[22] This is incomparable, not only as a masterpiece of romantic narrative, but for the spirited and natural device by which the hero is conducted to his adventure. R. L. Stevenson and other critics have been rather hard upon Scott's defects as an artist. He was indeed no stylist: least of all a precieux. There are no close-set mosaics in his somewhat slip-shod prose, and he did not seek for the right word "with moroseness," like Landor. But, in his large fashion, he was skilful in inventing impressive effects. Another instance is the solitary trumpet that breathed its "note of defiance" in the lists of Ashby-de-la-Zouch, which has the genuine melodramatic thrill—like the horn of Hernani or the bell that tolls in "Venice Preserved."
[23] See the "Hunting Song" in his continuation of "Queenhoo Hall"—
"Waken, lords and ladies gay,
On the mountain dawns the day."
[24] See vol. i., pp. 277 and 390.
[25] The Glen of the Green Women.
[26] "And still I thought that shattered tower
The mightiest work of human power;
And marvelled as the aged hind
With some strange tale bewitched my mind,
Of foragers who, with headlong force,
Down from that strength had spurred their horse,
Their Southern rapine to renew,
Far in the distant Cheviots blue;
And, home returning, filled the hall
With revel, wassail-rout and brawl."—"Marmion." Introduction
to Canto Third. See Lockhart for a description of the view from
Smailholme, à propos of the stanza in "The Eve of St. John":
"That lady sat in mournful mood;
Looked over hill and vale:
O'ver Tweed's fair flood, and Mertoun's wood,
And all down Teviot dale."
[27] See vol. i., pp. 394-395.
[28] Scott's verse "is touched both with the facile redundance of the mediaeval romances in which he was steeped, and with the meretricious phraseology of the later eighteenth century, which he was too genuine a literary Tory wholly to put aside."—"The Age of Wordsworth," C. H. Herford, London. 1897.
[29] "The Gray Brother" in vol. iii. of the "Minstrelsy."