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And round the champion's brows was bound
The crown that druidess had wound,

Of the green laurel-bay.
And this was what remain'd of all
The wealth of each enchanted hall,

The garland and the dame:

But where should warrior seek the meed,
Due to high worth for daring deed,

Except from LOVE and FAME!

CONCLUSION.

1.

My Lucy, when the maid is won,
The minstrel's task, thou know'st, is done;
And to require of bard

That to the dregs his tale should run,
Were ordinance too hard.
Our lovers, briefly be it said,
Wedded as lovers wont to wed,

When tale or play is o'er;

Lived long and blest, loved fond and true,
And saw a numerous race renew

The honours that they bore.
Know, too, that when a pilgrim strays,
In morning mist, or evening maze,
Along the mountain lone,
That fairy fortress often mocks
His gaze upon the castle rocks

Of the valley of saint John;
But never man since brave De Vaux
The charmed portal won.
'Tis now a vain illusive show,
That melts whene'er the sunbeams glow,
Or the fresh breeze hath blown.

JI.

But see, my love, where far below
Our lingering wheels are moving slow,
The whiles up-gazing still,
Our menials eye our steepy way,
Marvelling, perchance, what whim can stay
Our steps when eve is sinking gray

On this gigantic hill.

So think the vulgar-Life and time
Ring all their joys in one dull chime
Of luxury and ease;

And O! beside these simple knaves,
How many better born are slaves

To such coarse joys as these,
Dead to the nobler sense that glows
When Nature's grander scenes unclose!
But, Lucy, we will love them yet,
The mountain's misty coronet,

The green-wood and the wold;
And love the more, that of their maze
Adventure high of other days

By ancient bards is told,
Bringing, perchance, like my poor tale,
Some moral truth in fiction's veil:
Nor love them less, that o'er the hill
The evening breeze, as now, comes chill;--
My love shall wrap her warm,
And, fearless of the slippery way,
While safe she trips the heathy brae,
Shall hang on Arthur's arm.

NOTES TO CANTO 1.

popular traditions. He loved fairies, genii, giants, and monsters; he delighted to rove through the meanders of enchantment, to gaze on the magnificence of golden palaces, to repose by the waterfalls of elysian gardens."

2

the baron of Triermain.-P. 348. Triermain was a fief of the barony of Gilsland, in Cumberland; it was possessed by a Saxon family at the time of the Conquest, but, after the deata of Gilmore, lord of Tryermaine and Torcrossock, Hubert Vaux gave Tryermaine and Torcrossock to his second son, Ranulph Vaux, which Ranulph afterwards became heir to his elder brother Robert, the founder of Lanercost, who died without issue. Ranulph, being lord of all Gilsland, gave Gilmore's lands to his own younger son, named Roland, and let the barony descend to his eldest son Robert, son of Ranulph. Roland had issue Alexander, and he Ranulph, after whom succeeded Robert, and they were named Rolands successively, that were lords thereof, until the reign of Edward the fourth. That house gave for arms, Vert, a bend dexter, chequey, or and gules.”—Burn's Antiquities of Westmoreland and Cumberland, vol. ii, p. 482.

This branch of Vaux, with its collateral alliances, is now represented by the family of Braddyl of Conishead priory, in the county palatine of Lancaster; for it appears that, about the time above-mentioned, the house of Triermaine was united to its kindred family Vaux of Caterlen, and, by marriage with the heiress of Delamore and Leybourne, became the representative of those ancient and noble families. The male line failing in John de Vaux, about the year 1665, his daughter and heiress, Mabel, married Christopher Richmond, esq. of Highhead castle, in the county of Cumberland, descended from an ancient family of that name, lords of Corby castle, in the same county, soon after the Conquest, and which they alienated about the 15th of Edward the second, to Andrea de Harcla, earl of Carlisle. Of this family was sir Thomas de Raigemont, (miles auratus,) in the reign of king Edward the first, who appears to have greatly distinguished himself at the siege of Kaerlaveroc, with William baron of Leybourne. In an ancient heraldic poem now extant, and preserved in the British Museum, describing that siege, his arms are stated to be, Or, 2 Bars Gemelles Gules, and a Chief Or, the same borne by his descendants at the present day. The Richmonds removed to their castle of Highhead in the reign of Henry the eighth, when the then representative of the family married Margaret, daughter of sir Hugh Lowther, by the lady Dorothy de Clifford, only child by a second marriage of Henry lord Clifford, great grandson of John lord Clifford, by Elizabeth Percy, daughter of Henry (surnamed Hotspur) by Elizabeth Mortimer, which said Elizabeth was daughter of Edward Mortimer, third earl of Marche, by Phillippa, sole daughter and heiress of Lionel, duke of Clarence.

