But by far the noblest of Warton's inspirations are his two odes—the Crusade and the Grave of King Arthur. "They have," quoth the author of Hohenlinden and Lochiel," a genuine air of martial and minstrel enthusiasm." And again," the spirit of Chivalry he may indeed be said to have revived in the poetry of modern times." Scott took a motto for the Minstrelsy of the Border from Warton-a most appropriate one"The songs, to savage virtue dear, That won of yore the public ear; Ere polity, sedate and sage,

Had quenched the fires of feudal rage." But Scott was indebted to Warton for far more than a motto-and has

somewhere acknowledged the obligation-his genius was kindled by "the Crusade," and "the Grave of Arthur"-nor has he surpassed, if indeed he has equalled them in any of his most heroic strains. The composition is more perfect than that of any thing Scott ever wrote-the style more sustained and the spirit more accordant with the olden time.

"The Crusade" is supposed to have been the Song composed by Richard and Blondel, and sung by that minstrel under the window of the Castle

in which the King was imprisoned by Leopold of Austria.

THE CRUSADE.

"Bound for holy Palestine,
Nimbly we brush'd the level brine,
All in azure steel arrayed;
O'er the wave our weapon played,
And made the dancing billows glow;
High upon the trophied prow,
Many a warrior-minstrel swung
His sounding harp, and boldly sung :
666 Syrian virgins, wail and weep,
English Richard ploughs the deep!

Tremble, watchmen, as ye spy

From distant towers, with anxious eye,
The radiant range of shield and lance
Down Damascus' hills advance :
From Sion's turrets as afar

Ye ken the march of Europe's war!
Saladin, thou paynim king,
From Albion's isle revenge we bring!
On Acon's spiry citadel,

Though to the gale thy banners swell,
Pictured with the silver Moon;
England shall end thy glory soon!
In vain, to break our firm array,
Thy brazen drums hoarse discord bray:
Those sounds our rising fury fan:
English Richard in the van,
On to victory we go,

A vaunting infidel the foe.'

"Blondel led the tuneful band, And swept the wire with glowing hand.

Cyprus, from her rocky mound,

And Crete, with piny verdure crowned,
Far along the smiling main
Echoed the prophetic strain.

"Soon we kissed the sacred earth

That gave a murdered Saviour birth;
Then with ardour fresh endued,
Thus the solemn song renewed.

Lo, the toilsome voyage past,
Heaven's favoured hills appear at last!'
Object of our holy vow,

We tread the Tyrian valleys now.
From Carmel's almond shaded steep,
We feel the cheering fragrance creep:

O'er Engaddi's shrubs of balm
Waves the date empurpled palm:
See Lebanon's aspiring head
Wide his immortal umbrage spread!
Hail, Calvary, thou mountain hoar,
Wet with our Redeemer's gore!
Ye trampled tombs, ye fanes forlorn,
Ye stones, by tears of pilgrims worn;
Your ravished honours to restore,
Fearless we climb this hostile shore!
And thou, the sepulchre of God!
By mocking pagans rudely trod,
Bereft of every awful rite,
And quenched thy lamps that beamed so
bright;

For thee, from Britain's distant coast,
Lo, Richard leads his faithful host!

Aloft in his heroic hand,
Blazing, like the beacon's brand,
O'er the far-affrighted fields,
Resistless Kaliburn he wields.
Proud Saracen, pollute no more
The shrines by martyrs built of yore!
From each wild mountain's trackless

crown

In vain thy gloomy castles frown:
Thy battering engines, huge and high,
In vain our steel-clad steeds defy;
And, rolling in terrific state,

On giant wheels harsh thunders grate.
When eve has hushed the buzzing camp,
Amid the moon-light vapours damp,
Thy necromantic forms, in vain,
Haunt us on the tented plain :
We bid the spectre-shapes avaunt,
Ashtaroth, and Termagaunt!.
With many a demon, pale of hue,
Doomed to drink the bitter dew
That drops from Macon's sooty tree,
Mid the dread grove of ebony.
Nor magic charms, nor fiends of Hell,
The Christian's holy courage quell.
"Salem, in ancient majesty
Arise, and lift thee to the sky!
Soon on thy battlements divine
Shall wave the badge of Constantine.
Ye barons, to the Sun unfold

Our cross with crimson wove and gold!'"

even

"The Grave of King Arthur" is a still nobler strain. King Henry the Second having undertaken an expedition into Ireland to suppress a rebellion raised by Roderic, King of Connaught, commonly called O'Connor Dunn, or the brown Monarch of Ireland, was entertained in his passage through Wales with the songs of the Welsh Bards. The subject of their poetry was King Arthur, whose history had been so disguised by fabulous inventions that the place of his burial was in general scarcely known or remembered. But in one of those Welsh poems sung before Henry, it was recited that King Arthur, after the Battle of Camlan in Cornwall, was interred at Glastonbury Abbey, before the high altar, yet without any external mark or memorial. Afterwards, Henry visited the Abbey, and commanded the spot, described by the bard, to be opened; when, digging near twenty feet deep, they found the body deposited under a large stone, in. scribed with Arthur's name. This is the groundwork of the ode; but it is told with some slight variations from the Chronicle of Glastonbury. The

Castle of Cilgarran, where this discovery is supposed to have been made, now a ruin, stands on a rock descending to the river Teivi in Pembrokeshire, and was built by Roger Montgomery, who led the van of the warriors at Hastings.

