130 MEMOIR OF JOHN WILSON. 



flue creature. I killed in the Highlands 170 dozen of trouts. One 

 day nineteen dozen and a half, another seven dozen. I, one morn- 

 ing, killed ten trouts that weighed nine pounds. In Loch Awe, in 

 three days, I killed seventy-six pounds' weight of fish, all with the 

 fly. The Gaels were astonished. I shot two roebucks, and had 

 nearly caught a red-deer by the tail — I was within half a mile of 

 it at farthest. The good folks in the Highlands are not dirty. 

 They are clean, decent, hospitable, ugly people. We domiciliated 

 with many, and found no remains of the great plague of fleas, etc., 

 that devastated the country from the time of Ossian to the acces- 

 sion of George the Third. We were at Loch Katrine, Loch Lomond, 

 Inverary, Dalmally, Loch Etive, Glen Etive, Dalness, Appin, Balla- 

 chulish, Fort William, Moy, Dalwhinny, Loch Ericht (you dog), 

 Loch Rannoch, Glen Lyon, Taymouth, Blair- Athole, Bruar, Perth, 

 Edinburgh. Is not Mrs. Wilson immortalized ? 



" I know of 'Cona.'* It is very creditable to our excellent friend, 

 but will not sell any more than the 'Isle of Palms,' or 'The White 

 Doe.'f The ' White Doe' is not in season ; venison is not liked in 

 Edinburgh. It wants flavor; a good Ettrick wether is preferable. 

 Wordsworth has more of the poetical character than any living 

 writer, but he is not a man of first-rate intellect ; his genius oversets 

 him. Southey's ' Roderic' is not a first-rate work ; the remorse of 

 Roderic is that of a Christian devotee, rather than that of a de- 

 throned monarch. His battles are ill fought. There is no proces- 

 sional march of events in the poem, no tendency to one great end, 

 like a river increasing in majesty till it reaches the sea. Neither is 

 there national character, Spanish or Moorish. No sublime imagery; 

 no profound passion. Southey wrote it, and Southey is a man of 

 talent ; but it is his worst poem. 



" Scott's ' Field of Waterloo' I have seen. What a poem ! — such 

 bald and nerveless language, mean imagery, commonplace senti- 

 ments, and clumsy versification ! It is beneath criticism. Unless 

 the latter part of the battle be very fine indeed, this poem will in- 

 jure him. 



" Wordsworth is dished. Southey is in purgatory ; Scott is 



* Cona or the Vale of CliM/d, and other Poems. Edinburgh. 12mo. The author of this little 

 volume was Mr. James Gray, one of the teachers In the High School, an accomplished man, a 

 friend of my father's. He afterwards took orders in the Church of England, and was appointed 

 to a chaplaincy in India. He died in September, 1830. 



+ Wordsworth" s "White Doe of Rylstone." 