The third in descent from the above-mentioned John Richmond, became the representative of the families of Vaux, of Triermaine, Caterlen, and Torcrossock, by his marriage with Mabel de Vaux, the heiress of them. His grandson Henry 1. Like Collins, ill-starr'd name!-P. 348. COLLINS, according to Johnson, "by indulging Richmond died without issue, leaving five sisters some peculiar habits of thought, was eminently co-heiresses, four of whom married; but Margaret, delighted with those flights of imagination which who married William Gale, esq. of Whitehaven, pass the bounds of nature, and to which the mind was the only one who had male issue surviving. is reconciled only by a passive acquiescence in She had a son, and a daughter married to Henry

Curwen of Workington, esq., who represented the county of Cumberland for many years in parliament, and by her had a daughter, married to John Christian, esq., (now Curwen.) John, son and heir of William Gale, married Sarah, daughter and heiress of Christopher Wilson of Bardsea hall, in the county of Lancaster, by Margaret, aunt and co-heiress of Thomas Braddyl, esq. of Braddyl, and Conishead priory, in the same county, and had issue four sons and two daughters:-1st, William Wilson, died an infant; 2d, Wilson, who, upon the death of his cousin, Thomas Braddyl, without issue, succeeded to his estates, and took the name of Braddyl, in pursuance of his will, by the king's sign manual; 3d, William, died young; and 4th, Henry Richmond, a lieutenant-general of the army, married Sarah, daughter of the Rev. R. Baldwin; Margaret married Richard Greaves Townley, esq. of Fulbourne, in the county of Cambridge, and of Bellfield, in the county of Lancas ter; Sarah married to George Bigland, of Bigland ball, in the same county.

gently sloping hill, called Mayburgh. In the plain which it incloses there stands erect an unhewn stone of twelve feet in height. Two similar masses are said to have been destroyed during the memory of man. The whole appears to be a monument of druidical times.

6. Though never sunbeam could discern The surface of that sable tarn.-P. 349, The small lake called Scales-tarn lies so deeply embosomed in the recesses of the huge mountain called Saddleback, more poetically Glaramara, is of such great depth, and so completely hidden from the sun, that it is said its beams never reach it, and that the reflection of the stars may be seen at mid-day.

7.

Tintadgel's spear.-P. 350, Tintadgel castle, in Cornwall, is reported to have been the birth-place of king Arthur.

8. —— Caliburn in eumbrous length.-P. 351. This was the name of king Arthur's well-known sword, sometimes also called Excalibar.

NOTES TO CANTO II.

Wilson Braddyl, eldest son of John Gale, and grandson of Margaret Richmond, married Jane, 1. From Arthur's hand the goblet flew.-P. 353. daughter and heiress of Matthias Gale, esq. of The author has an indistinct recollection of an Catgill hall, in the county of Cumberland, by Jane, daughter and heiress of the Rev. S. Bennet, D. D.; adventure somewhat similar to that which is here and, as the eldest surviving male branch of the ascribed to king Arthur, having befallen one of families above-mentioned, he quarters, in addition the ancient kings of Denmark. The horn in which to his own, their paternal coats in the following the burning liquor was presented to that monarch, order, as appears by the records in the college of is said still to be preserved in the Royal Museum at Copenhagen.

arms.

