Marmion Part 26

'Like a pillar of Parian stone, That in some old temple shone, Or a slender shaft of living star, Gleams that foam-fall from afar; But the column is melted down below Into a gulf of seething snow, And the stream steals away from its whirl of h.o.a.r, As bright and as lovely as before.'

CANTO SECOND.

lines 1-6. The earlier editions have a period at the end of line 5, and neither Scott himself nor Lockhart changed that punctuation.

But, undoubtedly, the first sentence ends with line 11, 'roll'd' in the second line being a part, and not a finite verb. Mr. Rolfe is the first to punctuate the pa.s.sage thus.

line 9. 'The Abbey of Whitby, in the Archdeaconry of Cleaveland, on the coast of Yorks.h.i.+re, was founded A. D. 657, in consequence of a vow of Oswy, King of Northumberland. It contained both monks and nuns of the Benedictine order; but, contrary to what was usual in such establishments, the abbess was superior to the abbot. The monastery was afterwards mined by the Danes, and rebuilded by William Percy, in the reign of the Conqueror. There were no nuns there in Henry the Eighth's time, nor long before it. The ruins of Whitby Abbey are very magnificent.'--SCOTT.

line 10. 'Lindisfarne, an isle on the coast of Northumberland, was called Holy Island, from the sanct.i.ty of its ancient monastery, and from its having been the episcopal seat of the see of Durham during the early ages of British Christianity. A succession of holy men held that office: but their merits were swallowed up in the superior fame of St. Cuthbert, who was sixth bishop of Durham, and who bestowed the name of his "patrimony" upon the extensive property of the see. The ruins of the monastery upon Holy Island betoken great antiquity. The arches are, in general, strictly Saxon, and the pillars which support them, short, strong, and ma.s.sy. In some places, however, there are pointed windows, which indicate that the building has been repaired at a period long subsequent to the original foundation. The exterior ornaments of the building, being of a light sandy stone, have been wasted, as described in the text.

Lindisfarne is not properly an island, but rather, as the Venerable Bede has termed it, a semi-isle; for, although surrounded by the sea at full tide, the ebb leaves the sands dry between it and the opposite coast of Northumberland, from which it is about three miles distant.'--SCOTT.

The monastery, of which the present ruins remain, was built, between 1093 and 1120, by Benedictine monks under the direction of William Carileph, Bishop of Durham. There were sixteen bishops in Holy Island between St. Aidan (635 A. D.) and Eardulph (875 A. D.). The Christians were dispersed after the violent inroad of the Danes in 868, and for two centuries Lindisfarne suffered apparent relapse.

Lindisfarne (Gael. farne, a retreat) signifies 'a place of retreat by the brook Lindis.' The name Holy Island was given by Carileph's monks, to commemorate, they said, 'the sacred blood which had been shed by the Danes.' See Raine's 'History of North Durham,' F. R.

Wilson's 'Churches of Lindisfarne,' and Mr. Keeling's 'Lindisfarne, or Holy Island: its History and a.s.sociations.'

line 17. Cp. Coleridge's 'Ancient Mariner':--

'The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew, The farrow followed free.'

line 20. For Saint Hilda, see below, note on line 244.

Stanza II. line 33. sea-dog, the seal.

line 36. still. Cp. above, I. 430.

line 44. A Novice is one under probation for a term extending to at least a year, and it may extend to two or three years, after which vows are either taken or declined.

Stanza IV. line 70. Benedictine school. St. Benedict founded his order--sometimes, because of their dark garb, called Black Friars-- in the beginning of the sixth century. Benedict of Aniana, in the eighth century, reformed the discipline of the order.

line 74. Cp. Chaucer's Prioress in the Prologue:--

'And sikerly sche was of gret disport, And ful plesaunt, and amyable of port.'

Stanza V. line 90. Cp. Spenser's Una, 'Faery Queene,' I. iv:--

'A lovely Ladie rode him faire beside.

