Mr.Darwin would probably say that Auld Wat of Harden had about as much responsibility for _Marmion_ as Sir Walter himself.

"You will expect," he wrote to the same lady, who was personally unknown to him at that time, "to see a person who had dedicated himself to literary pursuits, and you will find me a rattle-skulled, half-lawyer, half-sportsman, through whose head a regiment of horse has been exercising since he was five years old."[17] And what Scott himself felt in relation to the martial elements of his poetry, soldiers in the field felt with equal force.

"In the course of the day when _The Lady of the Lake_ first reached Sir Adam Fergusson, he was posted with his company on a point of ground exposed to the enemy's artillery, somewhere no doubt on the lines of Torres Vedras.

The men were ordered to lie prostrate on the ground; while they kept that attitude, the captain, kneeling at the head, read aloud the description of the battle in Canto VI., and the listening soldiers only interrupted him by a joyous huzza when the French shot struck the bank close above them."[18] It is not often that martial poetry has been put to such a test; but we can well understand with what rapture a Scotch force lying on the ground to shelter from the French fire, would enter into such passages as the following:-- "Their light-arm'd archers far and near Survey'd the tangled ground, Their centre ranks, with pike and spear, A twilight forest frown'd, Their barbed horsemen, in the rear, The stern battalia crown'd.
No cymbal clash'd, no clarion rang, Still were the pipe and drum; Save heavy tread, and armour's clang, The sullen march was dumb.
There breathed no wind their crests to shake, Or wave their flags abroad; Scarce the frail aspen seem'd to quake, That shadow'd o'er their road.
Their vanward scouts no tidings bring, Can rouse no lurking foe, Nor spy a trace of living thing Save when they stirr'd the roe; The host moves like a deep-sea wave, Where rise no rocks its power to brave, High-swelling, dark, and slow.
The lake is pass'd, and now they gain A narrow and a broken plain, Before the Trosach's rugged jaws, And here the horse and spearmen pause, While, to explore the dangerous glen, Dive through the pass the archer-men.
"At once there rose so wild a yell Within that dark and narrow dell, As all the fiends from heaven that fell Had peal'd the banner-cry of Hell! Forth from the pass, in tumult driven, Like chaff before the wind of heaven, The archery appear; For life! for life! their plight they ply, And shriek, and shout, and battle-cry, And plaids and bonnets waving high, And broadswords flashing to the sky, Are maddening in the rear.
Onward they drive, in dreadful race, Pursuers and pursued; Before that tide of flight and chase, How shall it keep its rooted place, The spearmen's twilight wood?
Down, down, cried Mar, 'your lances down Bear back both friend and foe!' Like reeds before the tempest's frown, That serried grove of lances brown At once lay levell'd low; And, closely shouldering side to side, The bristling ranks the onset bide,-- 'We'll quell the savage mountaineer, As their Tinchel cows the game! They came as fleet as forest deer, We'll drive them back as tame.'" But admirable in its stern and deep excitement as that is, the battle of Flodden in _Marmion_ passes it in vigour, and constitutes perhaps the most perfect description of war by one who was--almost--both poet and warrior, which the English language contains.
And _Marmion_ registers the high-water mark of Scott's poetical power, not only in relation to the painting of war, but in relation to the painting of nature.

Critics from the beginning onwards have complained of the six introductory epistles, as breaking the unity of the story.
But I cannot see that the remark has weight.