ADVERTISEMENT TO THE FIRST EDITION.

It is hardly to be expected, that an Author whom the public have honoured with some degree of applause, should not be again a trespasser on their kindness. Yet the Author of MARMION must be supposed to feel some anxiety concerning its success, since he is sensible that he hazards, by this second intrusion, any reputation which his first Poem may have procured him. The present story turns upon the private adventures of a ficticious character; but is called a Tale of Flodden Field, because the hero's fate is connected with that memorable defeat, and the causes which led to it. The design of the Author was, if possible, to apprize his readers, at the outset, of the date if his Story, and to prepare them for the manners of the Age in which it is laid. Any Historical Narrative, far more an attempt at Epic composition, exceeded his plan of a Romantic Tale; yet he may be permitted to hope, from the popularity of THE LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL, that an attempt to paint the manners of the feudal times, upon a broader scale, and in the course of a more interesting story, will not be unacceptable to the Public.

The Poem opens about the commencement of August, and concludes with the defeat of Flodden, 9th September, 1513.

ASHEST IEL, 1808.

MARMION.

AFTER a success so brilliant and profitable as that which had been attained by the " Lay," it was only natural that a young and ambitious writer should be tempted quickly to resume his addresses to the muse, especially in the circumstances in which Scott was placed. He saw before him little prospect of advancement in his profession, for the practice of which he had never felt any inclination, and which continued to become more distasteful to him. Having to choose between literature and law, he was ready to decide in favour of the former, had not the sheriffship which he obtained in Dec. 1799, and the reversion of the clerkship of Session, which was assigned to him a few years later, enabled him to take a middle course, to apply himself to letters without rendering himself dependent for an income on the profits of his pen. The good fortune which crowned his first serious essay in literature confirmed this resolution, and another poem was quickly planned. With characteristic prudence Scott had determined not to be too hasty in this second venture, and to bestow upon it the thought and polish which the public would naturally expect from an author of his reputation. Some pecuniary embarrassment on the part of his brother Thomas caused him to break this cautious resolution. Constable, in association with some of the London booksellers, was quite willing to pay down a thousand pounds for the unwritten poem, and Scott was thus enabled to assist his brother in his difficulties. Byron, unaware of the generous purpose to which Scott applied the money, affected to be shocked at the mercenary nature of the bargain. The publishers, however, were only too glad to enter into the arrangement, and they were certainly no losers by their confidence and liberality. Commenced in Nov. 1806, "Marmion" was ready for the press in February, 1808. Two thousand copies of the first edition in quarto, at a guinea and a half, were disposed of in a month. A second edition, of 3,000 copies, immediately followed, and two other editions, each of the same extent, were called for before the end of 1809. By the beginning of 1836 as many as 50,000 copies had been disposed of.

Large as was the circulation of "Marmion," it can hardly be said to have been read with the same relish as the "Lay," yet it was in many respects an advance. Even Jeffrey, who was very severe on the defects of the second poem, is disposed to admit that if it has greater faults it has also greater beauties. "It has more flat and tedious passages, and more ostentation of historical and antiquarian lore, but it has also greater richness and variety, both of character and incident; and if it has less sweetness and pathos in the softer passages, it has certainly more vehemence and force of colcuring in the loftier and busier representations of action and emotion. . . . more airiness and brightness in the higher delineations." Scott himself has acknowledged, in the preface of 1830, one of the chief defects of the story, although he endeavoured to justify it in a note. This was the combination of mean felony with so many noble qualities in the character of the hero, especially as the crime belonged rather to a commercial than a proud, warlike, and uninstructed age. Leyden, amongst others, was furious at this