As one that inly mournd, so was she sad, And heavie sat upon her palfrey slow.'

Stanza VI. With this 'brown study,' cp. Wordsworth's 'Reverie of Poor Susan.'

Stanza. VII. line 114. Reference to the lion of 'Faery Queene,' I.

iii:--

'Forsaken Truth long seekes her love, And makes the Lyon mylde.'

line 124. bowl and knife. Poisoning and stabbing.

Stanza VIII. Monk-Wearmouth. A monastery, founded here in 674 A. D., was destroyed by the Danes in the ninth century, and restored after the Norman Conquest. For Tynemouth, see below, 371, Seaton-Delaval, the seat of the Delavals, who by marriage came into possession of Ford Castle. Widderington. It was a 'squyar off Northombarlonde, Ric. Wytharynton,' that showed notable valour and persistent endurance at Chevy Chase:--

'For Wetharryngton my harte was wo, That ever he slayne shulde be; For when both his leggis wear hewyne in te, He knyled and fought on hys kne.'

Butler, fully appreciating this doughty champion, uses him in a descriptive ill.u.s.tration, 'Hudibras,' I. iii. 95:--

'As Widdrington, in doleful dumps, Is said to fight upon his stumps.'

Widderington Castle, with the exception of one tower, was destroyed by fire. Warkworth Castle is about a mile from the mouth of the Alne, and is the seat of the Duke of Northumberland. Bamborough, the finest specimen of a feudal castle in the north of England, is said to have been founded by King Ida about the middle of the sixth century. Lord Crewe, Bishop of Durham, purchased the Bamborough estates between 1709 and 1720, and left them for charitable purposes. This charity maintains, inter alia, a national school in the village of Bamborough, and an officer to fire a cannon from the dangerous rocks every fifteen minutes in foggy weather, besides providing for the education of thirty girls within the castle walls.

Stanza IX. line 164. battled. See above, I. 4.

Stanza X. line 173. Pointed or Gothic architecture came in towards the end of the twelfth century.

Stanza XII. line 215. Suppose we = Let us suppose. This is an Elizabethanism. Cp. Macbeth, i. I. 10:--

'Hover through the fog and filthy air,'

where hover = hover we.

Stanza XIII. line 234. Scott quotes from 'A True Account,'

circulated at Whitby, concerning the consequences of a boar-hunt on Eskdale-side, belonging to the Abbot of Whitby. The boar, being hard pressed, made for a hermitage and died just within the door. Coming up, the three leaders--William de Bruce, Lord of Uglebarnby, Ralph de Percy, Lord of Smeaton, and a freeholder named Allatson--in their disappointment and wrath set upon the hermit, whom they fatally wounded. When the abbot afterwards came to the dying hermit, and told him his a.s.sailants would suffer extreme penalty for their ruthless conduct, the hermit asked the gentlemen to be sent for, and said he would pardon them on certain conditions. 'The gentlemen being present bade him save their lives.--Then said the hermit, "You and yours shall hold your lands of the Abbot of Whitby, and his successors, in this manner: That, upon Ascension-day, you, or some of you, shall come to the wood of the Stray-heads, which is in Eskdale-side, the same day at sun-rising, and there shall the abbot's officer blow his horn, to the intent that you may know where to find him; and he shall deliver unto you, William de Bruce, ten stakes, eleven strout stowers, and eleven yethers, to be cut by you, or some of you, with a knife of one penny price: and you, Ralph de Percy, shall take twenty-one of each sort, to be cut in the same manner; and you, Allatson, shall take nine of each sort, to be cut as aforesaid, and to be taken on your backs and carried to the town of Whitby, and to be there before nine of the clock the same day before mentioned. At the same hour of nine of the clock, if it be full sea, your labour and service shall cease; and if low water, each of you shall set your stakes to the brim, each stake one yard from the other, and so yether them on each side with your yethers; and so stake on each side with your strout stowers, that they may stand three tides, without removing by the force thereof. Each of you shall do, make, and execute the said service, at that very hour, every year, except it be fall sea at that hour; but when it shall so fall out, this service shall cease. You shall faithfully do this, in remembrance that you did most cruelly slay me; and that you may the better call to G.o.d for mercy, repent unfeignedly of your sins, and do good works. The officer of Eskdale-side shall blow, Out on you!

