clergyman's worth, cp. Walton's eulogy on George Herbert, 'Thus he lived, and thus he died, like a saint,' &c.
l. 225. For imp, cp. above Introd. to l. 37. A 'grandame's child' is almost certainly spoiled. Shakespeare (King John, ii. l. 161) utilizes the fact:
Give it a plum, a cherry, and a fig.'
CANTO THIRD.
Stanza 1. Mr. Guthrie Wright, advocate, prosaically objected to the indirect route chosen by the poet for his troopers. Scott gave the true poetic answer, that it pleased him to take them by the road chosen. He is careful, however, to assign (II. 6-8) an adequate reason for his preference.
l. 16. wan, won, gained; still used in Scotland. Cp. Principal Shairp's 'Bush Aboon Traquair':—
The lownest an' the best,
I' Traquair kirkyard when a' was dune.'
l. 19. Lammermoor. 'See notes to the Bride of Lammermoor, Waverley Novels, vols. xiii. and xiv.'—Lockhart.
l. 22. 'The village of Gifford lies about four miles from Haddington; close to it is Yester House, the seat of the Marquis of Tweeddale, and a little farther up the stream, which descends from the hills of Lammermoor, are the remains of the old castle of the family.'—Lockhart.
Many hold that Gifford and not Gifford-gate, at the outskirts of Haddington, was the birthplace of John Knox.
Stanza II. 1. 31. An ivy-bush or garland was a tavern sign, and the flagon is an appropriate accompaniment. Chaucer's Sompnour (Prol. 666) suggested the tavern sign by his head-gear:—
As gret as it were for an ale-stake.'
See note in Clarendon Press ed., and cp. Epilogue of As You Like It (and note) in same series:—'If it be true that good wine needs no bush,' &c.
l. 33. 'The accommodations of a Scottish hostelrie, or inn, in the
