The lowly woodsman took the room."
Now, I ask, wherefore has the poet dwelt with such minuteness upon this forced and improbable incident? Had it indeed been with no other purpose than to introduce the picturesque description and the moral reflexions contained in the following section, the improbability might well be forgiven. But such is not the real object. The critic of the Monthly Review takes the following notice of this passage, which is printed as a note in the last edition of Scott's Poems in 1833:—
"A corpse is afterwards conveyed, as that of Marmion, to the cathedral of Lichfield, where a magnificent tomb is erected to his memory, &c. &c.; but, by an admirably imagined act of poetical justice, we are informed that a peasant's body was placed beneath that costly monument, while the haughty Baron himself was buried like a vulgar corpse on the spot where he died."
Had the reviewer attempted to penetrate a little deeper into the workings of the author's mind, he would have seen in this circumstance much more than "an admirably imagined act of poetical
justice." He would have perceived in it the ultimate and literal fulfilment of the whole penalty foreshadowed to the delinquent baron in the two concluding stanzas of that beautiful and touching song sung by Fitz-Eustace in the Hostelrie of Gifford in the third canto of the poem, which I here transcribe:
"Where shall the traitor rest,
He the deceiver,
Who could win maiden's breast,
Ruin, and leave her?
In the lost battle