Out on you! Out on you! for this heinous crime. If you, or your successors, shall refuse this service, so long as it shall not be full sea at the aforesaid hour, you or yours shall forfeit your lands to the Abbot of Whitby, or his successors. This I entreat, and earnestly beg, that you may have lives and goods preserved for this service: and I request of you to promise, by your parts in Heaven, that it shall be done by you and your successors, as is aforesaid requested; and I will confirm it by the faith of an honest man."-- Then the hermit said, "My soul longeth for the Lord: and I do as freely forgive these men my death, as Christ forgave the thieves on the cross." And, in the presence of the abbot and the rest, he said moreover these words: "In ma.n.u.s tuos, Domine, commendo spiritum meum, a vinculis enim mortis redemisti me, Domine veritatis, Amen."- -So he yielded up the ghost the eighth day of December, anno Domini 1159, whose soul G.o.d have mercy upon. Amen.

'"This service," it is added, "still continues to be performed with the prescribed ceremonies, though not by the proprietors in person.

Part of the lands charged therewith are now held by a gentleman of the name of Herbert."'--SCOTT.

line 244. Edelfled 'was the daughter of King Oswy, who, in grat.i.tude to Heaven for the great victory which he won in 655, against Penda, the pagan King of Mercia, dedicated Edelfleda, then but a year old, to the service of G.o.d, in the monastery of Whitby, of which St.

Hilda was then abbess. She afterwards adorned the place of her education with great magnificence.'--SCOTT.

line 251. 'These two miracles are much insisted on by all ancient writers who have occasion to mention either Whitby or St. Hilda. The relics of the snakes, which infested the precincts of the convent, and were at the abbess's prayer not only beheaded but petrified, are still found about the rocks, and are termed by Protestant fossilists, Ammonitae.

'The other miracle is thus mentioned by Camden: "It is also ascribed to the power of her sanct.i.ty, that these wild geese, which, in the winter, fly in great flocks to the lakes and rivers unfrozen in the southern parts, to the great amazement of every one, fall down suddenly upon the ground, when they are in their flight over certain 'neighbouring fields hereabouts: a relation I should not have made, if I had not received it from several credible men. But those who are less inclined to heed superst.i.tion, attribute it to some occult quality in the ground, and to somewhat of antipathy between it and the geese, such as they say is betwixt wolves and scyllaroots: for that such hidden tendencies and aversions, as we call sympathies and antipathies, are implanted in many things by provident Nature for the preservation of them, is a thing so evident, that everybody grants it." Mr. Chariton, in his History of Whitby, points out the true origin of the fable, from the number of sea-gulls that, when flying from a storm, often alight near Whitby; and from the woodc.o.c.ks, and other birds of pa.s.sage, who do the same upon their arrival on sh.o.r.e, after a long flight.'--SCOTT.

