no LANDSCAPE AND LITERATURE 



in the history of English poetry should present, when 

 first seen, some special charm of attractive beauty. And 

 doubtless many have shared the disappointment so well 

 expressed by Wordsworth and by Washington Irving, 

 who nevertheless had the advantage of being shown 

 over the Border country by its great minstrel himself. 

 But with the instinct of a true poet, Wordsworth soon 

 recovered from his first surprise, and divined the inner 

 spirit of the landscape. Nowhere has that spirit been 

 more felicitously expressed than in his second poem on 

 Yarrow. Contrasting his first anticipation with what 

 he found to be the reality, he addressed the vale : 



' Thou, that didst appear so fair 

 To fond imagination, 

 Dost rival in the light of day 

 Her delicate creation : 

 Meek loveliness is round thee spread, 

 A softness still and holy ; 

 The grace of forest charms decayed 

 And pastoral melancholy.' 



On the influence of the upland scenery of southern 

 Scotland upon the genius of Scott I must not enter. 

 He spent his boyhood within sight of these hills, he 

 made them his chief home throughout life, and when, 

 shattered in health and fortunes, he returned from 

 Italy, it was among these hills, and in hearing of the 

 murmur of the Tweed, that he wished to die. No 

 one can read the ' Lay of the Last Minstrel,' or 

 4 Marmion,' without coming under the spell of the 

 Border scenery. Among the descriptive sketches ot 

 landscape in the Waverley Novels, none are more 

 lovingly and graphically painted than those where Scott 



