"The spousal rites were ended soon."
And again, in Sect. VIII. are these words:
"To quit them, on the English side,
Red Roland Forster loudly cried,
'A deep carouse to yon fair bride!'"
Now, in the ordinary acceptation of these words the spousal rite means nuptials, and a bride means a newly married wife; and as the ceremony of the spousal rite is described as taking place with much pomp in the chapel, and at the altar, it looks very like a wedding indeed. But if, after all, it were only a betrothal, I willingly withdraw the charge of "incuria," and subscribe to the propriety of the "Minstrel's" information, that the bridal actually "befel a short space;"
"And how brave sons and daughters fair
Blest Teviot's flower and Cranstoun's heir."
And now a word touching M.'s hint of giving a corner in the "NOTES AND QUERIES" to the "Prophecy of Criticism." If he will forgive me the remark, I do not think the phrase a very happy one. Criticism does not prophecy, it pronounces, and is valuable only in proportion to the judgment, taste, and knowledge displayed in its sentence. Above all, the critic should be impartial, and by no means allow himself to be biassed by either prejudice or prepossession, whether personal or political. Still less should he sacrifice his subject in order to prove the acuteness and point of his own weapon, which is too often dipped in gall instead of honey. To what extent these qualifications are found in our modern reviewers let each man answer according to his own experience: but as critics are not infallible, and as authors generally see more, feel more, and think more than the ordinary run of critics and readers give them credit for, I doubt not that a place will always be open in the "NOTES AND QUERIES," in answer to the fallacies of criticism, wherever they may be detected.
A. BORDERER.