"The first loved consort of my virgin bed,
Before these eyes in fatal battle bled:
Thy friendly hand uprear'd me from the plain,
And dried my sorrows for a husband slain.
Achilles' care you promised I should prove,
The first, the dearest partner of his love."
Certainly, the promise of a second husband may be very effective consolation for the loss of the first; still it says little for the delicacy or the constancy of the lady who was so consoled. But Christianity brought its own heaven to the things of earth; every passion was refined, and every affection exalted. Only under the purifying influence of that inward world to which it gave light, could sentiment have had its birth—and Sentiment is the tenth Muse and the fourth Grace of modern poetry.
But in the description of Constance there also is that strong perception of the actual, which is Scott's most marked characteristic. He paints her exactly what in all probability she would have been; he works out the severe lesson of retribution and of degradation. What is the current of "Marmion's mind, when
"Constance, late betray'd and scorn'd,
All lovely on his soul return'd:
Lovely, as when, at treacherous call,
She left her convent's peaceful wall;
Crimson'd with shame, with terror mute,
Dreading alike, escape, pursuit;
