now talk, indeed, of donjons, keeps, tabards,
scutcheons, tressures, caps of maintenance, portcullisses, wimples, and
we know not what besides; just as they did, in the days of Dr Darwin's
popularity, of gnomes, sylphs, oxygen, gossamer, polygynia, and
polyandria. That fashion, however, passed rapidly away; and if it be now
evident to all the world, that Dr Darwin obstructed the extension of his
fame, and hastened the extinction of his brilliant reputation, by the
pedantry and ostentatious learning of his poems, Mr Scott should take
care that a different sort of pedantry does not produce the same
effects. The world will never be long pleased with what it does not
readily understand; and the poetry which is destined for immortality,
should treat only of feelings and events which can be conceived and
entered into by readers of all descriptions.

What we have now mentioned is the cardinal fault of the work before us;
but it has other faults, of too great magnitude to be passed altogether
without notice. There is a debasing lowness and vulgarity in some
passages, which we think must be offensive to every reader of delicacy,
and which are not, for the most part, redeemed by any vigour or
picturesque effect. The venison pasties, we think, are of this
description; and this commemoration of Sir Hugh Heron's troopers, who

'Have drunk the monks of St Bothan's ale,
And driven the beeves of Lauderdale;
Harried the wives of Greenlaw's goods,
And given them light to set their hoods.' p. 41.

The long account of Friar John, though not without merit, offends in the
same sort; nor can we easily conceive, how any one could venture, in a
serious poem, to speak of

----'the wind that blows,
And _warms itself against his nose_.'

The speeches of squire Blount, too, are a great deal too unpolished for
a noble youth aspiring to knighthood. On two occasions, to specify no
more, he addresses his brother squire in these cacophonous lines--

'_St Anton' fire thee!_ wilt thou stand
All day with bonnet in thy hand?'

And,

'_Stint in thy prate_,' quoth Blount, '_thou'dst best_,
And listen to our Lord's behest.'

Neither can we be brought to admire the simple dignity of Sir Hugh the
Heron, who thus encourageth his nephew,

----'_By my fay_,
Well hast thou spoke--say forth thy say.'

There are other passages in which the flatness and tediousness of the
narrative is relieved by no sort o