universally credited”: Lady Dalkeith asked Scott to write a ballad on the theme, and thus Gilpin, though criticized as an excrescence on the Lay, was really its only begetter73. While he was wondering what he could make of Gilpin, Scott heard part of Coleridge’s Christabel, then in manuscript, recited by Sir John Stoddart. The measure of Christabel had previously74 been used in comic verse, by Anthony Hall, Anstey, Wolcott and others, and Scott seems to have assumed the right to employ it in a serious work. In this he showed something of the deficient75 sense of meum and tuum which marked his freebooting ancestors; and Coleridge, whose fragment was not published till many years later, resented the appropriation76 and often spoke77 of Scott’s poetry with contempt. A year passed before Scott actually wrote the first stanzas78 of the
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Lay. He read them to Erskine and Cranstoun, who said little, and he burned his manuscript. But later he found that the critics were too much puzzled by the novelty of the poem to give an opinion, and when one of them, probably Erskine, suggested that an explanatory prologue79 was necessary, Scott introduced the Last Minstrel, chanting to Monmouth’s widow, and went on with the work, “at about the rate of a canto80 a week.”
In this casual manner he “found himself,” and his fame. The Lay was not published till 1805, and Scott’s energies were being given to an edition of the romance of Sir Tristrem, and to elucidating81 the true history of his favourite Thomas the Rymer, of Ercildoune. In later days he purchased The Rymer’s Glen, so he chose to style it, below Eildon tree, with the burn which murmurs82 by the cottage of Chiefswood. But Sir Tristrem and the Rymer were learned and unprofitable subjects. Despite his need of money, Sir Walter was always ready to spend his time and labour in literature which profited not, financially. “People may say this or that of the pleasure or fame or profit as a motive83 of writing,” he remarks. “I think the only pleasure is the actual exertion84 and research....”
Society and his duties as Quartermaster-General of Volunteer horse were combined with research and composition. Invasion seemed imminent85, and
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Scott worked both at his cavalry86 drill and at organizing the infantry87 militia88 of his sheriffdom. In September 1803 he met Wordsworth and his sister on their Scottish tour, when Wordsworth prayed for “an hour of that Dundee” who drove the army of Mackay in rout89 through the pass of Killiecrankie. It is curious to find Wordsworth, Ruskin and Scott united among the friends of Claverhouse! Wordsworth professed90 himself “greatly delighted” by Scott’s recitation of four cantos of the Lay, though “the moving incident is not my trade,” any more than admiration91 of contemporaries was Wordsworth’s foible. Later the admiration was mainly on the side of Scott, though Wordsworth made noble amends92 in his beautiful sonnet93 on Scott’s final and fated voyage to Italy.
ASHESTIEL
Matters of finance were now occupying Scott. At the Bar he had never much more practice than that which came to him from his father’s office. That was little indeed, usually under £200 a year, and grew less when Scott’s father died, and his gifted but gay brother, Thomas, mismanaged the business. With his sheriffdom, his private resources, and a legacy94 of about £6,000 from an uncle, Scott was at the head of £1,000 a year. He succeeded in obtaining the reversion of a Clerkship in the Court of Sessions, doing the work for nothing while the holder95, an old man, lived; and, in
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the end of 1805, he put his £6,000 into the printing business of James Ballantyne.
This was the beginning of evils. A barrister ought not to be a secret partner in a commercial enterprise. Erskine alone knew the fact, and we do not hear that Erskine remonstrated96. Lockhart regretted that Scott, who was now obliged to fix on a residence within his sheriffdom, did not buy Broadmeadows with his windfall of £6,000. The place is beautifully situated97 on the wooded left bank of Yarrow, between Hangingshaw and Bowhill, and hard by the cottage of Mungo Park, the African traveller. Here Scott might have lived happy and remote, in the heart of his own country. But he was no hermit98, he loved society, and he could not give up his military duties. He left Lasswade, the Gandercleugh of his Tales of my Landlord, and rented from a Russell cousin Ashestiel, a small house, in part very old, on a steep cliff overhanging the Tweed, above Yair. Only the hills behind the house severed99 him from Yarrow, the fishing was excellent, hard by is Elibank, the tower of his ancestress, “Muckle Mou’d Meg,” and Selkirk, where he administered justice, is within an easy ride. The bridge over Tweed was not yet built, and Scott had the unfading pleasure of risking his life in riding the flooded ford62. Here Scott reclaimed100 that honest poacher, Tom Purdie, his
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lifelong retainer and friend, who, with rustic101 liberality of speech, expressed his high opinion of Mrs. Scott’s attractions. Hard by is Sunderland Hall, where Leslie’s troops bivouacked before they surprised Montrose at Philiphaugh, and at Sunderland Hall was an excellent antiquarian library open to the Shirra. Of him little trace remains102 at Ashestiel, save the huge arm-chair which was borrowed for him in his latest days of paralysis. At the Peel, within a few hundred yards, he had an intelligent neighbour, Mrs. Laidlaw, wife of “Laird Nippy,” a bonnet103 laird of an ancient line which lay under an old curse, not unfulfilled. To Mrs. Laidlaw Scott presented all his poems, which, by her bequest104, have come into the hands of the present writer. Had Scott been the owner, not the tenant105, of Ashestiel, Abbotsford would never have existed, “that unhappy palace of his race.”
“LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL”
It was in January 1805 that the Lay was published by Messrs. Longman. To appreciate the Lay and its success, we must either have read it in childhood, when “glamour” seems a probable art (as to some unknown extent it really is), and when lamps that burn eternally in tombs present no difficulties to the reason; or we must have imagination enough to understand how perfectly106 and delightfully107 novel was the poem. There had been a long interregnum in poetry in England. Cowper, as we
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learn from Miss Marianne Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility, was Scott’s only rival, and Cowper is not romantic. Wordsworth and Coleridge were practically unknown to “the reading public,” Burns was barred by “the dialect,” the school of Pope had dwindled108 into The Triumphs of Temper. Meanwhile Mrs. Radcliffe had kindled109 and fed the sacred lamp of love for all that Catherine Morland thought “truly horrid,” and had been a favourite of Scott himself. In the Lay the eager public found mysteries far exceeding in delightfulness110 those of Mrs. Radcliffe, found magic genuine, all unlike her spells which are explained away; they found many novel and galloping measures of verse; they found nature; and they found a knowledge of the past such as has never been combined with glowing poetic17 imagination.
Mr. Saintsbury says with truth that “a very large, perhaps the much larger, part of the appeal of the Lay was metrical.” Scott appeared to be as much an innovator in metres as Mr. Swinburne was, sixty years after him. Scott knew nothing at all (nor do I) about “the iambic dimeter, freely altered by the licences of equivalence, anacrusis, and catalexis”: to him these terms were “bonny critic’s Greek,” and as unintelligible111 as, to Andrew Fairservice, was “bonny lawyer’s Latin.” But it does seem that he gave “extreme care” to his
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“scheme of metre” in the Lay, not arranging it, as he said of one of his novels, “with as much care as the rest, that is, with no care at all.” The result, to quote Mr. Saintsbury, is “to some tastes, a medium quite unsurpassed for the particular purpose,” and Scott’s later poems are, I venture to think, in metre less exquisitely112 appropriate, and more monotonous113. His rhymed romances are in no sense epic114, they are a new kind of composition based on the ballad, but, owing to their length, in need of constant variety of cadence115. All these qualities were in the highest degree novel, and never to be successfully imitated, seriously, though susceptible116 of parody117.
“LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL”
We do not now appreciate the charm of all this freshness. We live a century later, “the gambol118 has been shown,” the Pegasus of romance has been put through all his paces before generations of blasés observers; witches, goblins, and reivers are hackneyed, and only the young (for whom Scott, like Theocritus, professedly sang) can recapture the joy with which the world hailed the Lay. We have, moreover, what our ancestors of 1805 had not, the verse of Shelley, Wordsworth, Tennyson, Keats, and Coleridge present in our memories, verse deeply meditated, rich in thought, delicate in expression, “every reef loaded with gold.” Scott has these great rivals now, in 1805 he had no rivals
{43}
save those who filled the times, already remote, of great Elizabeth. Thus only the young, and they who have in their hearts every name and memory of Scott’s hills and waters, can offer to the Lay, or to his other narrative poems, the welcome that the country gave in 1805. Only we, old Borderers, or fresh boys and girls, are at the point of view. Others may style the Lay “a thirdrate Waverley novel in rhyme,” “let ilka man rouse the ford as he finds it”; it is a ford which I have many times ridden with pleasure during many years. Out of the romance I choose an episodic passage, in essence, though not in numbers, a ballad: it tells, traditionally, how the clan119 of Scott won fair Eskdale. Probably they obtained it on the forfeiture120 of a liege lord far from “tame,” that Maxwell who, on the execution of the red Regent, took the Morton title, dared the Douglas feud121, and supported the Catholic cause to his ruin. But tradition speaks otherwise.
“LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL”
Scotts of Eskdale, a stalwart band,
Came trooping down to Todshawhill;
By the sword they won their land,
And by the sword they hold it still.
Hearken, Ladye, to the tale,
How thy sons won fair Eskdale....
Earl Morton was lord of that valley fair,
The Beattisons were his vassals122 there.
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The Earl was gentle, and mild of mood,
The vassals were warlike, and fierce, and rude;
High of heart and haughty124 of word,
Little they reck’d of a tame liege lord
The Earl into fair Eskdale came,
Homage125 and seignory to claim:
Of Gilbert the Galliard a heriot he sought,
Saying, “Give thy best steed, as a vassal123 ought.” ...
“Dear to me is my bonny white steed,
Oft has he help’d me at pinch of need;
Lord and Earl though thou be, I trow,
I can rein126 Bucksfoot better than thou.” ...
Word on word gave fuel to fire,
Till so highly blazed the Beattison’s ire,
But that the Earl the flight had ta’en,
The vassals there their lord had slain127.
Sore he plied46 both whip and spur,
As he urged his steed through Eskdale muir;
And it fell down a weary weight,
Just on the threshold of Branksome gate.
The Earl was a wrathful man to see,
Full fain avenged128 would he be,
In haste to Branksome’s Lord he spoke,
Saying—“Take these traitors129 to thy yoke131:
For a cast of hawks132, and a purse of gold
All Eskdale I’ll sell thee to have and hold
Beshrew thy heart, of the Beattisons’ clan
If thou leavest on Eske a landed man;
But spare Woodkerrick’s lands alone,
For he lent me his horse to escape upon.”
A glad man then was Branksome bold,
Down he flung him the purse of gold;
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To Eskdale soon he spurred amain,
And with him five hundred riders has ta’en.
