admirably acute critical utterances. When he
feared their effects on '_English_ readers,' he showed himself, as was
not common with him, actually ignorant of one of the simplest general
principles of the poetic appeal, that is to say, the element of
_strangeness_. But we must not criticise criticism here, and must only
add that another great appeal, that of variety, is amply given, as well
as that of unfamiliarity. The graceful and touching, if a little
conventional, overture of the Minstrel introduces with the truest art
the vigorous sketch of Branksome Tower. The spirits of flood and fell
are allowed to impress and not allowed to bore us; for the quickest of
changes is made to Deloraine's ride--a kind of thing in which Scott
never failed, even in his latest and saddest days. The splendid Melrose
opening of the Second Canto supports itself through the discovery of the
Book, and finds due contrast in the description (or no-description) of
the lovers' meeting; the fight and the Goblin Page's misbehaviour and
punishment (to all, at least, but those, surely few now, who are
troubled by the Jeffreyan sense of 'dignity'), the decoying and capture
of young Buccleuch, and the warning of the clans are certainly no
ungenerous provision for the Third; nor the clan anecdotes (especially
the capital episode of the Beattisons), the parley, the quarrel of
Howard and Dacre, and the challenge, for the Fourth. There is perhaps
less in the Fifth, for Scott seems to have been afraid of another fight
in detail; but the description of the night before, and the famous
couplet--

'I'd give the lands of Deloraine
Dark Musgrave were alive again'--

would save it if there were nothing else, as there is much. And if the
actual conclusion has no great interest (Scott was never good at
conclusions, as we shall find Lady Louisa Stuart telling him frankly
later), the Sixth Canto is full, and more than full, of brilliant
things--the feast, the Goblin's tricks, his carrying-off, the
pilgrimage, and, above all, the songs, especially 'Rosabelle' and the
version of the 'Dies Irae.'

The mention of these last may fairly introduce a few words on the formal
and metrical characteristics of the poem, remarks which perhaps some
readers resent, but which must nevertheless be made, inasmuch as they
are to my mind by far the most important part of poetical criticism.
Scott evidently arranged his scheme of metre with extreme care here,
though it is pos