are now treating of was written, the dissensions of the barons, who
were then so many petty princes, ran very high, whether they
quarrelled among themselves or with their neighbours, and produced
unspeakable calamities to the country. The poet, to deter men from
such unnatural contentions, describes a bloody battle and dreadful
scene of death, occasioned by the mutual feuds which reigned in the
families of an English and Scotch nobleman. That he designed this
for the instruction of his poem we may learn from his four last
lines, in which, after the example of the modern tragedians, he
draws from it a precept for the benefit of his readers:


God save the king, and bless the land
In plenty, joy, and peace;
And grant henceforth that foul debate
'Twixt noblemen may cease.


The next point observed by the greatest heroic poets hath been to
celebrate persons and actions which do honour to their country:
thus Virgil's hero was the founder of Rome; Homer's a prince of
Greece; and for this reason Valerius Flaccus and Statius, who were
both Romans, might be justly derided for having chosen the
expedition of the Golden Fleece and the Wars of Thebes for the
subjects of their epic writings.

The poet before us has not only found out a hero in his own country,
but raises the reputation of it by several beautiful incidents. The
English are the first who take the field and the last who quit it.
The English bring only fifteen hundred to the battle, the Scotch two