He left his merrymen in the mist of the hill,
And bade them hold them close and still;
And alone he wended to the plain,
To meet with the Galliard and all his train.
To Gilbert the Galliard thus he said: ...
“Know thou me for thy liege-lord and head;
Deal not with me as with Morton tame,
For Scots play best at the roughest game.
Give me in peace my heriot due,
Thy bonny white steed, or thou shalt rue28.
If my horn I three times wind,
Eskdale shall long have the sound in mind.” ...
Loudly the Beattison laugh’d in scorn;
“Little care we for thy winded horn.
Ne’er shall it be the Galliard’s lot
To yield his steed to a haughty Scott.
Wend thou to Branksome back on foot,
With rusty133 spur and miry boot.”...
He blew his bugle134 so loud and hoarse135,
That the dun deer started at fair Craikcross;
He blew again so loud and clear,
Through the gray mountain-mist there did lances appear;
And the third blast rang with such a din2
That the echoes answered from Pentoun-linn,
And all his riders came lightly in.
Then had you seen a gallant136 shock,
When saddles were emptied, and lances broke!
For each scornful word the Galliard had said,
A Beattison on the field was laid.
His own good sword the chieftain drew,
And he bore the Galliard through and through;
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Where the Beattisons’ blood mix’d with the rill,
The Galliard’s Haugh men call it still.
The Scots have scatter’d the Beattison clan,
In Eskdale they left but one landed man.
The valley of Eske, from the mouth to the source,
Was lost and won for that bonny white horse.
For the rest, from fair Margaret, the lost love,
Lovelier than the rose so red,
Yet paler than the violet pale,
to Wat Tinnlin, and
The hot and hardy137 Rutherford
Whom men called Dickon-draw-the-sword,
“LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL”
the characters are all my ancient friends, and the time has been when the romance was history to me. The history, of course, is handled with all Scott’s freedom. Michael Scott had been dead for several centuries, not for some seventy years, and the approximate date of the tale must be the year of the religious revolution, 1559-1560; “the Regent” must be Mary of Guise138. Men no longer made their vows139 to St. Modan and St. Mary of the Lowes, whose chapel140 the Scots burned in 1557: it had become fashionable to wreck141 churches, thanks to preaching bakers142 and tailors, Paul Methuen and Harlaw. Be these things as they may, and let critics be critics as of old,
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Still Yarrow, as he rolls along
Bears burden to the Minstrel’s song.
The Lay, as Scott wrote to Wordsworth, “has the merit of being written with heart and good will, and for no other reason than to discharge my mind of the ideas which from infancy143 have rushed upon it. I believe such verses will generally be found interesting, because enthusiastic.” Whoso reads the Lay as it was written, “with heart and goodwill,” is not likely to complain of its lack of interest. The opening dialogue of the Spirits of river and hill, the ride of William of Deloraine through the red spate144 of Ail6 water, the scene of fair Melrose beheld145 aright, the opening of the Wizard’s tomb, in the splendour of the lamp that burns eternally; the fluttering viewless forms that haunt the aisles146; the tilting148 between Cranstoun and Deloraine; the pranks149 of the page; the courage of the young Buccleuch; his bluff150 English captors; the bustle151 of the Warden’s raid; the riding in of the outlying mosstroopers; the final scene of the Wizard’s appearance and the passing of the page; with the beautiful ballads of the minstrels, make up a noble set of scenes, then absolutely fresh and poignant152.
“WAVERLEY” BEGUN
While the public, unlike Sir Henry Eaglefield, did not need three readings to convince them of the excellence153 of the Lay, the critics were as wise
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as usual. It is never easy to keep one’s temper in reading Jeffrey’s criticisms. If not “the ideal whipper-snapper,” at least he was always thinking, not of the natural appeal of a poet “to the simple primary feelings of his kind,” but of what Mr. Jeffrey could say to the abatement154 of the poet’s merits. Ellis thought Jeffrey’s review “equally acute and impartial,” and it was impartial compared with his critique of Marmion. The poem should have been something else, not what it was. It should have “been more full of incident,” as if it could be more full of incident! The Goblin was “a merely local superstition155,” to which Scott, of all men, could most easily have replied by proofs that the superstition, practically that of the Brownie, is universal. For example Froissart gives us, in Orthon, a goblin page, though not a malevolent156 specimen157 of the genus. Jeffrey said, and one would “like to have felt Mr. Jeffrey’s bumps”—as Charles Lamb said of a less famous dullard—that “Mr. Scott must either sacrifice his Border prejudices, or offend his readers in the other parts of the Empire!” Jeffrey writes like the snappish pedant158 of a provincial159 newspaper. When Marmion appeared, Jeffrey found, on the other hand, that it was not Scottish enough! Pitt and Fox equally admired the work, the public bought it as poetry is no longer bought, and Scott sold his copy
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right at the ransom160 of £500, which, with a royalty161 of £169 6s. on the first edition, and a present of £100 to buy a horse, from Messrs. Longman, made up his whole literary profits on the transaction.
