Stanza XV. l. 456. Cp. above, III. 429, and see As You Like It, i. 2. 222: 'Hercules be thy speed!' The short epistle of St. Jude is uncompromising in its condemnation of those who have fallen from their faith — who have forgotten, so to speak, their vows of true knighthood. It closes with the beautiful ascription — 'To Him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy.' There is deep significance, therefore, in this appeal of the venerable and outraged knight for the protection of St. Jude.
1. 457. 'Lest the reader should partake of the Earl's astonishment, and consider the crime as inconsistent with the manners of the period, I have to remind him of the numerous forgeries (partly executed by a female assistant) devised by Robert of Artois, to forward his suit against the Countess Matilda; which, being detected, occasioned his flight into England, and proved the remote cause of Edward the Third's memorable wars in France. John Harding, also, was expressly hired by Edward IV to forge such documents as might appear to establish the claim of fealty asserted over Scotland by the English monarchs.'—Scott.
1. 458. It likes was long used impersonally, in the sense of it pleases. Cp. King John, ii. 2. 234: It likes us well.'
1. 460. St. Bothan, Bythen , or Bethan is said to have been a cousin of St. Columba and his successor at Iona. His name is preserved in the Berwickshire parish, Abbey-Saint-Bathan's; where, towards the close of the twelfth century, a Cistertian nunnery, with the title of a priory, was dedicated to him by Ada, daughter of William the Lion. There is no remaining trace of this structure.
'Full jolly knight he seemed, and faire did sitt.'
Stanza XVI. l. 498. This line is a comprehensive description of a perfectly satisfactory charger or hunter.
l. 499. Sholto is one of the Douglas family names. One of the Earl's sons, being sheriff, could not go with his brothers to the war.
l. 500. His eldest son, the Master of Angus.'—Scott
l. 461. The other sons could at least sign their names. Their signatures are reproduced in facsimile in 'The Douglas Book' by Sir William Fraser, 4 vols. 4to, Edin. 1886 (privately printed).
l. 468. Fairly, well, elegantly, as in Chaucer's Prol. 94:—
'Well cowde he sitte on hors, and faire ryde'
and in 'Faerie Queene,' I. i. 8:—
Stanza XVI. l. 498. This line is a comprehensive description of a perfectly satisfactory charger or hunter.
l. 499. Sholto is one of the Douglas family names. One of the Earl's sons, being sheriff, could not go with his brothers to the war.
l. 500. His eldest son , the Master of Angus.'—Scott.
Stanza XVII. l. 532. In Bacon's ingenious essay, 'Of Simulation and Dissimulation,' he states these as the three disadvantages of