1st, Argent, a fess azure, between 3 saltiers of the same, charged with an anchor between 2 lions heads erazed, or,-Gale.

2d, Or, 2 bars gemelles gules, and a chief or,Richmond.

3d, Or, a fess chequey, or and gules between 9 gerbes gules,-Vaux of Caterlen.

4th, Gules, a fess chequey, or and gules between 6 gerbes or,-Vaux of Torcrossock.

5th, Argent, a bend chequey, or and gules, for Vaux of Triermain.

6th, Gules, a cross patonce, or,-Delamore. 7th, Gules, 6 lions rampant argent, 3, 2, and 1, -Leybourne.t

3. And his who sleeps at Dunmailraise.-P. 349. Dunmailraise is one of the grand passes from Cumberland into Westmoreland. It takes its name from a cairn, or pile of stones, erected, it is said, to the memory of Dunmail, the last king of Cumberland.

4. Penrith's Table Round.-P. 349.

A circular entrenchment, about half a mile from Penrith, is thus popularly termed. The circle within the ditch is about one hundred and sixty paces in eircumference, with openings, or approaches, directly opposite to each other. As the ditch is on the inner side, it could not be intended for the purpose of defence, and it has reasonably been conjectured, that the inclosure was designed for the solemn exercise of feats of chivalry; and the embankment around for the convenience of the spectators.

5.-Mayburgh s mound and stones of power.-P. 349. Higher up the river Eamont than Arthur's Round Table, is a prodigious inclosure of great antiquity, formed by a collection of stones upon the top of a

Not vert, as stated by Burn.

This more detailed genealogy of the family of Triermain was obligingly sent to the author, by major Braddyl of Conishead Priory.

2. Nor tower nor donjon could he spy,
Darkening against the morning sky.-P. 353.

"We now gained a view of the vale of St. John's, a very narrow dell, hemmed in by mountains, through which a small brook makes many meanderings, washing little inclosures of grassground, which stretch up the rising of the hills. In the widest part of the dale you are struck with the appearance of an ancient ruined castle, which seems to stand upon the summit of a little mount, the mountains around forming an amphitheatre. This massive bulwark shows a front of various towers, and makes an awful, rude, and Gothic appearance, with its lofty turrets and ragged battlements; we traced the galleries, the bending arches, the buttresses. The greatest antiquity stands characterized in its architecture; the inhabitants near it assert it is an antediluvian structure.

"The traveller's curiosity is roused, and he prepares to make a nearer approach, when that curiosity is put upon the rack by his being assured, that, if he advances, certain genii who govern the place, by virtue of their supernatural art and necromancy, will strip it of all its beauties, and, by enchantment, transform the magic walls. The vale seems adapted for the habitation of such beings; its gloomy recesses and retirements look like haunts of evil spirits. There was no delusion in the report; we were soon convinced of its truth; for this piece of antiquity, so venerable and noble in its aspect, as we drew near, changed its figure, and proved no other than a shaken massive pile of rocks, which stand in the midst of this little vale, disunited from the adjoining mountains, and have so much the real form and resemblance of a castle, that they bear the name of the Castle Rocks of St. John."-Hutchinson's Excursion to the Lakes, p. 121.

3. The Saxons to subjection brought.—P. 353. Arthur is said to have defeated the Saxons in

twelve pitched battles, and to have achieved the other feats alluded to in the text.

versie, and that greate."-Assertion of king Arthure. Imprinted by John Wolfe, London, 1582. 4. There Morolt of the iron mace, &c.-P. 353. 6. There were two who loved their neighbours' wives, The characters named in the following stanza And one who loved his own.-P. 354. are all of them, more or less, distinguished in the "In our forefathers' tyme, when papistrie, as a romances which treat of king Arthur and his Round standyng poole, covered and overflowed all EnTable, and their names are strung together ac-gland, fewe books were read in our tongue, savyng cording to the established custom of minstrels certain bookes of chevalrie, as they said, for pasupon such occasions; for example, in the ballad of time and pleasure; which, as some say, were made the marriage of sir Gawaine:

Sir Lancelot, sir Stephen bolde,
They rode with them that daye,
And, foremost of the companye,
There rode the stewarde Kaye:
Soe did sir Banier, and sir Bore,
And eke sir Garratte keen,

Sir Tristram too, that gentle knight,.
To the forest fresh and green.

