Make gallant show and promise of their mettle.'
'Metal' in the same sense is frequent in Shakespeare. See Meas. for Meas. i. I; Julius Caesar, i. 2; Hamlet, iii 2.
l. 35. palisade (Fr. palisser, to enclose with pales), a firm row of stakes presenting a sharp point to an advancing party.
l. 38. hasted, Elizabethanism = hastened. Cp. Merch. of Venice, ii. 2. 104—'Let it be so hasted that supper be ready at the farthest by five of the clock.'
l. 42. sewer, taster; squire, knight's attendant; seneschal, steward. See 'Lay of the Last Minstrel,' vi. 6, and note on Par. Lost, ix. 38, in Clarendon Press Milton:—
Served up in hall with sewers, and seneschals.'
Stanza IV. l. 43. Malvoisie = Malmsey, from Malvasia, now Napoli di Malvasia, in the Morea.
l. 55. portcullis, a strong timber framework within the gateway of a castle, let down in grooves and having iron spikes at the bottom.
Stanzas V and VI. Marmion, strenuous in arms and prudent in counsel, has a kinship in spirit and achievement with the Homeric heroes. Compare him also with the typical knight in Chaucer's Prologue and the Red Cross Knight at the opening of the 'Faerie Queene.' Scott annotates 'Milan steel' and the legend thus:—
'The artists of Milan were famous in the middle ages for their skill in armoury, as appears from the following passage, in which Froissart gives an account of the preparations made by Henry, Earl of Hereford, afterwards Henry IV, and Thomas, Duke of Norfolk, Earl Marischal, for their proposed combat in the lists at Coventry:—"These two lords made ample provisions of all things necessary for the combat; and the Earl of Derby sent off messengers to Lombardy, to have armour from Sir Galeas, Duke of Milan. The Duke complied with joy, and gave the knight, called Sir Francis, who had brought the message, the choice of all his armour for the Earl of Derby. When he had selected what he wished for in plated and mail armour, the Lord of Milan, out of his abundant love for the Earl, ordered four of the best armourers in Milan to accompany the knight to England, that the Earl of Derby might be more completely armed."— Johnes' Froissart, vol. iv. p.597.
'The crest and motto of Marmion are borrowed from the following story:—Sir David de Lindsay, first Earl of Cranford, was, among
