_The Lady of the Lake_ appeared in 1810. Two years before, _Marmion_ had vastly increased the popular enthusiasm aroused by _The Lay of the Last Minstrel_, and the success of his second long poem had so exhilarated Scott that, as he says, he "felt equal to anything and everything." To one of his kinswomen, who urged him not to jeopardize his fame by another effort in the same kind, he gaily quoted the words of Montrose: He either fears his fate too much Or his deserts are small, Who dares not put it to the touch, To win or lose it all. The result justified his confidence; for not only was _The Lady of the Lake_ as successful as its predecessors, but it remains the most sterling of Scott's poems. The somewhat cheap supernaturalism of the _Lay_ appears in it only for a moment; both the story and the characters are of a less theatrical type than in _Marmion_; and it has a glow, animation, and onset, which was denied to the later poems, _Rokeby_ and _The Lord of the Isles_. The following outline abridged from the excellent one given by Francis Jeffrey in the _Edinburgh Review_ for August, 1810, will be useful as a basis for criticism of the matter and style of the poem. "The first canto begins with a description of a staghunt in the Highlands of Perthshire. As the chase lengthens, the sportsmen drop off; till at last the foremost horseman is left alone; and his horse, overcome with fatigue, stumbles and dies. The adventurer, climbing up a craggy eminence, discovers Loch Katrine spread out in evening glory before him. The huntsman winds his horn; and sees, to his infinite surprise, a little skiff, guided by a lovely woman, glide from beneath the trees that overhang the water, and approach the shore at his feet. Upon the stranger's approach, she pushes the shallop from the shore in alarm. After a short parley, however, she carries him to a woody island, where she leads him into a sort of silvan mansion, rudely constructed, and hung round with trophies of war and the chase. An elderly lady is introduced at supper; and the stranger, after disclosing himself to be 'James Fitz-James, the knight of Snowdoun,' tries in vain to discover the name and history of the ladies.