The poetical works of Sir Walter Scott, with memoir of the author.

CANTO I.] ROKEBY. 31
V.
Far townward sounds a distant tread,
And Oswald, starting from his bed,
Hath caught it, though no human ear,
Unsharpen'd by revenge and fear,
Could e'er distinguish horse's clank,
Until it reach'd the castle bank.'
Now nigh and plain the sound appears,
The warder's challenge now he hears,2
1 [MS.-" Till underneath the castle bank,
Nigh and more nigh the sound appears,
The warder's challenge next he hears."]
2 I have had occasion to remark, in real life, the effect of
keen and fervent anxiety in giving acuteness to the organs
of sense. My gifted friend, Miss Joanna Baillie, whose dramatic works display such intimate acquaintance with the
operations of human passion, has not omitted this remarkable
circumstance:"De Montfort. (Off his guard.)'Tis Rezenvelt: I heard
his well-known foot,
From the first staircase mounting step by step..Freb. How quick an ear thou hast for distant sound!
I heard him not.
[De lMontfort looks embarrassed, and is silent."
[" The natural superiority of the instrument over the employer, of bold, unhesitating, practised vice, over timid, selfish, crafty iniquity, is very finely painted throughout the
whole of this scene, and the dialogue that ensues. That the
mind of Wycliffe, wrought to the utmost agony of suspense,
has given such acuteness to his bodily organs, as to enable
him to distinguish the approach of his hired bravo, while at
a distance beyond the reach of common hearing, is grandly
imagined, and admirably true to nature."- GCritical Review.]