The money probably went into his printing business, with Ballantyne & Co., and already (1805) we find that firm “receiving accommodation from Sir William Forbes,” the banker. They were always receiving or being refused “accommodation”; Scottish business had a paper basis; its bills represented fairy gold that turned to withered162 leaves; though Scott, as an Editor (of Dryden’s works at this time), put large quantities of business in the way of his printing firm. His practice at the Bar was a thing of the past: he was waiting for dead men’s shoes as a Clerk of the Court of Session; and, while toiling163 over Dryden’s works, he began Waverley, hoping to publish it by Christmas 1805. He purposely did not make a brilliant start, though the description of Edward Waverley’s studies is a copy of his own, and William Erskine did not think highly of the first seven chapters. So Scott threw the manuscript aside, to his admirers a misfortune. Waverley would have been as great a success as it was nine years later: Scott would have worked the new vein164, the “Bonanza mine,” and for eighteen new Waverley nov
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els (at the rate of two yearly) we would cheerfully give up Marmion, The Lady of the Lake, Rokeby, and The Lord of the Isles147. Dis aliter visum.
It was now that Scott adopted the system of rising from bed to write at five in the morning. On one occasion he had the cruelty to return and awake Mrs. Scott, with the tidings, which he knew to be wholly uninteresting to her, that he had discovered the meaning of the name of a burn that passes through his estate. While taking brief holiday at Gilsland, he was summoned to mount and ride to Dalkeith, the rendezvous166 of the Forest, by the beacon167 fire which proved to be a false alarm. The story is told in The Antiquary. Scott met the Forest men pouring in down every water, and I have heard, from my own people, that the inhabitants of the little Border towns meant to burn them, if Napoleon landed, drive their flocks into the hills, and fight it out in the old Border way, a burnt country and a guerilla foe168. It was during his ride of a hundred miles in twenty-four hours that Scott composed the lines beginning—
The forest of Glenmore is dree,
It is all of black pine and the dark oak tree.
PARTY SPIRIT
The April of 1806 saw Scott in London; already a “lion,” he was presented at the tiny Court of Caroline, Princess of Wales, who at this time was
{51}
taken up by the Tories, as the Prince of Wales was then of the Whig party; much as another Prince of Wales, Frederick, was something of a Jacobite. He found that the Princess had an exaggerated freedom of manner, and presently “it came to be thought so.” She called him “a faint-hearted troubadour,” and he had no mind for the part of Chastelard. In town he met Joanna Baillie, whose plays he appreciated with more of generosity169 than critical faculty170. His instalment as Clerk of Session was not welcomed by the Whigs, and, in irritation171, “he for the first time put himself forward as a decided172 Tory partisan173.” The Tories, at all events, were not pro-French. It would have been well if Scott could have taken the advice of Lord Dalkeith (Feb. 20, 1806), “Go to the hills and converse174 with the Spirit of the Fells, or any Spirit but the Spirit of Party, which is the fellest fiend that ever disturbed Harmony and social pleasure.”
On June 27, 1806, Scott wrote his “Health to Lord Melville,” the Tory governing spirit of Scotland, whom the Whigs were impeaching175. James Ballantyne sang this lay at a public dinner on Lord Melville’s acquittal. The Princess of Wales was saluted176 in this song, which contained the words “Tally ho to the Fox” (C. J. Fox). This does not appear an amazing indiscretion, in a parcel of party verses, but the Whigs were greatly shocked.
{52}
If a Briton must be a party man, he may as righteously belong to one party as the other. But the Whigs ever cherished the belief that they were the righteous. The worst effect of Scott’s politics was his connexion with journals, from the stately Quarterly to the inglorious Beacon, which carried political rancour into literary criticism. It is true that Hazlitt wrote as furiously and vilely177 against Coleridge in The Edinburgh Review, which was Whig, as any one ever did against Keats in The Quarterly, which is Tory. But Whig offences, in history as in literature, are condoned178 by historians, and forgotten by most people, while Gifford, of the Quarterly, and the conductors of Blackwood remain in the pillory179. In any case, with the brutal180 outrages181 of criticism Scott had nothing to do. He was foremost to praise Frankenstein, supposing it to be by Shelley, when Shelley was the target of Tory insults; and he invited Charles Lamb to Abbotsford, when Lamb was being attacked as a leader of the Cockney School.[3] Lamb missed the chance of coursing and salmon182 fishing with a Scot who would not have aroused in him “an imperfect sympathy.”
However Lamb and Shelley were not known in Scotland in 1806, when the affairs of Scott’s brother Thomas made it necessary for Walter to
“MARMION
{53}
”
earn money by his pen. He received £1,000 from Constable183 for the copyright of an unwritten poem, Marmion, and mortgaged his time and genius to help a brother. Constable was then rather a dealer184 in rare old books than a publisher, but he foresaw Scott’s success, and outbid Messrs. Longman, if, indeed, they made any bid at all. To his brother Thomas he wrote a series of letters, still, I think, unpublished, and mainly noteworthy for the goodness of head, the wisdom, the benevolence185 and tact186 of the writer. By the end of 1807 he was finishing at once his Life of Dryden, and his Marmion; who, as he wrote to Lady Louisa Stuart in January 1808, is “gasping upon Flodden Field,” though Scott hoped, that day, “to knock him on the head with a few thumping187 stanzas.” When we remember that, by his brother’s failure, the whole affairs of the estates of the Marquis of Abercorn were thrown on his hands “in a state of unutterable confusion,” and at his own responsibility, we may estimate his industry. Describing the research needed by his Dryden he writes—
From my research the boldest spiders fled,
And moths188 retreating trembled as I read,
while at the same time he was leading Marmion from disgrace to death, and was passing the heart of the day in his official duties (1807). But by
{54}
the end of February 1808, Marmion was in the hands of the public, equipped with the charming epistles to friends which precede the cantos.
