Marmion

creeping into a narrow and dreadful cleft in a rock, which was always dropping wet, and was her place of retirement, as well as prayer; having worn out even the rock with her knees, in a certain place, which is now open’d on purpose to show it to those who come here. This chapel is very richly adorn’d; and on the spot where the saint’s dead body was discover’d, which is just beneath the hole in the rock, which is open’d on purpose, as I said, there is a very fine statue of marble, representing her in a lying posture, railed in all about with fine iron and brass work; and the altar, on which they say mass, is built just over it.’-Voyage to Sicily and Malta, by Mr. John Dryden, (son to the poet,) p. 107.

Stanza XXIV. line 408. The national motto is ‘St. George for Merrie England.’ The records of various central and eastern English towns tell of a very ancient custom of ‘carrying the dragon in procession, in great jollity, on Midsummer Eve.’ See Brand’s ‘Popular Antiquities,’ i. 321. In reference to the ‘Birth of St George’ and his deeds, see Percy’s ‘Reliques.’

line 409. Becket (1119-70), Archbishop of Canterbury. See ‘Canterbury Tales’ and Aubrey de Vere’s ‘St. Thomas of Canterbury: a dramatic poem.’

line 410. For Cuthbert, see below, II. xiv. 257. Bede (673-735), a monk of Jarrow on Tyne; called the Venerable Bede; author of an important ‘Ecclesiastical History’ and an English translation of St. John’s Gospel.

lines 419-20. Lord Jeffrey’s sense of humour was not adequate to the appreciation of these two lines, which he specialised for condemnation.

Stanza. XXV. line 421. Gramercy, from Fr. grand merci, sometimes used as an emphatic exclamation, although fundamentally implying the thanks of the speaker.

line 430 still = always. Cp., inter alia, 440 and 452 below. See ‘still vexed Bermoothes,’ Tempest, i. 2. 229, and cp. Hamlet, ii. 2. 42,-

     ‘Thou still hast been the father of good news.’

Stanza XXVI. line 452. Scott quotes from Rabelais the passage in which the monk suggests to Gargantua that in order to induce sleep they might together try the repetition of the seven penitential psalms. ‘The conceit pleased Gargantua very well; and, beginning the first of these psalms, as soon as they came to Beati quorum they fell asleep, both the one and the other.’ Cp. Chaucer’s Monk and the character of Accidia in ‘Piers the Plowman,’ Passus V.

line 453. ave, an address to the Virgin Mary, beginning ‘Ave Maria’; creed, a profession of faith, beginning with Credo. It has been objected to this line that the creed is not an essential part of the rosary, and that ten aves and one paternoster would have been more accurate. It should, however, be noticed that both Friar John and young Selby know more of other matters than the details of religious devotion.

Stanza XXVII. line 459. ‘A Palmer, opposed to a Pilgrim, was one who made it his sole business to visit different holy shrines; travelling incessantly, and subsisting by charity: whereas the Pilgrim retired to his usual home and occupations, when he had paid his devotions at the particular spot which was the object of his pilgrimage. The Palmers seem to have been the Quaestionarii of the ancient Scottish canons 1242 and 1296. There is in the Bannatyne MS. a burlesque account of two such persons, entitled, “Simmy and his Brother.” Their accoutrements are thus ludicrously described (I discard the ancient spelling):-

     “Syne shaped them up, to loup on leas, 
        Two tabards of the tartan; 
      They counted nought what their clouts were 
        When sew’d them on, in certain. 
      Syne clampit up St. Peter’s keys, 
        Made of an old red gartane; 
      St. James’s shells, on t’other side, shews 
        As pretty as a partane 
                            Toe,

      On Symmye and his brother.”‘-SCOTT.

With this account of the Palmer, cp. ‘Piers the Plowman,’ v. 523:-

     ‘He bare a burdoun ybounde  with a brode liste, 
      In a withewyndes wise  ywounden aboute. 
      A bolle and a bagge  he bare by his syde; 
      An hundredth of ampulles  on his hatt seten, 
      Signes of Synay  and shelles of Galice; 
      And many a cruche on his cloke  and keyes of Rome, 
      And the vernicle bifore  for men shulde knowe, 
      And se bi his signes  whom he soughte hadde.’