_Scott._--I answer, it did _not_,--because the observation relates to the strength of those actually engaged, and when _their_ strength was exhausted, other squadrons were brought up. Suppose you saw two lawyers scolding at the bar, you might say this must have an end--human lungs cannot hold out--but, if the debate were continued by the senior counsel, your well-grounded expectations would be disappointed--"Cousin, thou wert not wont to be so dull!"-- IBID.--"Nor ceased the _intermitted_ shot." _James._--Mr. Erskine contends that "intermitted" is redundant. _Scott._--"Nor ceased the _storm of shell and shot_." STANZA X.--"---- Never shall our country say We gave one inch of ground away, _When battling_ for her right." _James._--_In conflict?_ _John B._--_Warring?_ I am afraid _battling_ must stand. _Scott._--All worse than the text. STANZA XI.--"Peal'd wildly the imperial name." _James._--I submit with diffidence whether this be not a somewhat tame conclusion to so very animated a stanza? And, at any rate, you will observe, that as it stands, you have no rhyme whatever to "The Cohort eagles _fly_."--You have no rhyme to _fly_. _Flew_ and _fly_, also, are perhaps too near, considering that each word closes a line of the same sort. I don't well like "_Thus_ in a torrent," either. If it were, "In one broad torrent," etc., it strikes me that it would be more spirited. _Scott._--Granted as to most of these observations--Read, "in one _dark_ torrent broad and strong," etc.--The "imperial name" is _true_, therefore must stand. STANZA XII.--"Nor was one forward footstep _stopped_." _James._--This staggering word was intended, I presume, but I don't like it. {p.074} _Scott._--Granted. Read _staid_, etc. IBID.--"Down were the eagle banners sent, Down, down the horse and horsemen went." _James._--This is very spirited and very fine; but it is unquestionably liable to the charge of being very nearly a direct repetition of yourself. See _Lord of the Isles_, Canto vi. Stanza 24:-- "_Down! down!_ in headlong overthrow, _Horseman and horse_, the foremost go," etc. This passage is at once so striking and so recent, that its close similarity to the present, if not indeed its identity, must strike every reader; and really, to borrow from one's self is hardly much better than to borrow from one's neighbors. And yet again, a few lines lower-- "As hammers on the _anvils_ reel, Against the cuirass _clangs_ the steel." See _Lady of the Lake_, Canto vi. Stanza 18:-- "I heard the broadswords' deadly _clang_, As if an hundred _anvils_ rang." Here is precisely the same image, in very nearly the same words. _Scott._--I have altered the expression, but made a note, which, I think, will vindicate my retaining the simile.