HIGHLANDS OF PERTHSHIRE. 55 



The guide to the natural and artificial notabilities of the locality 

 informed us that Burns visited this hermitage and cascade, and 

 that the following lines, part of those written over the chimney- 

 piece in the parlour of the inn at Kenmore, have an especial re- 

 ference to this scene : 



" Poetic ardours in my bosom swell, 

 Lone wandering by the hermit's mossy cell : 

 The sweeping theatre of hanging woods, 

 The incessant roar of headlong, tumbling floods. 



* # * # * 



Here poesy might wake her heaven-taught lyre, 

 And look through nature with creative fire." 



Both thought and expression are good, but there is little, if any 

 individuality, contained in the poetry : it might serve for any other 

 waterfall just as well as for this, if the said fall had the accessories 

 of wood and a mossy cell. This great poet does not shine in the 

 kind of poetic composition called descriptive ; he had a far higher 

 calling than this ; he describes but too truly, as well as forcibly, the 

 sorrows, the sufferings, and the wrongs of humanity ; the loves, the 

 joys, the pleasures, the toils, the cares, the fears, and the hopes 

 of men and women generally, and in particular of those of his 

 own class. His descriptions of nature are sometimes, as in the 

 above quoted passage, generalities, and therefore touch few sym- 

 pathetic chords in the human heart. His poetry is not an expo- 

 nent of nature, but of natural feeling. 



The following list of Kenmore plants is from the ' Statistical 

 Account of Scotland/ vol. for Perthshire, 475. It ought to be 

 observed that we did not see any of them, but we enter them on, 

 the authority of the reverend gentleman who drew up the account 

 of the parish. Scirpus sylvaticus, Bromus asper and B. gigan- 

 teuSj Anchusa sempervirens, Lysimachia vulgaris, Reseda Luteola, 

 Geranium sanguineum, Astragalus glycyphyllus,Eupatorium can- 

 nabinum, Car ex pendula. In woods and hedges : Convallaria 

 majalis, etc., Campanula latifolia, Rosa spinosa, R. involuta, R. 

 casia. Marshes : Hippuris vulgaris, Lysimachia Nummularia, 

 Radiola Millegrana, Scrophularia aquatica, Hypericum Elodes. 

 In lakes : Potamogeton heterophyllum, perfoliatum, densum, lu- 

 cens, crispum, pusillum, Lobelia Dortmanna, (Enanthe fistulosa, 

 Cicuta virosa, Littorella lacustris, Subularia aquatica, Jasione 

 montana, Sanicula europaa, Allium ursinum, A. vineale, Pyrola 



