tradition of Gilpin Horner and at the request of the Countess of
Dalkeith, who told Scott the story. But his imagination was so full that
the poem soon overflowed its limits and expanded into a romance
illustrative of the ancient manners of the Border. The pranks of the
goblin page run in and out through the web of the tale, a slender and
somewhat inconsequential thread of _diablerie_. Byron had his laugh at
it in "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers";[30] and in a footnote on the
passage, he adds: "Never was any plan so incongruous and absurd as the
groundwork of this production." The criticism was not altogether
undeserved; for the "Lay" is a typical example of romantic, as
distinguished from classic, art both in its strength and in its weakness;
brilliant in passages, faulty in architechtonic, and uneven in execution.
Its supernatural machinery--Byron said that it had more "gramarye" than
grammar--is not impressive, if due exception be made of the opening of
Michael Scott's tomb in Canto Second.

When the "Minstrelsy" was published, it was remarked that it "contained
the elements of a hundred historical romances." It was from such
elements that Scott built up the structure of his poem about the nucleus
which the Countess of Dalkeith had given him. He was less concerned, as
he acknowledged, to tell a coherent story than to paint a picture of the
scenery and the old warlike life of the Border; that _tableau large de la
vie_ which the French romanticists afterwards professed to be the aim of
their novels and dramas. The feud of the Scotts and Carrs furnished him
with a historic background; with this he enwove a love story of the Romeo
and Juliet pattern. He rebuilt Melrose Abbey, and showed it by
moonlight; set Lords Dacre and Howard marching on a Warden-raid, and
roused the border clans to meet them; threw out dramatic character
sketches of "stark moss-riding Scots" like Wat Tinlinn and William of
Deloraine; and finally enclosed the whole in a _cadre_ most happily