Marmion

line 85. Scott was sheriff-substitute of Selkirkshire. As the law requires residence within the limits of the sheriffdom, Scott dwelt at Ashestiel at least four months of every year. Prof. Veitch, in his descriptive poem ‘The Tweed,’ writes warmly on Ashestiel, as Scott’s residence in his happiest time:-

     ‘Sweet Ashestiel! that peers ‘mid woody braes, 
      And lists the ripple of Glenkinnon’s rill- 
      Fair girdled by Tweed’s ampler gleaming wave- 
      His well loved home of early happy days, 
      Ere noon of Fame, and ere dark Ruin’s eve, 
      When life lay unrevealed, with hopeful thrill

      Of all that might be in the reach of powers 
      Whose very flow was a continued joy- 
      Strong-rushing as the dawn, and fresh and fair 
      In outcome as that morning of the world, 
      Which gilded all his kindled fancy’s dream!’

line 88. Harriet, Countess of Dalkeith, afterwards Duchess of Buccleuch. A suggestion of hers led to the composition of the ‘Lay of the Last Minstrel.’ See Prof. Minto’s Introduction to Clarendon Press edition of the poem, p. 8.

lines 90-93. ‘These lines were not in the original MS.’-LOCKHART.

line 106. ‘The late Alexander Pringle, Esq., of Whytbank-whose beautiful seat of the Yair stands on the Tweed, about two miles below Ashestiel.’-LOCKHART.

line 108. ‘The sons of Mr. Pringle of Whytbank.’-LOCKHART.

line 113. Cp. VI. 611, below.

line 115. ‘There is, on a high mountainous ridge above the farm of Ashestiel, a fosse called Wallace’s Trench.’-SCOTT.

line 124. Cp. Gray’s ‘Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College,’ especially lines 6l-2:-

     ‘These shall the fury Passions tear, 
         The vultures of the mind.’

lines 126-33. Cp. Wordsworth variously, particularly in the Matthew poems, the Ode on Intimations of Immortality, and Tintern Abbey, especially in its last twenty-five lines:-

                  ‘Therefore let the moon 
      Shine on thee in thy solitary walk,’ &c.

line 143. Cp. I Kings xix. 12.

lines 147-73. ‘This beautiful sheet of water forms the reservoir from which the Yarrow takes its source. It is connected with a smaller lake, called the Loch of the Lowes, and surrounded by mountains. In the winter, it is still frequented by flights of wild swans; hence my friend Mr. Wordsworth’s lines:-

     “The swan on sweet St. Mary’s lake 
      Floats double, swan and shadow.”

Near the lower extremity of the lake are the ruins of Dryhope tower, the birth-place of Mary Scott, daughter of Philip Scott of Dryhope, and famous by the traditional name of the Flower of Yarrow. She was married to Walter Scott of Harden, no less renowned for his depredations than his bride for her beauty. Her romantic appellation was, in latter days, with equal justice, conferred on Miss Mary Lilias Scott, the last of the elder branch of the Harden family. The author well remembers the talent and spirit of the latter Flower of Yarrow, though age had then injured the charms which procured her the name. The words usually sung to the air of “Tweedside,” beginning “What beauties does Flora disclose,” were composed in her honour.’-SCOTT.

Quoting from memory, Scott gives ‘sweet’ for still in Wordsworth’s lines. Mr. Aubrey de Vere, in ‘Essays Chiefly on Poetry,’ ii. 277, reports an interview with Wordsworth, in which the poet,