Contrasting the over full life of Scott, and all his innumerable distractions, with the “day long blessed idleness” of Tennyson, we cannot expect from Marmion the delicate finish of The Idylls of the King. On the other hand, if Scott had enjoyed the leisure of Tennyson, his rhymed romances would not have been better or other than they are.
In the Introduction to Canto Third, written to Erskine, he tells us that criticism was wasted on him—
Then wild as cloud, or stream or gale39,
Flow on, flow unconfined, my tale.
He will not imitate
those masters, o’er whose tomb
Immortal189 laurels190 ever bloom,
Instructive of the feeble bard191
as the murmurs from the tomb may be. He will not even desert the fabled192 past to chant the glories of the “Red Cross Hero” (Sir Sidney Smith), nor of Sir Ralph Abercromby. But he foresees and predicts
The hour of Germany’s revenge,
Sir Walter Scott, 1830.
From the painting by Sir John Watson Gordon, R.A.
Sir Walter Scott
From a painting by Sir David Wilkie, R.A.
“MARMION”
{55}
and that then
When breathing fury for her sake,
Some new Arminius shall awake,
Her champion, ere he strike, shall come,
To whet4 his sword on Brunswick’s tomb.
In few years the hour and the champion came, Field-Marshal Von Blücher. A poet has seldom been a better prophet.
The plot of Marmion is in one way strangely akin165 to the plot of Ivanhoe. In both we have a hard-bitten, hard-hearted, and unscrupulous knight193, Marmion and the Templar. In both we have a pilgrim guide, who is no pilgrim, but a knight in disguise, returned from exile, with a deep grudge194 against the Templar, or Marmion (Wilfred, Wilton). Both sets of partners are rivals in love, at least if Wilfred, as we believe, loved Rebecca. In both we have a tourney between the rivals, in which Marmion and the Templar are defeated by Wilton and Wilfred. But Marmion’s behaviour, both in regard to his lady page, and in the matter of the forgery195, is much worse than that of the Templar at his worst, though, amidst his infamy196, he is a knight as bold and haughty as the traitor130 Ganelon in the Chanson de Roland. The high revenge of the lady page, Constance, as she goes to her death by hunger, stirred even Jeffrey. “The scene of
{56}
elfin chivalry” in which Marmion tilts197 with the phantom198 knight, was suggested by a Latin legend, forged and sent to Scott by Surtees of Mainsforth, who several times palmed off on the Sheriff ballads of his own making. Pitscottie, the candid200 old Fifeshire chronicler, supplied the omens201 which, as in the Odyssey202, lead up to the catastrophe203 of Flodden Field. Marmion was made to travel to Edinburgh by a path that mortal man never took, Scott desiring to describe the castles on the way, and a favourite view of Edinburgh from Blackford Hill. This passage of landscape has been elaborately and justly praised by Mr. Ruskin. For poetical purposes Lady Heron is brought to Holyrood, though she was at her castle beneath Flodden Edge, and the artifice204 is justified205 by her song of Young Lochinvar. But it is the closing battle piece that makes the fortune of Marmion.
JEFFREY
“All ends in song,” and in song end Scotland’s sorrows for that fatal unforgotten fight, in which all was lost but honour. Scarce a great family but lost her sons, the yeomen and peasants died like paladins, and the strongest of the Stuart kings made the best end of all of them, rushing forth199 from the fighting “schiltrom” and falling, pierced with arrows and hacked206 with bills, not a lance’s length from the English general. For this we have Surrey’s own word, and true it is that if the Scots
{57}
were never led with less skill, they never did battle with more indomitable courage. Had not every leader fallen, save Home, the next day would have seen a renewal207 of the battle—
Where shivered was fair Scotland’s Spear,
And broken was her shield.
Flodden secured the success of Marmion, and gave the laurels to the brow of Scott. But it is certain that our age could dispense208 with Clara and her lover! The fiend of party, detested by Lord Dalkeith, moved the Whigs to take umbrage209 because more moan was made for Pitt than for Fox in one of the Introductory pieces, where by an error of the press several lines of the lament210 for Fox were omitted in early copies. “All the Whigs here are in arms against Marmion,” wrote Scott (March 13, 1808). Jeffrey now complained of “the manifest neglect of Scottish feelings,” which had been so injuriously flattered in the Lay, to the indignation of the rest of the Empire! Lockhart justly remarks that it was the British patriotism211 which vexed212 Jeffrey, whose Edinburgh Review did its best to throw cold water on the spirit of national resistance to Napoleon. He professed that his stupid criticism was a well meant effort to draw Scott from “so idle a task” as that in which he displayed his “pedantry.” Scott could bear the
{58}
spite till Jeffrey charged him with want of patriotism, and that arrow rankled213. Jeffrey dined with him on the day when Scott read the critique, and was cordially received, but his host ceased to write in the Edinburgh Review, and raised up another like unto it, a rival, the Tory Quarterly.
