SCOTT AND THE HIGHLANDS 123 



The literary charm which he threw over the hills and 

 glens of Perthshire kindled a wide-spread enthusiasm 

 for the more rugged aspects of nature, and gave a 

 powerful stimulus to the slowly-growing appreciation 

 of the beauty and grandeur of mountain-scenery. 



Nevertheless it must be admitted that Scott's high- 

 land landscapes, though more prominent and detailed 

 than those in his descriptions of the lowlands and 

 uplands, were also more laboured and less spon- 

 taneous. His pictures are no doubt faithful and 

 graphic, and each of them leaves on the mind a 

 clear impression of the scene depicted. But their 

 effect is produced rather by a multiplicity of touches 

 than by a few masterstrokes of poetic insight and 

 graphic delineation. Moreover they are all in one 

 tone of colour, and lack that changeful diversity so 

 characteristic of mountains. They are chiefly fine- 

 weather portraits, as if the poet loved only summer 

 sunshine among the hills, and had either never seen 

 or cared not to portray their gloom, cloud, and 

 storm. We are bound of course to remember that, 

 after all, he was only an occasional visitor to the 

 Highlands. He had not been born among them, 

 and never lived long enough in their solitudes to 

 become intimately versed in all their alternations of 

 mood under changes of sky and season. He writes 

 of them as an admiring and even enthusiastic spec- 

 tator, but not as one into whose very soul the power 

 of the mountains had entered. He never warms 

 among them into that fervent glow of affectionate 

 appreciation which kindles within him in sight of the 

 landscapes of his native Border. 



