interfere with Fox's efficiency as a statesman. His rivalry with Pitt dates from 1783. Their tombs are near each other in Westminster Abbey.
l. 146. Cp. in Gray's 'Elegy':—
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.'
l. 153. Jeffrey, in his criticism of 'Marmion' in the 'Edinburgh Review,' found fault with the tribute to Fox, and cavilled in particular at the expression 'Fox a Briton died.' He argued that Scott praised only the action of Fox in breaking off the negotiations for peace with Napoleon, while insinuating that the previous part of his career was unpatriotic. Only a special pleader could put such an unworthy interpretation on the words.
ll. 155-65. By the result of the battle of Austerlitz (December, 1805) Napoleon seemed advancing towards general victory. Prussia hastily patched up a dishonourable peace on terms inconsistent with very binding pledges, and the Russian minister at Paris compromised his country by yielding to humiliating proposals on the part of France. All this changed Fox's view of the position, and he broke off the negotiations for peace which had been begun in accordance with a policy he had long advocated.
l. 161. There is a probable reference here to Nelson's action at the battle of the Baltic. He disregarded the signal for cessation of fighting given by Sir Hyde Parker, and ordered his own signal to be nailed to the mast.
l. 176. Thessaly was noted for witchcraft. The scene of Virgil's eighth Eclogue is laid in Thessaly as appropriate to the introduction of such machinery as enchantments, love-spells, &c. Cp. Horace, Epode v. 21, and Ode I. xxvii. 21:—
Magus venenis, quis poterit deus?'
In his 'Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft,' Letter III., Scott, obviously basing his information on Horace, writes thus:—'The classic mythology presented numerous points in which it readily coalesced with that of the Germans, Danes, and Northmen of a later period. They recognised the power of Erictho, Canidia, and other sorceresses, whose spells could perplex the course of the elements, intercept the influence of the sun, and prevent his beneficial operation upon the fruits of the earth; call down the moon from her appointed sphere, and disturb the original and destined course of nature by