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1
ballad
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| n.歌谣，民谣，流行爱情歌曲 | |
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din
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| n.喧闹声，嘈杂声 | |
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armour
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| （=armor）n.盔甲；装甲部队 | |
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whet
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| v.磨快，刺激 | |
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monk
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| n.和尚，僧侣，修道士 | |
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6
ail
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| v.生病，折磨，苦恼 | |
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prosody
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| n.诗体论，作诗法 | |
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ballads
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| 民歌，民谣，特别指叙述故事的歌( ballad的名词复数 )； 讴 | |
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lyrics
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| n.歌词 | |
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bishop
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| n.主教，（国际象棋）象 | |
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herd
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| n.兽群，牧群；vt.使集中，把…赶在一起 | |
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Vogue
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| n.时髦，时尚；adj.流行的 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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narrative
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| n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的 | |
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poetical
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| adj.似诗人的；诗一般的；韵文的；富有诗意的 | |
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poetic
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| adj.富有诗意的，有诗人气质的，善于抒情的 | |
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18
innovator
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| n.改革者；创新者 | |
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19
iconoclast
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| n.反对崇拜偶像者 | |
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20
manly
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| adj.有男子气概的；adv.男子般地，果断地 | |
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melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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margin
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| n.页边空白；差额；余地，余裕；边，边缘 | |
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23
detested
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| v.憎恶，嫌恶，痛恨( detest的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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24
rehearsal
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| n.排练，排演；练习 | |
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25
mortified
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| v.使受辱( mortify的过去式和过去分词 )；伤害（人的感情）；克制；抑制（肉体、情感等） | |
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paralysis
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| n.麻痹(症)；瘫痪(症) | |
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27
awe
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| n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧 | |
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rue
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| n.懊悔，芸香，后悔；v.后悔，悲伤，懊悔 | |
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29
superstitious
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| adj.迷信的 | |
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30
galloping
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| adj. 飞驰的, 急性的 动词gallop的现在分词形式 | |
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31
crutch
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| n.T字形拐杖；支持，依靠，精神支柱 | |
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32
prospects
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| n.希望，前途(恒为复数) | |
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33
livelihood
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| n.生计，谋生之道 | |
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meditated
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| 深思，沉思，冥想( meditate的过去式和过去分词 )； 内心策划，考虑 | |
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35
muse
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| n.缪斯（希腊神话中的女神），创作灵感 | |
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36
distractions
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| n.使人分心的事[人]( distraction的名词复数 )；娱乐，消遣；心烦意乱；精神错乱 | |
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37
grunt
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| v.嘟哝；作呼噜声；n.呼噜声，嘟哝 | |
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38
ivy
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| n.常青藤，常春藤 | |
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39
gale
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| n.大风，强风，一阵闹声（尤指笑声等） | |
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40
gallops
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| （马等）奔驰，骑马奔驰( gallop的名词复数 ) | |
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41
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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42
survivor
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| n.生存者，残存者，幸存者 | |
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43
graphic
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| adj.生动的，形象的，绘画的，文字的，图表的 | |
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44
groom
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| vt.给（马、狗等）梳毛，照料，使...整洁 | |
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45
auld
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| adj.老的，旧的 | |
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46
plied
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| v.使用（工具）( ply的过去式和过去分词 )；经常供应（食物、饮料）；固定往来；经营生意 | |
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47
moor
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| n.荒野，沼泽；vt.(使)停泊；vi.停泊 | |
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48
housekeeper
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| n.管理家务的主妇，女管家 | |
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49
censure
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| v./n.责备；非难；责难 | |
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50
accomplice
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| n.从犯，帮凶，同谋 | |
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51
pious
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| adj.虔诚的；道貌岸然的 | |
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52
derived
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| vi.起源；由来；衍生；导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
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recital
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| n.朗诵，独奏会，独唱会 | |
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54
hoax
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| v.欺骗，哄骗，愚弄；n.愚弄人，恶作剧 | |
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55
outlaw
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| n.歹徒，亡命之徒；vt.宣布…为不合法 | |
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56
exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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57
lore
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| n.传说；学问，经验，知识 | |
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58
fidelity
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| n.忠诚，忠实；精确 | |
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59
mangled
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| vt.乱砍（mangle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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bestowed
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| 赠给，授予( bestow的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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61
scrutiny
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| n.详细检查，仔细观察 | |
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Ford
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| n.浅滩，水浅可涉处；v.涉水，涉过 | |
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63
pinnacle
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| n.尖塔，尖顶，山峰；(喻)顶峰 | |
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extravagant
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| adj.奢侈的；过分的；(言行等)放肆的 | |
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encomium
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| n.赞颂；颂词 | |
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66
blessing
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| n.祈神赐福；祷告；祝福，祝愿 | |
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67
impute
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| v.归咎于 | |
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impartial
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| adj.(in,to)公正的，无偏见的 | |
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qualified
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| adj.合格的，有资格的，胜任的，有限制的 | |
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70
chivalry
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| n.骑士气概，侠义；（男人）对女人彬彬有礼，献殷勤 | |
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71
stanza
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| n.（诗）节，段 | |
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72
tint
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| n.淡色，浅色；染发剂；vt.着以淡淡的颜色 | |
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begetter
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| n.生产者，父 | |
