If
his accidental meeting, and continued association with Marmion, be
altogether unnatural, it must appear still more extraordinary, that he
should afterwards meet with the Lady Clare, his adored mistress, and the
Abbess of Whitby, who had in her pocket the written proofs of his
innocence, in consequence of an occurrence equally accidental. These two
ladies, the only two persons in the universe whom it was of any
consequence to him to meet, are captured in their voyage from Holy Isle,
and brought to Edinburgh, by the luckiest accident in the world, the
very day that De Wilton and Marmion make their entry into it. Nay, the
king, without knowing that they are at all of his acquaintance, happens
to appoint them lodgings in the same stair-case, and to make them travel
under his escort! We pass the night combat at Gifford, in which Marmion
knows his opponent by moonlight, though he never could guess at him in
sunshine; and all the inconsistencies of his dilatory wooing of Lady
Clare. Those, and all the prodigies and miracles of the story, we can
excuse, as within the privilege of poetry; but, the lucky chances we
have already specified, are rather too much for our patience.
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