5. And Lancelot, that evermore

Look'd stol'n-wise on the queen.-P. 353. Upon this delicate subject hear Richard Robinson, citizen of London, in his assertion of king

in the monasteries, by idle monks or wonton cha→ nons. As one for example, La morte d'Arthure; the whole pleasure of which book standeth in two speciall poynts, in open manslaughter and bold bawdrye; in which booke they be counted the noblest knightes that do kill most men without any quarrell, and commit fowlest adoulteries by sutlest shiftes; as sir Launcelot, with the wife of king Arthur, his master; sir Tristram, with the wife of king Marke, his uncle; sir Lamerocke, with the wife of king Lote, that was his own aunt. This is good stuffe for wise men to laugh at, or honest men to take pleasure at, yet I know when God's "But as it is a thing sufficiently apparent that Bible was banished the court, and La Morte d'Arshe (Guenever, wife of king Arthur) was beauti-thure received into the prince's chamber."-Asful, so it is a thing doubted whether she was chaste, CHAM'S Schoolmaster. yea or no. Truly, so far as I can with honestie, ĺ would spare the impayred honour and fame of noWho won the cup of gold.-P. 354. ble women. But yet the truth of the historie See the comic tale of the Boy and the Mantle, pluckes me by the eere, and willeth me not onely, in the third volume of Percy's Reliques of Ancient but commandeth me to declare what the ancients Poetry, from the Breton or Norman original of have deemed of her. To wrestle or contend with which Ariosto is supposed to have taken his tale so great authoritie were indeed unto me a contro- of the Enchanted Cup.

Arthur:

7. -valiant Carodac,

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AND TO THE COMMITTEE OF SUBSCRIBERS FOR RELIEF OF THE PORTUGUESE SUFFERERS,
IN WHICH HE PRESIDES,

THIS POEM, COMPOSED FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE FUND UNDER THEIR MANAGEMENT,
IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED, BY WALTER SCOTT.

PREFACE.

East and West Indies had raised to the highest pitch the renown of their arms; sullied, however, by superstition and cruelty. An allusion to the inhumanities of the inquisition terminates this picture. The LAST PART of the poem opens with the state of Spain previous to the unparalleled treachery of BONAPARTE; gives a sketch of the usurpa tion attempted upon that unsuspicious and friendly kingdom, and terminates with the arrival of the British succours. It may be farther proper to mention, that the object of the poem is less to commemorate or detail particular incidents, than to exhibit a general and impressive picture of the several periods brought upon the stage.

THE following poem is founded upon a Spanish tradition, particularly detailed in the Notes; but bearing, in general, that Don Roderick, the last Gothic king of Spain, when the invasion of the Moors was impending, had the temerity to descend into an ancient vault, near Toledo, the opening of which had been denounced as fatal to the Spanish monarchy. The legend adds, that his rash curiosity was mortified by an emblematical representation of those Saracens, who, in the year 714, defeated him in battle, and reduced Spain under their dominion. I have presumed to prolong the Vision of the Revolutions of Spain down to the present eventful crisis of the Peninsula; and to I am too sensible of the respect due to the pubdivide it, by a supposed change of scene, into lic, especially by one who has already experienced THREE PERIODS. The FIRST of these represents more than ordinary indulgence, to offer any apothe invasion of the Moors, the defeat and death of logy for the inferiority of the poetry to the subject Roderick, and closes with the peaceful occupation it is chiefly designed to commemorate. Yet I think of the country by the victors. The SECOND PERIOD embraces the state of the Peninsula, when the conquests of the Spaniards and Portuguese in the

it proper to mention, that while I was hastily executing a work, written for a temporary purpose, and on passing events, the task was cruelly in

terrupted by the successive deaths of lord president Blair, and lord viscount Melville. In those distinguished characters, I had not only to regret persons whose lives were most important to Scotfand, but also whose notice and patronage honoured my entrance upon active life, and I may add, with melancholy pride, who permitted my more advanced age to claim no common share in their friendship. Under such interruptions, the following verses, which my best and happiest efforts. must have left far unworthy of their theme, have, 1 am myself sensible, an appearance of negligence and incoherence, which, in other circumstances, I might have been able to remove. Edinburgh, June 24, 1811.