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previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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deficient
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| adj.不足的，不充份的，有缺陷的 | |
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appropriation
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| n.拨款，批准支出 | |
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77
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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stanzas
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| 节，段( stanza的名词复数 ) | |
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prologue
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| n.开场白，序言；开端，序幕 | |
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canto
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| n.长篇诗的章 | |
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81
elucidating
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| v.阐明，解释( elucidate的现在分词 ) | |
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82
murmurs
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| n.低沉、连续而不清的声音( murmur的名词复数 )；低语声；怨言；嘀咕 | |
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83
motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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84
exertion
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| n.尽力，努力 | |
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85
imminent
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| adj.即将发生的，临近的，逼近的 | |
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86
cavalry
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| n.骑兵；轻装甲部队 | |
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87
infantry
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| n.[总称]步兵(部队) | |
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militia
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| n.民兵，民兵组织 | |
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rout
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| n.溃退，溃败；v.击溃，打垮 | |
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professed
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| 公开声称的，伪称的，已立誓信教的 | |
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admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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92
amends
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| n. 赔偿 | |
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93
sonnet
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| n.十四行诗 | |
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94
legacy
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| n.遗产，遗赠；先人(或过去)留下的东西 | |
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95
holder
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| n.持有者，占有者；(台，架等)支持物 | |
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96
remonstrated
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| v.抗议( remonstrate的过去式和过去分词 )；告诫 | |
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97
situated
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| adj.坐落在...的，处于某种境地的 | |
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98
hermit
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| n.隐士，修道者；隐居 | |
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99
severed
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| v.切断，断绝( sever的过去式和过去分词 )；断，裂 | |
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100
reclaimed
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| adj.再生的；翻造的；收复的；回收的v.开拓( reclaim的过去式和过去分词 )；要求收回；从废料中回收（有用的材料）；挽救 | |
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101
rustic
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| adj.乡村的，有乡村特色的；n.乡下人，乡巴佬 | |
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102
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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103
bonnet
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| n.无边女帽；童帽 | |
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104
bequest
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| n.遗赠；遗产，遗物 | |
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105
tenant
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| n.承租人；房客；佃户；v.租借，租用 | |
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106
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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107
delightfully
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| 大喜，欣然 | |
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108
dwindled
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| v.逐渐变少或变小( dwindle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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109
kindled
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| （使某物）燃烧，着火( kindle的过去式和过去分词 )； 激起（感情等）； 发亮，放光 | |
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110
delightfulness
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| n.delightful（令人高兴的，使人愉快的，给人快乐的，讨人喜欢的）的变形 | |
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111
unintelligible
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| adj.无法了解的，难解的，莫明其妙的 | |
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112
exquisitely
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| adv.精致地；强烈地；剧烈地；异常地 | |
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113
monotonous
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| adj.单调的，一成不变的，使人厌倦的 | |
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114
epic
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| n.史诗，叙事诗；adj.史诗般的，壮丽的 | |
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115
cadence
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| n.（说话声调的）抑扬顿挫 | |
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116
susceptible
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| adj.过敏的，敏感的；易动感情的，易受感动的 | |
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117
parody
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| n.打油诗文，诙谐的改编诗文，拙劣的模仿；v.拙劣模仿，作模仿诗文 | |
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118
gambol
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| v.欢呼，雀跃 | |
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119
clan
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| n.氏族，部落，宗族，家族，宗派 | |
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120
forfeiture
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| n.（名誉等）丧失 | |
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121
feud
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| n.长期不和；世仇；v.长期争斗；世代结仇 | |
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122
vassals
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| n.奴仆( vassal的名词复数 )；（封建时代）诸侯；从属者；下属 | |
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123
vassal
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| n.附庸的；属下；adj.奴仆的 | |
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124
haughty
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| adj.傲慢的，高傲的 | |
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125
homage
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| n.尊敬，敬意，崇敬 | |
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126
rein
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| n.疆绳，统治，支配；vt.以僵绳控制，统治 | |
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127
slain
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| 杀死，宰杀，杀戮( slay的过去分词 )； (slay的过去分词) | |
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128
avenged
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| v.为…复仇，报…之仇( avenge的过去式和过去分词 )；为…报复 | |
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129
traitors
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| 卖国贼( traitor的名词复数 )； 叛徒； 背叛者； 背信弃义的人 | |
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130
traitor
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| n.叛徒，卖国贼 | |
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131
yoke
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| n.轭；支配；v.给...上轭，连接，使成配偶 | |
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132
hawks
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| 鹰( hawk的名词复数 )； 鹰派人物，主战派人物 | |
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133
rusty
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| adj.生锈的；锈色的；荒废了的 | |
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134
bugle
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| n.军号，号角，喇叭；v.吹号，吹号召集 | |
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135
hoarse
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| adj.嘶哑的，沙哑的 | |
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136
gallant
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| adj.英勇的，豪侠的；(向女人)献殷勤的 | |
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137
hardy
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| adj.勇敢的，果断的，吃苦的；耐寒的 | |
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138
guise
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| n.外表，伪装的姿态 | |
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139
vows
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| 誓言( vow的名词复数 )； 郑重宣布，许愿 | |
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140
chapel
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| n.小教堂，殡仪馆 | |
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141
wreck
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| n.失事，遇难；沉船；vt.(船等)失事，遇难 | |
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142
bakers
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| n.面包师( baker的名词复数 )；面包店；面包店店主；十三 | |
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143
infancy
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| n.婴儿期；幼年期；初期 | |
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144
spate
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| n.泛滥，洪水，突然的一阵 | |
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145
