was in active service as a volunteer, "I must own that to one who
has, like myself, _la tete un peu exaltee_, the pomp and circumstance of
war gives, for a time, a very poignant and pleasing sensation."[16] And you
feel this all through _Marmion_ even more than in _The Lay_. Mr. Darwin
would probably say that Auld Wat of Harden had about as much responsibility
for _Marmion_ as Sir Walter himself. "You will expect," he wrote to the
same lady, who was personally unknown to him at that time, "to see a
person who had dedicated himself to literary pursuits, and you will find me
a rattle-skulled, half-lawyer, half-sportsman, through whose head a
regiment of horse has been exercising since he was five years old."[17] And
what Scott himself felt in relation to the martial elements of his poetry,
soldiers in the field felt with equal force. "In the course of the day when
_The Lady of the Lake_ first reached Sir Adam Fergusson, he was posted with
his company on a point of ground exposed to the enemy's artillery,
somewhere no doubt on the lines of Torres Vedras. The men were ordered to
lie prostrate on the ground; while they kept that attitude, the captain,
kneeling at the head, read aloud the description of the battle in Canto
VI., and the listening soldiers only interrupted him by a joyous huzza when
the French shot struck the bank close above them."[18] It is not often that
martial poetry has been put to such a test; but we can well understand with
what rapture a Scotch force lying on the ground to shelter from the French
fire, would enter into such passages as the following:--

"Their light-arm'd archers far and near
Survey'd the tangled ground,
Their centre ranks, with pike and spear,
A twilight forest frown'd,
Their barbed horsemen, in the rear,
The stern battalia crown'd.
No cymbal clash'd, no clarion rang,
Still were the pipe and drum;
Save heavy tread, and armour's clang,
The sullen march was dumb.
There breathed no wind their crests to shake,
Or wave their flags abroad;
Scarce the frail aspen seem'd to quake,
That shadow'd o'er their road.
Their vanward scouts no tidings bring,
Can rouse no lurking foe,
Nor spy a trace of living thing
Save when they stirr'd the roe;
The host moves like a deep-sea wave,
Where rise no rocks its power to brave,
High-swelling, dark, and slow.
The lake is pass'd, and now they gain