INTRODUCTION TO CANTO FIFTH.1

To George Ellis, Esq.2

Edinburgh.

WHEN dark December glooms the day,

And takes our autumn joys away

When short and scant the sunbeam throws,

Upon the weary waste of snows,

A cold and profitless regard,

Like patron on a needy bard;
When silvan occupation's done,

And o'er the chimney rests the gun,

1. These Introductory Epistles, though excellent in themselves, are in fact only interruptions to the fable, and, accordingly, nine readers out of ten have perused them separately, either before or after the poem. In short, the personal appearance of the Minstrel, who, though the Last, is the most charming of all minstrels, is by no means compensated by the idea of an author shorn of his picturesque beard, and writing letters to his intimate friends. - George Ellis.

2 This accomplished gentleman, the well-known coadjutor of Mr. Canning and Mr. Frere in the Antijacobin, and editor of Specimens of Ancient English Romances, etc., died 10th April, 1815, aged 76 years; being succeeded in his estates by his brother, Charles Ellis, Esq., created, in 1827, Lord Seaford. - ED.

And hang, in idle trophy, near,
The game-pouch, fishing-rod, and spear;
When wiry terrier, rough and grim,
And greyhound, with his length of limb,
And pointer, now employ'd no more,
Cumber our parlour's narrow floor;
When in his stall the impatient steed
Is long condemn'd to rest and feed;
When from our snow-encircled home,
Scarce cares the hardiest step to roam,
Since path is none, save that to bring
The needful water from the spring;
When wrinkled news-page, thrice conn'd o'er,
Beguiles the dreary hour no more,
And darkling politician, cross'd,
Inveighs against the lingering post,
And answering housewife sore complains
Of carriers' snow-impeded wains;
When such the country cheer, I come,
Well pleased, to seek our city home;
For converse, and for books, to change
The Forest's melancholy range,
And welcome, with renew'd delight,
The busy day and social night.

Not here need my desponding rhyme
Lament the ravages of time,

As erst by Newark's riven towers,
And Ettrick stripp'd of forest bowers.1

1 See Introduction to canto ii.

True, Caledonia's Queen is changed,1
Since on her dusky summit ranged,
Within its steepy limits pent,
By bulwark, line, and battlement,
And flanking towers, and laky flood,
Guarded and garrison'd she stood,
Denying entrance or resort,
Save at each tall embattled port;
Above whose arch, suspended, hung
Portcullis spiked with iron prong.

That long is gone, but not so long,
Since, early closed, and opening late,
Jealous revolved the studded gate,
Whose task, from eve to morning tide,
A wicket churlishly supplied.
Stern then, and steel-girt was thy brow,
Dun-Edin! O, how altered now,
When safe amid thy mountain court
Thou sit'st, like Empress at her sport,
And liberal, unconfined, and free,
Flinging thy white arms to the sea,2

1 The Old Town of Edinburgh was secured on the north side by a lake, now drained, and on the south by a wall, which there was some attempt to make defensible even so late as 1745. The gates, and the greater part of the wall, have been pulled down, in the course of the late extensive and beautiful enlargement of the city. My ingenious and valued friend, Thomas Campbell, proposed to celebrate Edinburgh under the epithet here borrowed. But the Queen of the North has not been so fortunate as to receive from so eminent a pen the proposed distinction.

Mr.

2 Since writing this line, I find I have inadvertently bor

For thy dark cloud, with umber'd lower,
That hung o'er cliff, and lake, and tower,
Thou gleam'st against the western ray
Ten thousand lines of brighter day.

Not she, the Championess of old,
In Spenser's magic tale enroll'd,
She for the charmed spear renown'd,

Which forced each knight to kiss the ground,-
Not she more changed, when, placed at rest,
What time she was Malbecco's guest,1

She gave to flow her maiden vest;
When from the corslet's grasp relieved,
Free to the sight her bosom heaved;
Sweet was her blue eye's modest smile,
Erst hidden by the aventayle;
And down her shoulders graceful roll'd
Her locks profuse, of paly gold.
They who whilom, in midnight fight,
Had marvell'd at her matchless might,
No less her maiden charms approved,
But looking liked, and liking loved.2
The sight could jealous pangs beguile,

rowed it almost verbatim, though with somewhat a different meaning, from a chorus in Caractacus:

"Britain heard the descant bold,

She flung her white arms o'er the sea,
Proud in her leafy bosom to enfold

The freight of harmony."

1 See The Faerie Queene, book iii. canto ix.

2" For every one her liked, and every one her loved."

- Spenser, as above.