THE GRAVE OF KING ARTHUR.

"Stately the feast, and high the cheer:
Girt with many an armed peer,
And canopied with golden pall,
Amid Cilgarran's castle hall,
Sublime in formidable state,
And warlike splendour, Henry sate ;
Prepared to stain the briny flood
Of Shannon's lakes with rebel blood.
"Illumining the vaulted roof,

A thousand torches flamed aloof:
From massy cups, with golden gleam
Sparkled the red metheglin's stream :
To grace the gorgeous festival,
Along the lofty-windowed hall,
The storied tapestry was hung:
With minstrelsy the rafters hung
Of harps, that with reflected light
From the proud gallery glittered bright :
While gifted bards, a rival throng
(From distant Mona, muse of song
From Teivi, fringed with umbrage brown,
From Elvy's vale, and Cader's crown,
From many a shaggy precipice
That shades Ierne's hoarse abyss,
Of Radnor's inmost mountains rude),
And many a sunless solitude
To crown the banquet's solemn close,
Themes of British glory chose;
And to the strings of various chyme
Attempered thus the fabling rhyme.
"O'er Cornwall's cliffs the tempest
roared,

High the screaming sea-mew soared;
On Tintaggel's topmost tower
Darksome fell the sleety shower;
Round the rough castle shrilly sung
The whirling blast, and wildly flung
On each tall rampart's thundering side
The surges of the tumbling tide :
When Arthur ranged his red-cross ranks
On conscious Camlan's crimsoned banks :
By Mordred's faithless guile decreed
Yet in vain a paynim foe
Beneath a Saxon spear to bleed!

Armed with fate the mighty blow;
For when he fell, an elfin queen,
O'er the fainting hero threw
All in secret, and unseen,
Her mantle of ambrosial blue ;
In Merlin's agate-axled car,
And bade her spirits bear him far,
To her green isle's enamelled steep,
Far in the navel of the deep.
O'er his wounds she sprinkled dew
From flowers that in Arabia grew:

On a rich enchanted bed
She pillow'd his majestic head;
O'er his brow with whispers bland
Thrice she waved an opiate wand;
And to soft music's airy sound,
Her magic curtains closed around.
There, renew'd the vital spring,
Again he reigns a mighty king;
And many a fair and fragrant clime,
Blooming in immortal prime,
By gales of Eden ever fann'd,
Owns the monarch's high command:
Thence to Britain shall return
(If right prophetic rolls I learn),
Borne on Victory's spreading plume,
His ancient sceptre to resume;
Once more, in old heroic pride,
His barbed courser to bestride ;
His knightly table to restore,
And brave the tournaments of yore.'
"They ceas'd: when on the tuneful
stage

Advanc'd a bard, of aspect sage;
His silver tresses, thin besprent,
To age a graceful reverence lent;
His beard, all white as spangles frore
That clothe Plinlimmon's forests hoar,
Down to his harp descending flow'd;
With Time's faint rose his features
glow'd;

His eyes diffus'd a soften'd fire,
And thus he wak'd the warbling wire.
"Listen, Henry, to my read!
Not from fairy realms I lead
Bright-rob'd Tradition, to relate
In forged colours Arthur's fate;
Though much of old romantic lore
On the high theme I keep in store :
But boastful Fiction should be dumb,
Where Truth the strain might best be-

come.

If thine ear may still be won
With songs of Uther's glorious son,
Henry, I a tale unfold,

Never yet in rhyme enroll'd,
Nor sung nor harp'd in hall or bower;
Which in my youth's full early flower,
A minstrel, sprung of Cornish line,
Who spoke of kings from old Locrine,
Taught me to chant, one vernal dawn,
Deep in a cliff-encircled lawn,
What time the glistening vapours fled
From cloud-envelop'd Clyder's head;
And on its sides the torrents gray
Shone to the morning's orient ray.
"When Arthur bowed his haughty
crest,

No princess, veiled in azure vest,
Snatched him, by Merlin's potent spell,
In groves of golden bliss to dwell ;
Where, crowned with wreaths of misletoe,
Slaughter'd kings in glory go:

But when he fell, with winged speed,
His champions, on a milk-white steed,
From the battle's hurricane,
Bore him to Joseph's towered fane,

In the fair vale of Avalon:
There, with chanted orison,
And the long blaze of tapers clear,
The stoled fathers met the bier;
Through the dim iles, in order dread
Of martial wo, the chief they led,
And deep entombed in holy ground,
Before the altar's solemn bound.
Around no dusky banners wave,
No mouldering trophies mark the grave:
Away the ruthless Dane has torn
Each trace that Time's slow touch had
worn;

And long, o'er the neglected stone,
Oblivion's veil its shade has thrown :
The faded tomb, with honour due,
'Tis thine, O Henry, to renew!
Thither, when conquest has restor'd
Yon recreant isle, and sheath'd the sword,
When Peace with palm has crown'd thy
brows,

Haste thee, to pay thy pilgrim vows.
There, observant of my lore,

The pavement's hallowed depth explore;
And thrice a fathom underneath

Dive into the vaults of Death.

