'Far in the chambers of the west';
with the description of Upper Teesdale; Bertram's clamber on the cliff, with its reminiscences of the 'Kittle Nine Steps,'—these lead on to many other things as good, ending with that altogether admirable bit of workmanship, Bertram's revenge on Oswald and his own death. Matilda is one of the best of Scott's verse-heroines, except Constance—that is to say, the best of his good girls—and she has the interest of being avowedly modelled on 'Green Mantle.' Nor in any of the poems do the lyrics give more satisfactory setting-off to the main text. Indeed, it may be questioned whether any contains such a garland as—to mention only the best—is formed by
'O, Brignall banks are wild and fair';
the exquisite
'A weary lot is thine, fair maid,'
adapted from older matter with a skill worthy of Burns himself; the capital bravura of Allen-a-Dale; and that noble Cavalier lyric—
'When the dawn on the mountain was misty and grey.'
The Bridal of Triermain was published in 1813, not long after Rokeby, and, like that poem, drew its scenery from the North of England; but in circumstances, scale, and other ways it forms a pair with Harold the Dauntless, and they had best be noticed together.
The Lord of the Isles, the last of the great quintet, appeared in December 1814. Scott had obtained part of the scenery for it in an earlier visit to the Hebrides, and the rest in his yachting voyage (see below) with the Commissioners of Northern Lights, which also gave the décor for The Pirate. The poem was not more popular than Rokeby in England, and it was even less so in Scotland, chiefly for the reason, only to be mentioned with all but silent amazement, that it was 'not bitter enough against England.' Its faults are, of course, obvious enough. Central story there is simply none; the inconvenience that arises to the hero from his being addressed by two young ladies cannot awake any very sympathetic tear, nor does either Edith of Lorn or Isabel Bruce awaken any violent desire to offer to relieve him of one of them. The versification, however, is less uniform than that of Rokeby or The Lady of the Lake, and there are excellent passages—the best being, no doubt, the Abbot's extorted blessing on the Bruce; the great picture of Loch Coruisk, which, let people say what they will, is marvellously faithful; part of the voyage (though one certainly could spare some of the 'merrilys'); the landing in Carrick; the rescue of the supposed page; and, finally, Bannockburn, which even Jeffrey admired, though its want of 'animosity' shocked him.
The two last of the great poems—there was indeed a third, The Field of Waterloo, written hastily for a subscription, and not worthy either of Scott or of the subject—have not by any means the least interest, either intrinsic or that of curiosity. Indeed, as a matter of liking, not quite disjoined from criticism, I should put them very high indeed. Both were issued anonymously, and with indications intended to mislead readers into the idea that they were by Erskine; the intention being, it would seem, partly to ascertain how far the author's mere name counted in his popularity, partly also to 'fly kites' as to the veering of the public taste in reference to the verse romance in general. By the time of the publication of Harold the Dauntless in 1817, Scott could hardly have had any intention of deserting the new way—his own exclusive right—in which he was already walking firmly. But the Bridal of Triermain appeared very shortly after Rokeby, and was, no doubt, seriously intended as a test.