“So mony guid as of ye Dovglas beinge,
      Of ane surname was ne’er in Scotland seine.

      I will ye charge, efter yat I depart,
      To holy grawe, and thair bury my hart;
      Let it remane ever Bothe tyme and HOWR,
      To ye last day I sie my Saviour.

      I do protest in tyme of al my ringe,
      Ye lyk subject had never ony keing.”

’This curious and valuable relic was nearly lost during the Civil War of 1745-6, being carried away from Douglas Castle by some of those in arms for Prince Charles.  But great interest having been made by the Duke of Douglas among the chief partisans of the Stuart, it was at length restored.  It resembles a Highland claymore, of the usual size, is of an excellent temper, and admirably poised.’—­ Scott.

Stanza xvi. line 461.  Scott quotes:—­

     ’O Dowglas!  Dowglas
      Tender and trew.’—­The Houlate.

line 470.  There are two famous sparrows in literature, the one Lesbia’s sparrow, tenderly lamented by Catullus, and the other Jane Scrope’s sparrow, memorialised by Skelton in the ’ Boke of Phyllyp Sparowe.’

line 475.  The tears of such as Douglas are of the kind mentioned in Cowley’s ‘Prophet,’ line 20:—­

     ‘Words that weep, and tears that speak.’

Stanza xvii. line 501.  ’The ancient cry to make room for a dance or pageant.’—­Scott.

Cp.  Romeo and Juliet, i. 5. 28:  ‘A hall! a hall! give room,’ &c.

line 505.  The tune is significant of a Scottish invasion of England.  See Scott’s appropriate song to the ‘ancient air,’ ‘Monastery,’ xxv.  Reference is made in I Henry ii, ii. 4. 368, to the head-dress of the Scottish soldiers, when Falstaff informs Prince Hal that Douglas is in England, ‘and a thousand blue-caps more.’

Stanza xix. line 545.  Many of the houses in Old Edinburgh are built to a great height, so that the common stairs leading up among a group of them have sometimes been called ‘perpendicular streets.’  Pitch, meaning ‘height,’ is taken from hawking, the height to which a bird rose depending largely on the pitch given it.

Stanza xx. line 558.  St. Giles’s massive steeple is one of the features of Edinburgh.  The ancient church, recently renovated by the munificence of the late William Chambers, is now one of the most imposing Presbyterian places of worship in Scotland.

line 569.  For bowne see above, iv. 487.

line 571.  A certain impressiveness is given by the sudden introduction of this pentameter.

Stanza xxi.  Jeffrey, in reviewing’ Marmion, ’fixed on this narrative of the Abbess as a passage marked by ‘flatness and tediousness,’ and could see in it ‘no sort of beauty nor elegance of diction.’  The answer to such criticism is that the narrative is direct and practical, and admirably suited to its purpose.