Marmion

‘James Skene, Esq., of Rubislaw, Aberdeenshire, was Cornet in the Royal Edinburgh Light Horse Volunteers; and Sir Walter Scott was Quartermaster of the same corps.’-LOCKHART.

For Skene’s account of the origin of this regiment, due in large measure to ‘Scott’s ardour,’ see ‘Life of Scott,’ i. 258.

line 2. See Taming of the Shrew, i. 4. 135, and 2 Henry IV, v. 3. 143, where a line of an old song is quoted:-

     ‘Where is the life that late I led?’

line 3. See As you Like It, ii. 7. 12.

line 7. Scott made the acquaintance of Skene, recently returned from a lengthened stay in Saxony, about the end of 1796, and profited much by his friend’s German knowledge and his German books. In later days he utilized suggestions of Skene’s in ‘Ivanhoe’ and ‘Quentin Durward.’ See ‘Life of Scott,’ passim, and specially i. 257, and iv. 342.

line 37. Blackhouse, a farm ‘situated on the Douglas-burn, then tenanted by a remarkable family, to which I have already made allusion-that of William Laidlaw.’-’Life,’ i. 328. Ettrick Pen is a hill in the south of Selkirkshire.

line 46. ‘Various illustrations of the Poetry and Novels of Sir Walter Scott, from designs by Mr. Skene, have since been published.’-LOCKHART.

line 48. Probably the first reference in poetry to the Scottish heather is, says Prof. Veitch (‘Feeling for Nature,’ ii. 52), in Thomson’s ‘Spring,’ where the bees are represented as daring

     ‘The purple heath, or where the wild thyme grows.’

lines 55-97. With this striking typical winter piece, cp. in Thomson’s ‘Winter,’ the vivid and pathetic picture beginning:?

     ‘In his own loose-revolving fields, the swain
      Disastered stands.’

See also Burns’s ‘Winter Night,’ which by these lines may have suggested Scott’s ‘beamless sun’:-

     ‘When Phoebus gies a short-liv’d glow’r
                        Far south the lift;
      Dim-dark’ning thro’ the flaky show’r,
                        Or whirling drift.’

The ‘tired ploughman,’ too, may owe something to this farther line of Burns:-

     ‘Poor labour sweet in sleep was lock’d’;

while the animals seeking shelter may well follow this inimitable and touching description:-

     ‘List’ning the doors an’ winnocks rattle, 
      I thought me on the ourie cattle, 
      Or silly sheep, wha bide this brattle 
                             O’ winter war, 
      And thro’ the drift, deep-lairing, sprattle 
                             Beneath a scaur.’

line 91. ‘I cannot help here mentioning that, on the night on which these lines were written, suggested as they were by a sudden fall of snow, beginning after sunset, an unfortunate man perished exactly in the manner here described, and his body was next morning found close to his own house. The accident happened within five miles of the farm of Ashestiel.’-SCOTT.