they are gentle who do gentle dedes."

* * * * *

{364}

NOTES.

ON "THE LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL."

I resume the subject commenced in the comments on "a Passage in _Marmion_,"
printed in No. 72., March 15, 1851; and I here propose to consider the
groundwork and mechanism of the most original, though not quite the first
production of Scott's muse, _The Lay of the Last Minstrel_. In the
Introduction prefixed to this poem, nearly thirty years after its
publication, Sir Walter Scott informs the world that the young Countess of
Dalkeith, much interested and delighted with the wild Border tradition of
the goblin called "Gilpin Horner" (which is given at length in the notes
appended to the poem), enjoined on him the task of composing a ballad on
the subject:

"And thus" (says Sir Walter) "the goblin story _objected to by several
critics as an excrescence upon the poem_, was, in fact, the occasion of
its being written."

Yes, and more than this; for, strange as it may appear to those who have
not critically and minutely attempted to unravel the very artful and
complicated plot of this singular poem, the Goblin Page is, as it were, the
key-note to the whole composition, the agent through whose instrumentality
the fortunes of the house of Branksome are built up anew by the
pacification of ancient feud, and the union of the fair Margaret with Henry
of Cranstoun. Yet, so deeply veiled is the plot, and so intricately
contrived the machinery, that I question if this fact be apparent to one
reader out of a thousand; and assuredly it has never been presented to my
view by any one of the critics with whose comments I have become
acquainted.

The Aristarchus of the _Edinburgh Review_, Mr. Jeffrey, who forsooth
thought fit to regard the new and original creations of a mighty and
inventive genius "as a misapplication, in some degree, of very
extraordinary talents," and "conceived it his duty to make one strong
effort to bring back _the great apostle of this (literary) heresy to the
wholesome creed of his instructor_," seems not to have penetrated one inch
below the surface. In his opinion "the Goblin Page is the capital deformity
of the poem," "_a perpetual burden_ to the poet and to the readers," "an
undignified and improbable fiction, which excites neither terror,
admiration, nor astonishment, but needlessly debases the strain of the
whole work, and excites at once our incredulity