While, however, party politics was not always a subject that interested Scott, patriotism was a constituent element of his character.  He had a keen sense of national dignity and honour—­as the extract from his Flodden letter alone sufficiently testifies—­ and, had circumstances demanded it of him, he would almost certainly have distinguished himself as a trooper on the field of battle.  Thus it was not only his love of a picturesque theme that inspired him with his Tale of Flodden Field, but likewise his patriotic ardour and his desire to touch the national heart.  ‘Marmion’ is epical in character and movement; and it is at the same time a brilliant and suggestive delineation of a national effort, illustrating keen sense of honour, resolute purpose, and pathetic manly devotion.  James iv was probably wrong, and he was certainly very rash, in attempting to do battle with Henry VIII, but although his people were aware of his mistake, and his advisers did all in their power to dissuade him, he was supported to the last with a heroism that recalls Thermopylae.  This was a display of national character that appealed directly and powerfully to Scott, prompting him to the production of his loftiest and most energetic verse.  Mournful associations will ever cluster around the tragic battle of Flodden—­that ‘most dolent day,’ as Lyndsay aptly calls it—­but all the same the record remains of what heroic men had it in them to do for King and country, where

     ’Groom fought like noble, squire like knight,
      As fearlessly and well.’

Scott intended to work slowly and carefully through his new poem, but, as he explains in the 1830 Introduction, circumstances interrupted his design.  ‘Particular passages,’ he says, ’of a poem, which was finally called “Marmion,” were laboured with a good deal of care, by one by whom much care was seldom bestowed.’  The publication, however, was hastened by ’the misfortunes of a near relation and friend.’  Lockhart (Life, ii. 115) explains that the reference is to ’his brother Thomas’s final withdrawal from the profession of Writer to the Signet, which arrangement seems to have been quite necessary towards the end of 1806.’  At any rate, the poem was finished in a shorter time than had been at first intended.  The subject suited Scott so exactly that, even in default of a special stimulus, there need be no surprise at the rapidity of his composition after he had fairly begun to move forward with it.  Dryden, it may be remembered, was so held and fascinated by his ‘Alexander’s Feast’ that he wrote it off in a night.  Cowper had a similar experience with ‘John Gilpin,’ and Burns’s powerful dramatic tale, ‘Tam O’Shanter,’ was produced with great ease and rapidity.  De Quincey records that, in his own case, his very best work was frequently done when he was writing against time.  Scott’s energy and fluency of composition are clearly indicated in the following passage in Lockharts Life, ii. 117:—­