ng independently. The batches of monorhymed octosyllables sometimes
extend to even four in number, with remarkably good effect, as, for
instance, in the infernal proclamation from the Cross. Altogether the
metrical scheme is of a graver cast than that of the _Lay_, and suits
the more serious and tragical colour of the story.

It has been mentioned above in passing that Jeffrey reviewed _Marmion_
on the whole unfavourably. The story of this review is well known: how
the editor-reviewer (with the best intentions doubtless) sent the proof
with a kind of apology to Scott on the morning of a dinner-party in
Castle Street; how Scott showed at least outward indifference, and Mrs.
Scott a not unamiable petulance; and how, though the affair caused no
open breach of private friendship, it doubtless gave help to the
increasing Whiggery of the _Review_ and its pusillanimous policy in
regard to the Spanish War in severing Scott's connection with it, and
determining him to promote, heart and soul, the opposition venture of
the _Quarterly_. Of this latter it was naturally enough proposed by
Canning that Scott should be editor; but, as naturally, he does not seem
to have even considered the proposal. He would have hated living in
London; no salary that could have been offered him could have done more
than equal, if so much, the stipends of his Sheriffship and the coming
Clerkship, which he would have had to give up; and the work would have
interfered much more seriously than his actual vocations with his
literary avocations. Besides, it is quite certain that he would not have
made a good editor. In the first place, he was fitted neither by
education nor by temperament for the troublesome and 'meticulous'
business of knocking contributions into shape. And, in the second, he
would most assuredly have fallen into the most fatal of all editorial
errors--that of inserting articles, not because they were actually good
or likely to be popular, but because the subjects were interesting, or
the writers agreeable, to himself. But he backed the venture manfully
with advice, by recruiting for it, and afterwards by contributing to it.

It so happened, too, that about the same time he had dissensions with
the publisher as well as with the editor of the _Edinburgh_. Constable,
though he had not entered into the intimate relations with Scott and the
Ballantynes that were afterwards so fatal, had made the spirited bid of
a thousand pounds for _Marmion_