scattered
sketches in the Lay; but there is a richness and a spirit in the whole
piece which does not pervade either of those poems,--a profusion of
incident and a shifting brilliancy of colouring that reminds us of the
witchery of Ariosto, and a constant elasticity and occasional energy
which seem to belong more peculiarly to the author now before us."

Canto First.

Each canto is introduced by one or more Spenserian stanzas, [5]
forming a kind of prelude to it. Those prefixed to the first canto serve
as an introduction to the whole poem, which is "inspired by the spirit
of the old Scottish minstrelsy."

2. Witch-elm. The broad-leaved or wych elm (Ulmus montana), indigenous
to Scotland. Forked branches of the tree were used in the olden time as
divining-rods, and riding switches from it were supposed to insure good
luck on a journey. In the closing stanzas of the poem (vi. 846) it is
called the "wizard elm." Tennyson (In Memoriam, 89) refers to

"Witch-elms that counterchange the floor
Of this flat lawn with dusk and bright."

Saint Fillan was a Scotch abbot of the seventh century who became famous
as a saint. He had two springs, which appear to be confounded by some
editors of the poem. One was at the eastern end of Loch Earn, where the
pretty modern village of St. Fillans now stands, under the shadow of
Dun Fillan, or St. Fillan's Hills, six hundred feet high, on the top of
which the saint used to say his prayers, as the marks of his knees in
the rock still testify to the credulous. The other spring is at another
village called St. Fillans, nearly thirty miles to the westward, just
outside the limits of our map, on the road to Tyndrum. In this Holy
Pool, as it is called, insane folk were dipped with certain ceremonies,
and then left bound all night in the open air. If they were found loose
the next morning, they were supposed to have been cured. This treatment
was practised as late as 1790, according to Pennant, who adds that
the patients were generally found in the morning relieved of their
troubles--by death. Another writer, in 1843, says that the pool is still
visited, not by people of the vicinity, who have no faith in its virtue,
but by those from distant places. Scott alludes to this spring in
Marmion, i. 29:

"Thence to Saint Fillan's blessed well,
Whose springs can frenzied dreams dispel,
And the crazed brain restore."

3. And down the fitful breeze, etc. The ori