INTRODUCTION.

I.

LIVES there a strain, whose sounds of mountain

fire

May rise distinguished o'er the din of war, Or died it with yon master of the lyre, Who sung beleaguered Ilion's evil star? Such, WELLINGTON, might reach thee from afar, Wafting its descant wide o'er ocean's range; Nor shouts, nor clashing arms, its mood could mar, All as it swelled 'twixt each loud trumpetchange,

That clangs to Britain victory, to Portugal revenge! II.

Yes! such a strain, with all o'erpowering measure, Might melodize with each tumultuous sound, Each voice of fear or triumph, wo or pleasure,

That rings Mondego's ravaged shores around; The thundering cry of hosts with conquest crown'd, The female shriek, the ruined peasant's moan, The shout of captives from their chains unbound, The foiled oppressor's deep and sullen groan, A nation's choral hymn for tyranny o'erthrown. III.

But we, weak minstrels of a laggard day,
Skilled but to imitate an elder page,
Timid and raptureless, can we repay

The debt thou claim'st in this exhausted age? Thou givest our lyres a theme, that might engage

Those that could send thy name o'er sea and land,

While sea and land shall last; for Homer's rage A theme; a theme for Milton's mighty hand— How much unmeet for us, a faint degenerate band! IV.

Ye mountains stern! within whose rugged breast The friends of Scottish freedom found repose; Ye torrents! whose hoarse sounds have soothed

their rest,

Returning from the field of vanquished foes; Say, have ye lost each wild majestic close,

That erst the choir of bards or druids flung; What time their hymn of victory arose,

And Cattraeth's glens with voice of triumph rung,

And mystic Merlin harped, and gray-haired Llywarch sung.

V.

O! if your wilds such minstrelsy retain,

As sure your changeful gales seem oft to say, When sweeping wild and sinking soft again, Like trumpet jubilee, or harp's wild sway; If ye can echo such triumphant lay,

Then lend the note to him has loved you long! Who pious gathered each tradition gray,

That floats your solitary wastes along, And with affection vain gave them new voice in song. VI.

For not till now, how oft soe'er the task

Of truant verse hath lightened graver care, From muse or sylvan was he wont to ask, In phrase poetic, inspiration fair; Careless he gave his numbers to the air,They came unsought for, if applauses came; Nor for himself prefers he now the prayer; Let but his verse befit a hero's fame, Immortal be the verse!-forgot the poet's name. VII.

Hark, from yon misty cairn their answer tost; "Minstrel! the fame of whose romantic lyre, Capricious swelling now, may soon be lost,

Like the light flickering of a cottage fire; If to such task presumptuous thou aspire, Seek not from us the meed to warrior due: Age after age has gathered son to sire,

Since our gray cliffs the din of conflict knew, Or, pealing through our vales, victorious bugles VIII.

blew.

"Decayed our old traditionary lore,

Save where the lingering fays renew their ring, By milk-maid seen beneath the hawthorn hoar, Or round the marge of Minchmore's haunted spring;2

Save where their legends gray-haired shepherds sing,

That now scarce win a listening ear but thine, Of feuds obscure, and border ravaging,

And rugged deeds recount in rugged line, Of moonlight foray made on Teviot, Tweed, or Tyne.

IX. "No! search romantic lands, where the near sur Gives with unstinted boon ethereal flame, Where the rude villager, his labour done, In verse spontaneous chants some favoured name, Whether Olalia's charms his tribute claim,

Her eye of diamond, and her locks of jet;

Or whether, kindling at the deeds of Greme,
He sing, to wild Morisco measure set,
Old Albyn's red claymore, green Erin's bayonet!
X.

