lines 127-141. Charles James Fox (1749-1806) was second son of the first Lord Holland, whose indulgence tended to spoil a youth of unusual ability and precocity. Extravagant habits, contracted at an early age, were not easily thrown off afterwards, but they did not interfere with Fox’s efficiency as a statesman. His rivalry with Pitt dates from 1783. Their tombs are near each other in Westminster Abbey.
line 146. Cp. in Gray’s ‘Elegy’:―
line 153. Jeffrey, in his criticism of ‘Marmion’ in the ‘Edinburgh Review,’ found fault with the tribute to Fox, and cavilled in particular at the expression ‘Fox a Briton died.’ He argued that Scott praised only the action of Fox in breaking off the negotiations for peace with Napoleon, while insinuating that the previous part of his career was unpatriotic. Only a special pleader could put such an unworthy interpretation on the words.
lines 155-65. By the result of the battle of Austerlitz (December, 1805) Napoleon seemed advancing towards general victory. Prussia hastily patched up a dishonourable peace on terms inconsistent with very binding pledges, and the Russian minister at Paris compromised his country by yielding to humiliating proposals on the part of France. All this changed Fox’s view of the position, and he broke off the negotiations for peace which had been begun in accordance with a policy he had long advocated.
line 161. There is a probable reference here to Nelson’s action at the battle of the Baltic. He disregarded the signal for cessation of fighting given by Sir Hyde Parker, and ordered his own signal to be nailed to the mast.
line 176. Thessaly was noted for witchcraft. The scene of Virgil’s eighth Eclogue is laid in Thessaly as appropriate to the introduction of such machinery as enchantments, love-spells, &c. Cp. Horace, Epode v. 21, and Ode I. xxvii. 21:-
In his ‘Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft,’ Letter III., Scott, obviously basing his information on Horace, writes thus:-‘The classic mythology presented numerous points in which it readily coalesced with that of the Germans, Danes, and Northmen of a later period. They recognised the power of Erictho, Canidia, and other sorceresses, whose spells could perplex the course of the elements, intercept the influence of the sun, and prevent his beneficial operation upon the fruits of the earth; call down the moon from her appointed sphere, and disturb the original and destined course of nature by their words and charms, and the power of the evil spirits whom they evoked.’
line 181. Lees is properly pl. of lee (Fr.lie = dregs), the sediment or coarser parts of a liquid which settle at the bottom, but it has come to be used as a collective word without reference to a singular form. For phrase, cp. Macbeth, ii. 3. 96:-
line 185. Cp. Byron’s ‘Age of Bronze’:-
line 199. hearse, from Old Fr. herce = harrow, portcullis. In early English the word is used in the sense of ‘harrow’ and also of ‘triangle,’ in reference to the shape of the harrow. By-and-by it came to be used variously for ‘bier,’ ‘funeral carriage,’ ornamental canopy with lighted candles over the coffins of notable people during the funeral ceremony, the permanent framework over a tomb, and even the tomb itself. Cp. Spenser’s Shep. Cal., November Eclogue:-
The gloss to this is, ‘Herse is the solemne obsequie in funeralles.’ Cp. also Ben Jonson’s ‘Epitaph on the Countess of Pembroke’:-
line 203. The ‘Border Minstrel’ is an appropriate designation of the author of ‘Contributions to the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border’ and the ‘Lay of the Last Minstrel.’ In the preface to the latter work, written in 1830, Scott refers to the two great statesmen as having ‘smiled on the adventurous minstrel.’ This is the only existing evidence of Fox’s appreciation. Pitt’s praise of the Lay his niece, Lady Hester Stanhope, reported to W. S. Rose, who very naturally passed it on to Scott himself. The Right Hon. William Dundas, in a letter to Scott, mentions a conversation he had had with Pitt at his table, in 1805, and says that Pitt both expressed his desire to advance Scott’s professional interests and quoted from the Lay the lines describing the embarrassment of the harper when asked to play. ‘This,’ said he, ‘is a sort of thing which I might have expected in painting, but could never have fancied capable of being given in poetry.’-Lockhart’s Life of Scott, ii. 34.
line 204. Gothic. This refers to both subject and style, neither being classical.
line 220. Lockhart quotes from Rogers’s ‘Pleasures of Memory’:-
lines 233-48. In these lines the poet indicates the sphere in which he had previously worked with independence and success. Like Virgil when proceeding to write the AEneid, he is doubtful whether his devotion to legendary and pastoral themes is sufficient warrant for attempting heroic verse. The reference to the tales of shepherds in the closing lines of the passage recalls the advice given (about 1880) to his students by Prof. Shairp, when lecturing from the Poetry Chair at Oxford. ‘To become steeped,’ he said, ‘in the true atmosphere of romantic poetry they should proceed to the Borders and learn their legends, under the twofold guidance of Scott’s “Border Minstrelsy” and an intelligent local shepherd.’