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

CANTO I.] ROKEBY. 35
The full-drawn lip that upward curl'd,
The eye, that seem'd to scorn the world.
That lip had terror never blench'd;
Ne'er in that eye had tear-drop quench'd
The flash severe of swarthy glow,
That mock'd at pain, and knew not woe.
Inured to danger's direst form,
Tornade and earthquake, flood and storm,
Death had he seen by sudden blow,
By wasting plague, by tortures slow,'
colouring. We have trembled at Roderick; but we look with
doubt and suspicion at the very shadow of Bertram-and, as
we approach him, we shrink with terror and antipathy from
The lip of pride, the eye of flame.'
British Critic."]
1 In this character, I have attempted to sketch one of those
West-Indian adventurers, who, during the course of the seventeenth century, were popularly known by the name of
Buccaneers. The successes of the English in the predatory
incursions upon Spanish America, during the reign of Elizabeth, had never been forgotten; and, from that period downward, the exploits of Drake and Raleigh were imitated, upon
a smaller scale indeed, but with equally desperate valour, by
small bands of pirates, gathered from all nations, but chiefly
French and English. The engrossing policy of the Spaniards
tended greatly to increase the number of these fieebooters,
from whom their commerce and colonies suffered, in the issue,
dreadful calamity. The Windward Islands which the Spaniards did not deem worthy their own occupation, had been gradually settled by adventurers of the French and English nations.
But Frederic of Toledo, who was despatched in 1630, with a
powerful fleet against the Dutch, had orders from the Court
of Madrid to destroy these colonies, whose vicinity at once
offended the pride and excited the jealous suspicions of their