“Well, my friend,” said he, “what more would you have?  You need but strike out one letter in the first of these lines, and make your painter-man, the next time he comes this way, print between the jolly tankard and your own name:—­

     ‘Drink, weary pilgrim, drink, and pay.’”

Scott was delighted to find, on his return, that this suggestion had been adopted, and for aught I know the romantic legend may still be visible.’

The characters in the poem are hardly less vigorous in conception and presentation than the descriptions.  It may be true, as Carlyle asserts in his ungenerous essay on Scott, that he was inferior to Shakespeare in delineation of character, but, even admitting that, we shall still have ample room for approval and admiration of his work.  So far as the purposes of the poem are concerned the various personages are admirably utilized.  We come to know Marmion himself very intimately, the interest gradually deepening as the real character of the Palmer and his relations to the hero are steadily developed.  These two take prominent rank with the imaginary characters of literature.  James iv, that ‘champion of the dames,’ and likewise undoubted military leader, is faithfully delineated in accordance with historical records and contemporary estimates.  Those desirous of seeing him as he struck the imagination of a poet in his own day should read the eulogy passed upon him by Barclay in his ‘Ship of Fools.’  The passage in which this occurs is an interpolation in the division of the poem entitled ’Of the Ruine and Decay of the Holy Faith Catholique.’  The other characters are all distinctly suited to the parts they have to perform.  Acting on the licence sanctioned by Horatian authority:—­

     ’Atque ita mentitur, sic veris falsa remiscet,
      Primo ne medium, medio ne discrepet imum’—­

Scott appropriates Sir David Lyndsay to his purpose, presenting him, even as he presents the stately and venerable Angus, with faithful and striking picturesqueness.  Bishop Douglas is exactly suited to his share in the development of events; and had room likewise been found for the Court poet Dunbar—­author of James’s Epithalamium, the ’Thrissill and the Rois’—­it would have been both a fit and a seemly arrangement.  Had Scott remembered that Dunbar was a favourite of Queen Margaret’s he might have introduced him into an interesting episode.  The passage devoted to the Queen herself is exquisite and graceful, its restrained and effective pathos making a singularly direct and significant appeal.  The other female characters are well conceived and sustained, while Constance in the Trial scene reaches an imposing height of dramatic intensity.