Marmion

line 101. ‘The Scottish Harvest-home.’-SCOTT. Perhaps the name ‘kirn’ is due to the fact that a churnful of cream is a feature of the night’s entertainment. In Chambers’s Burns, iii. 151, Robert Ainslie gives an account of a kirn at Ellisland in 1790.

line 102. Cp. the ‘wood-notes wild’ with which Milton credits Shakespeare, ‘L’Allegro,’ 131.

lines 104-5. The ideal pastoral life of the Golden Age.

line 132. ‘Sir William Forbes of Pitsligo, Baronet; unequalled, perhaps, in the degree of individual affection entertained for him by his friends, as well as in the general respect and esteem of Scotland at large. His “Life of Beattie,” whom he befriended and patronised in life, as well as celebrated after his decease, was not long published, before the benevolent and affectionate biographer was called to follow the subject of his narrative. This melancholy event very shortly succeeded the marriage of the friend, to whom this introduction is addressed, with one of Sir William’s daughters.’-SCOTT.

line 133. ‘The Minstrel’ is Beattie’s chief poem; it is one of the few poems in well- written Spenserian stanza.

line 147. Ps. lxviii. 5.

line 151. Prov. xxvii. 10.

line 155. For account of Sir W. Forbes, see his autobiographical ‘Memoirs of a Banking House’; Chambers’s ‘Eminent Scotsmen’; and ‘Dictionary of National Biography.’

line 163. Cp. Pope, ‘Essay on Man,’ IV. 380, and Boileau, ‘L’Art Poetique, ‘Chant I:-

     ‘Heureux qui, dans ses vers, sait d’une voix legere 
      Passer du grave au doux, du plaisant an severe.’

line 172. ‘Tirante el Blanco,’ a Spanish romance by Johann Martorell (1480), praised in ‘Don Quixote.’

line 174. ‘Camp was a favourite dog of the Poet’s, a bull terrier of extraordinary sagacity. He is introduced in Raeburn’s portrait of Sir Walter Scott, now at Dalkeith Palace.’-LOCKHART.

line 181. Cp. Tempest, v. i. 93.

line 191. ‘Colin Mackenzie, Esq., of Portmore. See “Border Minstrelsy,” iv. 351.’- LOCKHART. Mackenzie had been Scott’s friend from boyhood, and he received his copy of ‘Marmion’ at Lympstone, where he was, owing to feeble health, as mentioned in the text. He was a son-in-law of Sir William Forbes, and in acknowledging receipt of the poem he said, ‘I must thank you for the elegant and delicate allusion in which you express your friendship for myself-Forbes-and, above all, that sweet memorial of his late excellent father.’-’Life of Scott,’ ii. 152.

line 194. ‘Sir William Rae of St. Catherine’s, Bart., subsequently Lord Advocate of Scotland, was a distinguished member of the volunteer corps to which Sir Walter Scott belonged; and he, the Poet, Mr. Skene, Mr. Mackenzie, and a few other friends, had formed themselves into a little semi-military club, the meetings of which were held at their family supper tables in rotation.’-LOCKHART.

line 195. ‘The late Sir William Forbes of Pitsligo, Bart., son of the author of the “Life of Beattie.”‘-LOCKHART.

line 196. The Mimosa pudica, or sensitive plant. See Shelley’s poem on the subject:-

     ‘The Sensitive Plant was the earliest 
      Upgathered into the bosom of rest; 
      A sweet child weary of its delight, 
      The feeblest and yet the favourite, 
      Cradled within the embrace of night.’

line 200. Cp. ‘L’Allegro,’ 31, ‘Sport that wrinkled Care derides.’

line 206. See King Lear, iii. 4. 138, where Edgar, as Poor Tom, says that he has had ‘three suits to his back, six shirts to his body, horse to ride, and weapon to wear.’