beheld
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| v.看，注视( behold的过去式和过去分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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146
aisles
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| n. (席位间的)通道, 侧廊 | |
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147
isles
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| 岛( isle的名词复数 ) | |
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148
tilting
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| 倾斜，倾卸 | |
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149
pranks
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| n.玩笑，恶作剧( prank的名词复数 ) | |
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150
bluff
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| v.虚张声势，用假象骗人；n.虚张声势，欺骗 | |
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151
bustle
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| v.喧扰地忙乱，匆忙，奔忙；n.忙碌；喧闹 | |
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152
poignant
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| adj.令人痛苦的，辛酸的，惨痛的 | |
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153
excellence
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| n.优秀，杰出，(pl.)优点，美德 | |
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154
abatement
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| n.减(免)税，打折扣，冲销 | |
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155
superstition
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| n.迷信，迷信行为 | |
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156
malevolent
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| adj.有恶意的，恶毒的 | |
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157
specimen
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| n.样本，标本 | |
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158
pedant
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| n.迂儒；卖弄学问的人 | |
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159
provincial
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| adj.省的，地方的；n．外省人，乡下人 | |
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160
ransom
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| n.赎金，赎身；v.赎回，解救 | |
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161
royalty
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| n.皇家，皇族 | |
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162
withered
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| adj. 枯萎的，干瘪的，（人身体的部分器官）因病萎缩的或未发育良好的 动词wither的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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163
toiling
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| 长时间或辛苦地工作( toil的现在分词 )； 艰难缓慢地移动，跋涉 | |
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164
vein
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| n.血管，静脉；叶脉，纹理；情绪；vt.使成脉络 | |
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165
akin
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| adj.同族的，类似的 | |
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166
rendezvous
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| n.约会，约会地点，汇合点；vi.汇合，集合；vt.使汇合，使在汇合地点相遇 | |
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167
beacon
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| n.烽火，（警告用的）闪火灯，灯塔 | |
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168
foe
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| n.敌人，仇敌 | |
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169
generosity
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| n.大度，慷慨，慷慨的行为 | |
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170
faculty
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| n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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171
irritation
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| n.激怒，恼怒，生气 | |
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172
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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173
partisan
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| adj.党派性的；游击队的；n.游击队员；党徒 | |
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174
converse
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| vi.谈话，谈天，闲聊；adv.相反的，相反 | |
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175
impeaching
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| v.控告（某人）犯罪( impeach的现在分词 )；弹劾；对（某事物）怀疑；提出异议 | |
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176
saluted
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| v.欢迎，致敬( salute的过去式和过去分词 )；赞扬，赞颂 | |
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177
vilely
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| adv.讨厌地，卑劣地 | |
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178
condoned
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| v.容忍，宽恕，原谅( condone的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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179
pillory
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| n.嘲弄；v.使受公众嘲笑；将…示众 | |
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180
brutal
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| adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的 | |
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181
outrages
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| 引起…的义愤，激怒( outrage的第三人称单数 ) | |
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182
salmon
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| n.鲑，大马哈鱼，橙红色的 | |
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183
constable
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| n.(英国)警察，警官 | |
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184
dealer
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| n.商人，贩子 | |
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185
benevolence
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| n.慈悲，捐助 | |
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186
tact
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| n.机敏，圆滑，得体 | |
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187
thumping
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| adj.重大的，巨大的；重击的；尺码大的；极好的adv.极端地；非常地v.重击(thump的现在分词)；狠打；怦怦地跳；全力支持 | |
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188
moths
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| n.蛾( moth的名词复数 ) | |
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189
immortal
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| adj.不朽的；永生的，不死的；神的 | |
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190
laurels
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| n.桂冠，荣誉 | |
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191
bard
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| n.吟游诗人 | |
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192
fabled
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| adj.寓言中的，虚构的 | |
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193
knight
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| n.骑士，武士；爵士 | |
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194
grudge
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| n.不满，怨恨，妒嫉；vt.勉强给，不情愿做 | |
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195
forgery
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| n.伪造的文件等，赝品，伪造（行为） | |
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196
infamy
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| n.声名狼藉，出丑，恶行 | |
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197
tilts
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| （意欲赢得某物或战胜某人的）企图，尝试( tilt的名词复数 ) | |
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198
phantom
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| n.幻影，虚位，幽灵；adj.错觉的，幻影的，幽灵的 | |
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199
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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200
candid
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| adj.公正的，正直的；坦率的 | |
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201
omens
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| n.前兆，预兆( omen的名词复数 ) | |
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202
odyssey
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| n.长途冒险旅行；一连串的冒险 | |
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203
catastrophe
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| n.大灾难，大祸 | |
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204
artifice
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| n.妙计，高明的手段；狡诈，诡计 | |
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205
justified
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| a.正当的，有理的 | |
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206
hacked
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| 生气 | |
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207
renewal
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| adj.(契约)延期，续订，更新，复活，重来 | |
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208
dispense
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| vt.分配，分发；配(药)，发(药)；实施 | |
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209
umbrage
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| n.不快；树荫 | |
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210
lament
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| n.悲叹，悔恨，恸哭；v.哀悼，悔恨，悲叹 | |
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211
patriotism
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| n.爱国精神，爱国心，爱国主义 | |
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212
vexed
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| adj.争论不休的；（指问题等）棘手的；争论不休的问题；烦恼的v.使烦恼( vex的过去式和过去分词 )；使苦恼；使生气；详细讨论 | |
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213
rankled
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| v.（使）痛苦不已，（使）怨恨不已( rankle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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