There shall thine eye, with wild amaze,
On his gigantic stature gaze ;
There shalt thou find the monarch laid,
All in warrior-weeds array'd;
Wearing in death his helmet-crown,
And weapons huge of old renown.
Martial prince, 'tis thine to save
From dark oblivion Arthur's grave!
So may thy ships securely stem
The western frith: thy diadem
Shine victorious in the van,
Nor heed the slings of Ulster's clan :
Thy Norman pike-men win their way
Up the dun rocks of Harald's bay:
And from the steeps of rough Kildare
Thy prancing hoofs the falcon scare:
So may thy bow's unerring yew
Its shafts in Roderic's heart imbrew.'
"Amid the pealing symphony
The spiced goblets mantled high;
With passions new the song impressed
The listening king's impatient breast:
Flash the keen lightnings from his eyes;
He scorns awhile his bold emprise ;
E'en now he seems, with eager pace,
The consecrated floor to trace,
And ope, from its tremendous gloom,
The treasure of the wondrous tomb:
E'en now he burns in thought to rear
From its dark bed, the ponderous spear,
Rough with the gore of Pictish kings:
E'en now fond hope his fancy wings,
To poise the monarch's massy blade,
Of magic-tempered metal made;
And drag to day the stinted shield
That felt the storm of Camlan's field.
O'er the sepulchre profound

E'en now, with arching sculpture crown'd,
He plans the chantry's choral sbrine,
The daily dirge, and rites divine."

These two Odes work on our imagination more powerfully than " The Bard" of Gray. To us they appear to be more poetical, and you may laugh at us for saying so, as sardonically as your face will permit. "Was ne'er prophetic sound so full of woe," cannot with any truth be said of the rhetorical style of that Ode-and we should not have suspected from the stately composure of his speech, occasionally corrugated with affected vehemence, that with haggard eyes the Prophet stood on a rock. Yet it was on some occasion during the current year that we heard some simple soul like ourself called over the coals for the heresy we now have been guilty of, by some truculent critic who seemed to think his own character involved, heaven knows how, in the lyrical genius of Gray.

By the way, Thomas Warton has, in our opinion, described Abbeys and Cathedrals, within and without, much better than Walter Scott.

"If thou wouldst view fair Melrose aright,

Go visit it by the pale moonlight;
For the gay beams of lightsome day
Gild, but to flout, the ruins grey.
When the broken arches are black in night,
And each shafted oriel glimmers white;
When the cold light's uncertain shower
Streams on the ruin'd central tower;
When buttress and buttress, alternately,
Seem framed of ebon and ivory;
When silver edges the imagery,

And the scrolls that teach thee to live and

die;

When distant Tweed is heard to rave, And the owlet to hoot o'er the dead man's

grave,

Then go but go alone the while_
Then view St David's ruined pile;
And, home returning, soothly swear,
Was never scene so sad and fair."

The second couplet has no business there and forcibly brings before us an image which should have been totally excluded from the picture. Omit these two lines and you will at once feel how the effect is deepened of the night vision. Besides, they are in themselves bad for daylight did never yet gild ruins grey"-much less "flout" them-and these are, moreover, ugly words. The next four lines are excellent; though to our ear and eye, in so short a passage, so many monosyllabic epithets sound and look oddly" fair," "pale," "gay," "grey," "black," "cold." The but

66

tresses are alternately in light and in shadow-and the Last Minstrel says "alternately they seem of ebon and ivory." That is pure nonsense. They seemed to be of stone. The change of substance is the reverse of a process of imagination—for it destroys the shadowy beauty given to the edifice by moonlight, substituting in its place something to the last degree fantastic

say at once ridiculous. We doubt the truth of "silver edges the imagery and the scrolls," but you may like be cause you understand it. The silver as well as the ebon and the ivory had been far better away. But the fatal fault-and it is to us an astounding one

is, "And the owlet hoots o'er the dead man's grave." That line not only disturbs but destroys the spirit pervading-or intended to pervade the description that of stillness-sadnessbeauty-peace-" Was never scene so sad and fair!"-" Then view St David's ruined pile" is a needless repetition-and comes in very awk wardly after "ruined central tower," -nor is that an inconsiderable blemish in such a picture. "Soothly swear" seems to us rather silly-but if you admire it we shall try to do so too-and 'tis but a trifle. Some of our other objections to this far-famed description are radical and vitaland it will be easier for you to rebuild Melrose Abbey than set them aside. We are told that

"Short halt did Deloraine make there; Little reck'd he of the scene so fair;" from which the reader might well have supposed that the Abbey was then in ruins. The moss-trooper and monk proceed together to the Wizard's Tomb; and the Minstrel describes the interior of the Abbey. "By a steel-clenched postern door, They enter'd now the chancel tall; The darken'd roof rose high aloof On pillars lofty and light and small : The key-stone that lock'd each ribbed

aisle