'"
This was the ballad which made so strong an impression on Thomas Campbell,
the poet. Referring to some of the lines I have quoted, Campbell
said,--"I have repeated them so often on the North Bridge that the whole
fraternity of coachmen know me by tongue as I pass. To be sure, to a mind
in sober, serious, street-walking humour, it must bear an appearance of
lunacy when one stamps with the hurried pace and fervent shake of the head
which strong, pithy poetry excites."[10] I suppose anecdotes of this kind
have been oftener told of Scott than of any other English poet. Indeed,
Sir Walter, who understood himself well, gives the explanation in one of
his diaries:--"I am sensible," he says, "that if there be anything good
about my poetry or prose either, it is a hurried frankness of composition,
which pleases soldiers, sailors, and young people of bold and active
dispositions."[11] He might have included old people too. I have heard of
two old men--complete strangers--passing each other on a dark London
night, when one of them happened to be repeating to himself, just as
Campbell did to the hackney coachmen of the North Bridge of Edinburgh, the
last lines of the account of Flodden Field in _Marmion_, "Charge, Chester,
charge," when suddenly a reply came out of the darkness, "On, Stanley,
on," whereupon they finished the death of Marmion between them, took off
their hats to each other, and parted, laughing.
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