Note 289 — Scene I.—A Hall in the Fortress occupied by De Chatillon’s followers.

“She preferred in music whatever was national and melancholy; and her strains adapted for singing were, of course, framed to the tones most congenial to the temperament of her own mind. How successfully wed to the magic of sweet sound many of her verses have been by her sister, no lover of music need to be reminded. The ‘Roman Girl’s Song’ is full of a solemn classic beauty; and, in one of her letters, it is said that of ‘The Captive Knight’ Sir Walter Scott never was weary. Indeed, it seems in his mind to have been the song of Chivalry, representative of the English; as the Flowers of the Forest was of the Scottish; the Cancionella Española of the Spanish; and the Rhine Song of the Germans.”—Biographical Sketch by Delta, 1836.

Of all Mrs Hemans’s lyrics set to music, ‘The Captive Knight’ has been the most popular, and deservedly so. It has indeed stirred many a heart “like the sound of a trumpet.”—Chorley’s Memorials.