'For darkling was the battle tried'; and see Midsummer Night's Dream, ii. 2. 86; King Lear, i. 4. 237. Lord Tennyson, like Keats, uses the word as an adj. in 'In Memoriam,' xcix:-- 'Who tremblest through thy darkling red.' Cp. below, V. Introd. 23, 'darkling politician.' For scholarly discussion of the term, see Notes and Queries, VII iii. 191. Stanza XXX. lines 585-9. Iago understands the 'contending flow' of passions when in a glow of self-satisfied feeling he exclaims; 'Work on, My medicine, work! Thus credulous fools are caught.' Othello, iv. I. 44. Stanza XXXI. line 597. 'Yode, used by old poets for WENT.'--SCOTT. It is a variant of 'yod' or 'yede,' from A. S. eode, I went. Cp. Lat. eo, I go. See Clarendon Press 'Specimens of Early English,' II. 71:-- 'Thair scrippes, quer thai rade or YODE, Tham failed neuer o drinc ne fode.' Spenser writes, 'Faerie Queene,' II. vii. 2:-- 'So, long he YODE, yet no adventure found.' line 599. Selle, saddle. Cp. 'Faerie Queene,' II. v. 4:-- On his horse necke before the quilted SELL.' INTRODUCTION TO CANTO FOURTH. 'James Skene, Esq., of Rubislaw, Aberdeenshire, was Cornet in the Royal Edinburgh Light Horse Volunteers; and Sir Walter Scott was Quartermaster of the same corps.'--LOCKHART. For Skene's account of the origin of this regiment, due in large measure to 'Scott's ardour,' see 'Life of Scott,' i. 258. line 2. See Taming of the Shrew, i. 4. 135, and 2 Henry IV, v. 3. 143, where a line of an old song is quoted:-- 'Where is the life that late I led?' line 3. See As you Like It, ii. 7. 12. line 7. Scott made the acquaintance of Skene, recently returned from a lengthened stay in Saxony, about the end of 1796, and profited much by his friend's German knowledge and his German books. In later days he utilized suggestions of Skene's in 'Ivanhoe' and 'Quentin Durward.' See 'Life of Scott,' PASSIM, and specially i. 257, and iv. 342. line 37. Blackhouse, a farm 'situated on the Douglas-burn, then tenanted by a remarkable family, to which I have already made allusion--that of William Laidlaw.'--'Life,' i. 328. Ettrick Pen is a hill in the south of Selkirkshire. line 46. 'Various illustrations of the Poetry and Novels of Sir Walter Scott, from designs by Mr. Skene, have since been published.'--LOCKHART. line 48. Probably the first reference in poetry to the Scottish heather is, says Prof. Veitch ('Feeling for Nature,' ii. 52), in Thomson's 'Spring,' where the bees are represented as daring 'The purple heath, or where the wild thyme grows.' lines 55-97. With this striking typical winter piece, cp. in Thomson's 'Winter,' the vivid and pathetic picture beginning:-- 'In his own loose-revolving fields, the swain Disastered stands.' See also Burns's 'Winter Night,' which by these lines may have suggested Scott's 'beamless sun':--