“From Stirling Castle we had seen The mazy Forth unravelled; Had trod the banks of Clyde, and Tay, And with the Tweed had travelled; And when he came to Clovenford, Then said my _winsome Marrow_, ‘Whate’er betide, we’ll turn aside, And see the Braes of Yarrow.’” A different type of man from Wordsworth was his friend, Sir Walter Scott. Wordsworth enjoyed tranquillity and contemplation, Scott rejoiced in activity, and would have liked to be a soldier. The feudalism that repelled the Lake Poet attracted the Wizard of the North. An ancient castle reminded Sir Walter of deeds of self-sacrifice and of the joyous days of chivalry, and even in the stories of bloodshed and crime, from which Wordsworth turned in horror, Scott was able to find a strain of poetry and romance. The plot of _The Lady of the Lake_ is based on James V.’s well-known habit of wandering through his kingdom in disguise. In the poem the monarch calls himself not “The Gudeman o’ Ballengeich,” but “Fitz-James, the Knight of Snowdoun,” “‘For Stirling’s tower Of yore the name of Snowdoun claims, And Normans call me James Fitz-James.’” The scene of the sixth canto is laid in Stirling Castle, while in the earlier parts of the poem the shadow of the fortress is made, as it were, to fall across the country of Clan Alpine. The Highlanders of the Lennox and Menteith could never quite forget the royal stronghold on the Forth. Its far-away outline was a warning and a check even to the restless Macgregors. Had the clans been able to join their forces they might have ventured to defy the castle; but feuds amongst themselves prevented combined action. A league such as Scott makes Roderick Dhu propose between his clan and the Douglases must sometimes have been thought of by actual Highland chiefs, and no doubt several kings half expected to be surrounded at times by Highlanders at Stirling: “‘To Douglas, leagued with Roderick Dhu, Will friends and allies flock enow; Like cause of doubt, distrust, and grief, Will bind us to each Western Chief. When the loud pipes my bridal tell, The Links of Forth shall hear the knell, The guards shall start in Stirling’s porch; And, when I light the nuptial torch, A thousand villages in flames Shall scare the slumbers of King James!’”