s,
And we are mail-clad men.

'My horse shall ride through ranks sae rude,
As through the moorland fern,
Then ne'er let gentle Norman blude
Grow cauld for Hieland kerne!'"

Scott was no declaimer. Although bred a barrister, he estimated the
faculty of speech at its proper value, and never thought of making his
heroes, on the eve of battle, address their soldiery in a harangue which
would do credit to a President of the Speculative Society. In certain
positions, eloquence is not only thrown away, but is felt to be rank
impertinence. No need of rhetorical artifice to persuade the mob to the
pumping of a pickpocket, or, in case of a general row, to the assault of
an intoxicated policeman. Such things come quite naturally to their
hands without exhortation, and it is dangerous to interfere with
instinct. The Homeric heroes are, of any thing, a little too much given
to talking. You observe two hulking fellows, in all their panoply of
shield and armour, drawing nigh to one another at the fords of the
Scamander, each with a spear about the size of a moderate ash-tree
across his shoulder. The well-greaved Greek, you already know, is deep
in the confidences of Minerva; the hairy Trojan, on the contrary, is
protected by the Lady Venus. You expect an immediate onslaught; when, to
your astonishment, the Greek politely craves some information touching a
genealogical point in the history of his antagonist's family; whereat
the other, nothing loath, indulges him with a yarn about Assaracus. Tros
being out of breath, the Argive can do nothing less than proffer a
bouncer about Hercules; so that, for at least half an hour, they stand
lying like a brace of Sinbads--whilst Ajax, on the right, is spearing
his proportion of the Dardans, and Sarpedon doing equal execution among
the unfortunate Achivi on the left. Nor, until either warrior has
exhausted his patriarchal reminiscences, do they heave up the boss and
the bull-hide, or make play for a thrust at the midriff. Now, unless the
genealogy of their opponents was a point of honour with the
ancients--which it does not appear to have been--these colloquies seem a
little out of place. In the middle ages, a knight would not enter the
lists against an opponent of lesser rank; and in such a case,
explanation is intelligible. But in battle there was no distinction of
ranks, and no man cared a stiver about the birth and parentage of
another. Genealogies, in fact, are a