LETTERS TO MISS DUNBAR. 315 



Miss Dunbar are given one or two passages from hers 

 to him. 



' Crornarty, November, 1829. 



1 1 have perused two of the works you have so 

 obligingly sent me the volume of poems and the 

 " Wolf of Badenoch." Both have afforded me much 

 pleasure, and added, I trust, to the stock of my 

 ideas. 



' It has been remarked, and I believe with justice, 

 that while the historian immortalizes other men the 

 poet immortalizes only himself. A reason may be 

 assigned for this. We deem the historian merely a 

 medium through which we become acquainted with men 

 and events ; and are taught by him without growing 

 intimate with our teacher, just as we admire the figures 

 in a painting without once thinking of the canvas on 

 which they are portrayed. It does not fare so with the 

 poet. Prom creation we infer a Creator, and from the 

 creations of the poet we rise by an unavoidable associa- 

 tive process to the poet himself. We consider him not 

 as our teacher, but as our friend. He is not like the 

 canvass of a picture, but like the groundwork of a piece 

 of embroidery a thing which blends with and relieves 

 every flower and figure raised on it 



1 From what I have read of Spenser, I find reason to 

 deem him both a true poet and a sound philosopher ; 

 but from the suddenness of the transition from the "Wolf 

 of Badenoch " to the " Faery Queen," I am led (shall I 

 make the confession?) to institute a comparison between 

 the two works which does not very much exalt my opinion 

 of the latter. I am no critic. Spenser is, I doubt not, 

 a finer poet and a greater genius than Sir Thomas, but 

 certain I am that Spenser does not amuse me half so 

 much. His heroes and heroines are not real men and 



