"And thus" (says Sir Walter) "the goblin story objected to by several critics as an excrescence upon the poem, was, in fact, the occasion of its being written."
Yes, and more than this; for, strange as it may appear to those who have not critically and minutely attempted to unravel the very artful and complicated plot of this singular poem, the Goblin Page is, as it were, the key-note to the whole composition, the agent through whose instrumentality the fortunes of the house of Branksome are built up anew by the pacification of ancient feud, and the union of the fair Margaret with Henry of Cranstoun. Yet, so deeply veiled is the plot, and so intricately contrived the machinery, that I question if this fact be apparent to one reader out of a thousand; and assuredly it has never been presented to my view by any one of the critics with whose comments I have become acquainted.
The Aristarchus of the Edinburgh Review, Mr. Jeffrey, who forsooth thought fit to regard the new and original creations of a mighty and inventive genius "as a misapplication, in some degree, of very extraordinary talents," and "conceived it his duty to make one strong effort to bring back the great apostle of this (literary) heresy to the wholesome creed of his instructor," seems not to have penetrated one inch below the surface. In his opinion "the Goblin Page is the capital deformity of the poem," "a perpetual burden to the poet and to the readers," "an undignified and improbable fiction, which excites neither terror, admiration, nor astonishment, but needlessly debases the strain of the whole work, and excites at once our incredulity and contempt."
Perhaps so, to the purblind vision of a pedantic formalist; but, nevertheless, The Lay of the Last Minstrel, that poem, whose varied imagery and vivid originality, combined with all its other beauties, have been, and ever will be, the delight and admiration of its readers, could not exist without this so-called "capital deformity." This I shall undertake to demonstrate, and in so doing to prove the "capital absurdity" of such criticism as I have cited.
Let us therefore begin with the beginning. The widowed Lady of Branksome, brooding over the outrage which had deprived her husband of life, meditates only vengeance upon all the parties concerned in this affray. The lovely Lady Margaret wept in wild despair, for her lover had stood in arms against her father's clan:
"And well she knew, her mother dread,
Before Lord Cranstoun she should wed,
Would see her on her dying bed."
The first Canto of the poem contains that singular episode, when—
"(The Ladye) sits in secret bower