Stanza XIV. line 257. 'St. Cuthbert was, in the choice of his sepulchre, one of the most mutable and unreasonable saints in the Calendar. He died A. D. 688, in a hermitage upon the Farne Islands, having resigned the bishopric of Lindisfarne, or Holy Island, about two years before. {1} His body was brought to Lindisfarne, where it remained until a descent of the Danes, about 793, when the monastery was nearly destroyed. The monks fled to Scotland, with what they deemed their chief treasure, the relics of St. Cuthbert. The Saint was, however, a most capricious fellow-traveller; which was the more intolerable, as, like Sinbad's Old Man of the Sea, he journeyed upon the shoulders of his companions. They paraded him through Scotland for several years, and came as far west as Whithorn, in Galloway, whence they attempted to sail for Ireland, but were driven back by tempests. He at length made a halt at Norham; from thence he went to Melrose, where he remained stationary for a short time, and then caused himself to be launched upon the Tweed in a stone coffin, which landed him at Tilmouth, in Northumberland. This boat is finely shaped, ten feet long, three feet and a half in diameter, and only four inches thick; so that, with very little a.s.sistance, it might certainly have swam: it still lies, or at least did so a few years ago, in two pieces, beside the ruined chapel at Tilmouth. From Tilmouth, Cuthbert wandered into Yorks.h.i.+re; and at length made a long stay at Chester-le-street, to which the bishop's see was transferred. At length, the Danes continuing to infest the country, the monks removed to Rippon for a season; and it was in return from thence to Chester-le-street, that, pa.s.sing through a forest called Dunholme, the Saint and his carriage became immovable at a place named Wardlaw, or Wardilaw. Here the Saint chose his place of residence; and all who have seen Durham must admit, that, if difficult in his choice, he evinced taste in at last fixing it. It is said, that the Northumbrian Catholics still keep secret the precise spot of the Saint's sepulture, which is only intrusted to three persons at a time. When one dies the survivors a.s.sociate to them, in his room, a person judged fit to be the depositary of so valuable a secret.'--SCOTT.

'The resting-place of the remains of this Saint is not now matter of uncertainty. So recently as 17th May, 1827,--1139 years after his death--their discovery and disinterment were effected. Under a blue stone, in the middle of the shrine of St. Cuthbert, at the eastern extremity of the choir of Durham Cathedral, there was then found a walled grave, containing the coffins of the Saint. The first, or outer one, was ascertained to be that of 1541, the second of 1041; the third, or inner one, answering in every particular to the description of that of 698, was found to contain, not indeed, as had been averred then, and even until 1539, the incorruptible body, but the entire skeleton of the Saint; the bottom of the grave being perfectly dry, free from offensive smell, and without the slightest symptom that a human body had ever undergone decomposition within its walls. The skeleton was found swathed in five silk robes of emblematical embroidery, the ornamental parts laid with gold leaf, and these again covered with a robe of linen. Beside the skeleton were also deposited several gold and silver insignia, and other relics of the Saint.

'(The Roman Catholics now allow that the coffin was that of St.

Cuthbert.)

'The bones of the Saint were again restored to the grave in a new coffin, amid the fragments of the former ones. Those portions of the inner coffin which could be preserved, including one of its rings, with the silver altar, golden cross, stole, comb, two maniples, bracelets, girdle, gold wire of the skeleton, and fragments of the five silk robes, and seme of the rings of the outer coffin made in 1541, were deposited in the library of the Dean and Chapter, where they are now preserved.'--LOCKHART.

For ample details regarding St. Cuthbert, see 'St. Cuthbert,' by James Raine, M. A. (4to, Durham, 1828).

line 263. For 'fair Melrose' see opening of Canto II, 'Lay of the Last Minstrel,' and Prof. Minto's note in the Clarendon Press edition.

Stanza XV. line 292. 'Every one has heard, that when David I, with his son Henry, invaded Northumberland in 1136, the English host marched against them under the holy banner of St. Cuthbert; to the efficacy of which was imputed the great victory which they obtained in the b.l.o.o.d.y battle of Northallerton, or Cuton-moor. The conquerors were at least as much indebted to the jealousy and intractability of the different tribes who composed David's army; among whom, as mentioned in the text, were the Galwegians, the Britons of Strath- Clyde, the men of Teviotdale and Lothian, with many Norman and German warriors, who a.s.serted the cause of the Empress Maud. See Chalmers's "Caledonia," vol. i. p. 622; a most laborious, curious, and interesting publication, from which considerable defects of style and manner ought not to turn aside the Scottish antiquary.