The Complete Poems of Sir Walter Scott. Walter Scott

I was already acquainted with the “Joan of Arc,” the Thalaba,” and the “Metrical Ballads” of Mr Southey, which had found their way to Scotland, and were generally admired. But Mr. Stoddart, who had the advantage of personal friendship with the authors, and who possessed a strong memory with an excellent taste, was able to repeat to me many long specimens of their peotry, which had not yet appeared in print. Amongst others, was the striking fragment called Christabel, by Mr. Coleridge, which, from the singularly irregular structure of the stanzas, and the liberty which it allowed the author to adapt the sound to the sense, seemed to be exactly suited to such an extravaganza as I meditated on the subject of Gilpin Horner. As applied to comic and humorous poetry, this mescolanza of measures had been already used by Anthony Hall, Anstey, Dr. Wolcott, and others; but it was in Christabel that I first found it used in serious poetry, and it is to Mr. Coleridge that I am bound to make the acknowledgment due from the pupil to the master. I observe that Lord Byron, in noticing my obligations to Mr. Coleridge, which I have been always most ready to acknowledge, expressed, or was understood to expres, that I did not write an unfriendly review on Mr. Coleridge’s productions. On this subject I have only to say, that I do not even know the review which is alluded to; and were I ever to take the unbecoming freedom of censuring a man of Mr. Coleridge’s extraordinary talents, it would be on account of the caprice and indolence with which he has thrown from him, as if in mere wantonness, those unfinished scraps of poetry, which, like the Torso of antiquity, defy the skill of his poetical brethren to complete them. The charming fragments which the author abandons to their fate, are surely too valuable to be treated like the proofs of careless engravers, the sweepings of whose studios often make the fortune of some painstaking collector.

       I did not immediately proceed upon my projected labour, though I was now furnished with a subject, and with a structure of verse which might have the effect of novelty to the public ear, and afford the author an opportunity of varying his measure with the variations of a romantic theme. On the contrary, it was, to the best of my recollection, more than a year after Mr. Stoddart’s visit, that, by way of experiment, I composed the first two or three stanzas of “The Lay of the Last Minstrel.” I was shortly afterwards visited by two intimate friends, one of whom still survives. They were men whose talents might have raised them to the highest station in literature, had they not preferred exerting them in their own profession of the law, in which they attained equal preferment. I was in the habit of consulting them on my attempts at composition, having equal confidence in their sound taste and friendly sincerity. In this specimen I had, in the phrase of the Highland servant, packed all that was my own at least, for I had also included a line of invocation, a little softened, from Coleridge—

       “Mary, mother, shield us well.”

       s neither of my friends said much to me on the subject of the stanzas I showed them before their departure, I had no doubt that their disgust had been greater than their goodnature chose to express. Looking upon them, therefore, as a failure, I threw the manuscript into the fire, and thought as little more as I could of the matter. Some time afterwards I met one of my two counsellors, who inquired, with considerable appearance of interest, about the progress of the romance I had commenced, and was greatly surprised at learing its fate. He confessed that neigher he nor our mutual friend had been at first able to give a precise opinion on the poem so much out of the common road, but that as they walked home together to the city, they had talked much on the subejct, and the result was an earnest desire that I would proceed with the composition. He also added, that some sort of prologue might be necessary, to place the mind of the hearers in the situation to understand and enjoy the poem, and recommended the adoption of such quaint mottoes as Spencer has used to announce the contents of the chapters of the Faery Queen, such as:—

      “Babe’s bloody hands may not be cleansed.

      The face of golden Mean:

      Her sisters two, Extremities,

      Her strive to banish clean.”

      entirely agreed with my friendly critic in the necessity of having some sort of pitch-pipe, which might make readers aware of the object, or rather the tone, of the publication. But I doubted whether, in assuming the oracular style of Spenser’s mottoes, the interpreter might not be censured as the harder to be understood of the two. I therefore introduced the Old Minstrel, as an appropriate prolocutor, by whom the lay might be sung, or spoken, and the introduction of whom betwixt the cantos, might remind the reader at intervals, of the time, place, and circumstances of the recitation. This species of cadre, or frame, afterwards afforded the poem its name of “The Lay of the Last Minstrel.”

       The work was subsequently shown to other friends during its progress, and received the imprimatur of Mr. Francis Jeffrey, who had been already for some time distinguished by his critical talent.

       The poem, being once licensed by the critics as fit for the market, was soon finished, proceeding at about the rate of a canto per week. There was, indeed, little occasion for pause or hesitation, when a troublesome rhyme might be accommodated by an alteration of stanza, or where an incorrect measure might be remedied by a variation in the rhyme. It was finally published in 1805, and may be regarded as the first work in which the writer who has been since so voluminous, laid his claim to be considered as an original author.

       The book was published by Longman and Company, and Archibald Constable and Company. The principal of the latter firm was then commencing that course of bold and liberal industry which was of so much advantage to his country, and might have been so to himself, but for causes which it is needless to enter into here. The work, brought out on the usual terms of division of profits between the author and the publishers, was not long after purchased by them for 500l. to which Messrs. Longman and Company afterwards added 100l., in their own unsolicited kindness, in consequence of the uncommon success of the work. It was handsomely given to supply the lose of a fine horse, which broke down suddenly while the author was riding with one of the publishers.

       It would be great affectation not to own frankly, that the author expected some success from “The Lay of the Last Minstrel.” The attempt to return to a more simple and natural style of poetry was likely to be welcomed, at a time when the publich had become tired of heroic hexameters, with all the buckram and binding which belong to them of latter days. But whatever might have been his expectations, whether moderate or unreasonable, the result left them far behind, for among those who smiled on the adventurous Minstrel, were numbered the great names of William Pitt and Charles Fox. Neither was the extent of the sale inferior to the character of the judges who received the poem with approbation. Upwards of thirty thousand copies of the Lay were disposed of by the trade; and the author had to perform a task difficult to human vanity, when called upon to make the necessary deductions from his own merits, in a calm attempt to account for his popularity.

       A few additional remarks on the author’s literary attempts after this period will be found in the Introduction to the Poem of Marmion.

      ABBOTSFORD, April, 1830.

       Introduction

      The way was long, the wind was cold,

       The Minstrel was infirm and old;

       His wither’d cheek, and tresses gray,

       Seem’d to have known a better day;

       The harp, his sole remaining joy,

       Was carried by an orphan boy.

       The last of all the Bards was he,

       Who sung of Border chivalry;

       For, welladay! their date was fled,

       His tuneful brethren all were dead;

       And he, neglected and oppress’d,

       Wish’d to be with them, and at rest.

       No more on prancing palfrey borne,

       He caroll’d, light as lark at morn;

       No longer courted and caress’d,

       High placed in hall, a welcome guest,

       He pour’d, to lord and lady gay,

       The unpremeditated lay:

       Old times were changed, old manners gone;