"Sore wounded Sybil's Cross he spied, And dragg'd him to its foot, and died, Close by the noble Marmion's side. The spoilers stripp'd and gash'd the slain, And thus their corpses were mista'en; And thus in the proud Baron's tomb, The lowly woodsman took the room." Now, I ask, wherefore has the poet dwelt with such minuteness upon this forced and improbable incident? Had it indeed been with no other purpose than to introduce the picturesque description and the moral reflexions contained in the following section, the improbability might well be forgiven. But such is not the real object. The critic of the _Monthly Review_ takes the following notice of this passage, which is printed as a note in the last edition of Scott's _Poems_ in 1833:-- "A corpse is afterwards conveyed, as that of Marmion, to the cathedral of Lichfield, where a magnificent tomb is erected to his memory, &c. &c.; but, by an _admirably imagined act of poetical justice_, we are informed that a peasant's body was placed beneath that costly monument, while the haughty Baron himself was buried like a vulgar corpse on the spot where he died." Had the reviewer attempted to penetrate a little deeper into the workings of the author's mind, he would have seen in this circumstance much more than "an admirably imagined act of poetical {204} justice." He would have perceived in it the ultimate and literal fulfilment of the whole penalty foreshadowed to the delinquent baron in the two concluding stanzas of that beautiful and touching song sung by Fitz-Eustace in the Hostelrie of Gifford in the third canto of the poem, which I here transcribe: "Where shall the traitor rest, He the deceiver, Who could win maiden's breast, Ruin, and leave her? In the lost battle Borne down by the flying, Where mingles war's rattle, With groans of the dying-- There shall he be lying. Her wing shall the eagle flap O'er the false-hearted, His warm blood the wolf shall lap Ere life be parted. _Shame and dishonour sit_ _By his grave ever;_ _Blessing shall hallow it,_ _Never, O never!_" Then follows the effect produced upon the conscience of the "Traitor," described in these powerful lines:-- "It ceased. the melancholy sound; And silence sunk on all around. The air was sad; but sadder still It fell on Marmion's ear, And plain'd as if disgrace and ill, And shameful death, were near." &c. &c. &c. And lastly, when the life of the wounded baron is ebbing forth with his blood on the field of battle, when-- "The Monk, with unavailing cares Exhausted all the Church's prayers-- Ever, he said, that, close and near, A lady's voice was in his ear, And that the priest he could not hear-- For that she ever sung, '_In the lost battle, borne down by the flying,_ _Where mingles war's rattle with groans of the dying!_'-- So the notes ring."