"Explore those regions, where the flinty crest
Of wild Nevada ever gleams with snows,
Where in the proud Alhambra's ruined breast
Barbaric monuments of pomp repose:
Or where the banners of more ruthless foes
From whose tall towers even now the patriot throws
Than the fierce Moor, float o'er Toledo's fane,
An anxious glance, to spy upon the plain
The blended ranks of England, Portugal, and Spain.
XI.

"There, of Numantian fire a swarthy spark
Still lightens in the sun-burnt native's eye;
The stately port, slow step, and visage dark,
Still mark enduring pride and constancy.
And, if the glow of feudal chivalry

Beam not, as once, thy nobles' dearest pride, Iberia! oft thy crestless peasantry

Have seen the plumed Hidalgo quit their side, Have seen, yet dauntless stood-'gainst fortune fought and died.

XII.

"And cherished still by that unchanging race, Are themes for minstrelsy more high than thine;

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But of their monarch's person keeping ward, Since last the deep-mouth'd bell of vespers toll'd, The chosen soldiers of the royal guard

Their post beneath the proud Cathedral hold: A band unlike their Gothic sires of old,

Who, for the cap of steel and iron mace,

Bear slender darts, and casques bedeck'd with gold,
While silver-studded belts their shoulders grace,
Where ivory quivers ring in the broad falchion's
place.
IV.

In the light language of an idle court,

They murmured at their master's long delay, And held his lengthened orisons in sport:"What! will Don Roderick here till morning stay,

To wear in shrift and prayer the night away?

And are his hours in such dull penance past, For fair Florinda's plundered charms to pay?"5 Then to the east their weary eyes they cast, And wished the lingering dawn would glimmer

forth at last.

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But Roderick's visage, though his head was bare, Was shadowed by his hand and mantle's fold. While of his hidden soul the sins he told,

Proud Alaric's descendant could not brook, That mortal man his bearing should behold,

Or boast that he had seen, when conscience shook Fear tame a monarch's brow, remorse a warrior's look.

VII.

The old man's faded cheek waxed yet more pale,
As many a secret sad the king bewrayed;
And sign and glance eked out the unfinished tale,
When in the midst his faltering whisper staid.
"Thus royal Witiza* was slain," he said;

"Yet, holy father, deem not it was I."Thus still Ambition strives her crime to shade"O rather deem 'twas stern necessity! Self-preservation bade, and I must kill or die. VIII.

"And if Florinda's shrieks alarmed the air, If she invoked her absent sire in vain,

And on her knees implored that I would spare, Yet, reverend priest, thy sentence rash refrain! All is not as it seems-the female train

Know by their bearing to disguise their mood:" But Conscience here, as if in high disdain,

Sent to the monarch's cheek the burning bloodHe stayed his speech abrupt-and up the prelate stood. IX.

"O hardened offspring of an iron race!

What of thy crimes, Don Roderick, shall I say? What alms, or prayers, or penance can efface Murder's dark spot, wash treason's stain away! For the foul ravisher how shall I pray,

Who, scarce repentant, makes his crime his boast?

How hope Almighty vengeance shall delay,
Unless, in mercy to yon christian host,
He spare the shepherd, lest the guiltless sheep be
lost?"

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Ill-fated prince! recal the desperate word,
Bethink yon spell-bound portal would afford
Or pause ere yet the omen thou obey!

Never to former monarch entrance-way;
Nor shall it ever ope, old records say,
Save to a king, the last of all his line,
What time his empire totters to decay,
And treason digs, beneath, her fatal mine,

And, high above, impends avenging wrath divine.
XII.

"Prelate! a monarch's fate brooks no delay; Lead on!"-The ponderous key the old man took,

And held the winking lamp, and led the way, By winding stair, dark aisle, and secret nook,

The predecessor of Roderick upon the Spanish throne, and slain by his connivance, as is affirmed by Rodriguez of Toledo, the father of Spanish history.

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