as vain as a peacock: Byron perpetually doing or saying something to wound Leigh Hunt's selflove. . . And then Christie prophesies, with much clairvoyance, the end of the connection. The men quarrelled, and Leigh Hunt, after Byron's death, wrote the history of their alliance.

Postage and news were then very vague. Christie heard in France of "the great stir made by 'Reginald Dalton,' but to get the book was past hope; and he was distressed by false news of Williams's death. "I cannot believe the thing, he was made to live eighty years, and be the first Radical Bishop." At last, in July 1824, Christie does obtain "Reginald Dalton," and thinks it "the most interesting novel he has read for years," probably with a mental reservation in favour of "Quentin Durward," which people abuse, he says, much to his, and indeed to our amazement. "Quentin Durward" was only revived by its success in France.

CHAPTER XI

EDINBURGH, 1817-1824

Lockhart's Poems.-Spanish Ballads.-Sources.-Weak lines.-Song of the Galley.—The Wandering Knight.-Serenade." The Mad Banker."-Verses on Jeffrey.-On Holyrood.-On the Stuarts.— Queen Mary.-Scott's reference to these verses.- "Take thou the Vanguard of the Three."-Criticism of Lockhart's verse.— His reserve.-Reasons why he wrote little.-His comic verse.— "Captain Patten."-The Odontist.-Trooper lyrics.—His skill in caricature. Examples.-Fenella.-A wet day.-Charles Scott. -Miss Violet Lockhart.-A Presbytery.-A cock-fighter.Analogy with Thackeray in verse and caricature.-Lockhart almost abandons the Art.

THE work which probably made Lockhart's name best and most widely known to the world of readers at that day, was published in 1823, his "Ancient Spanish Ballads." His other writings had all been anonymous, and his novels were confused with those of Galt and Wilson.2 The Ballads were acknowledged, and obtained a wide success, above all with the young. The printed collection of old Spanish "Lieder," mainly used by Lockhart, was that of Depping, published at Leipzig in 1817.

1 Blackwood's.

2 On the title-page of a copy of "Adam Blair" (1822), I find the blank for author's name filled up, in an old hand, with the words "By Professor Wilson"!

He also examined, I think, the early printed volumes, as the "Cancionero," of Ferdinand de Castillo (1510), containing pieces reckoned antiguos at that date, after which the Spaniards frequently published specimens of their mediæval verse. The natives of the Peninsula were certainly either richer in ballads than their neighbours, or preserved more freshly their interest in their popular or semi-popular lays. Like the other peoples, French, English, and so on, the Spaniards were well contented in their folk-songs with assonance (the similarity of terminal vowel sounds), without rhyme. Following "the distinguished German antiquary, Mr. Grimm,” Lockhart treated each stanza of four short lines as a verse of two long lines, which Grimm supposed to have been the original form. His preface is an excellent account of the development of the Spanish language, people, and character, and he especially insists on the chivalrous and honourable character of the hostility between the Moors and the native The collection is divided into historical ballads, Moorish ballads, and romantic ballads. I shall not attempt, for lack of the necessary qualifications, to decide on the literal accuracy of Lockhart's versions, being content with the favourable verdict of a judge so competent as my friend Mr. David Hannay. It was my own misfortune never to see the book when I was young, and, on the other hand, to be very fond of "Bon Gaultier," so that "Don Fernando Gomersalez" and the lay of Silas Fixings come

race.

SPANISH BALLADS

315

between me and Lockhart's poems. Therefore I am peculiarly ill-fitted to defend such lines as these, in the first piece

"It was a sight of pity to look on Roderick,

For, sore athirst and hungry, he stagger'd faint and sick.” The sword of the hero, "hack'd into a saw suggests, by no fault of Lockhart's, a weapon in the same serrated condition, described by Mr. W. S. Gilbert (I quote from memory)—

"And all the people noticed that the engine of the law
Was not half so like a hatchet as a dissipated saw."

On the other hand, many passages have a knightly speed and spirit, in fact this is their general characteristic. The movement of the verse is almost too catching and facile, though this comes from a strict following of the original, and Scott himself, in one of his letters, drops into a parody. Much more agreeable is the versification of some ballads written in other measures, such as the following:

THE SONG OF THE GALLEY.1

I.

"Ye mariners of Spain,

Bend strongly on your oars,

And bring my love again,

For he lies among the Moors.

(This is from a song in the Cancionero of Valencia, 1511.

"Galeristas de Espana

Parad los remos," &c.)