68 
NATURE NOTES. 
acquaintance with outward Nature and paving the way to the 
further researches of Kingsley, Thoreau, Jefferies, Burroughs, and 
the rest that have hailed the sun upon the upland lawn. 
Thus Gilbert White’s Natural History of Sdhorne may be truly 
styled a great work, which completely inaugurated the literature 
of the fields, whose effects are more and more felt every day. 
The other writer was a poet whose name is associated with 
a more delightful spot still, for he spent the greater part of his 
life in Richmond-on-Thames, where he established his fame, and 
gathered round him his literary friends, and where he lies buried. 
This poet was James Thomson, to whom are due the cited lines 
on “ All-pervading Nature,” which led to much of that poetry of 
modern times to which attention has been called. Of a poet who 
inaugurated such a movement as this, the fullest information 
should be cherished by every true lover of Nature. 
Thomson’s life was passed in two of the most poetic spots 
that ever could have been desired by any poet. His early life 
was passed in the South of Roxburgh, a shire remarkable for the 
unevenness of its surface, where an unexpected depression of large 
area bears the appropriate name of Southdean, locally pronounced 
Soudan. This depression lies at the foot of the Cheviots, five 
miles from Carter Fell, and it is enlivened, and was probably 
created, by the river Jed, which, increased by the tribute of many 
torrents, sweeps on past red banks overhung by adventurous 
verdure to its union with silver Teviot, the noblest affluent of the 
Tweed. From the centre of this “ dene ” or hollow (for such the 
word denotes) the open view all round gives a sense of freedom 
such as the narrow, winding vales of Roxburgh deny ; at the 
same time there is the charming accompaniment of a feeling of 
restful seclusion, as of a prying and clamourous world shut out 
behind and below the horizon of distant mountains. Here are 
neither mines nor manufactures, towns nor trade ; while the 
nearest railways, at Hawick on the west and Jedburgh on the 
north, are some eight or ten miles off, and not likely soon to 
come nearer. It is a happy valley, still retaining, at the close of 
the nineteenth century, uncontaminated by art, undisturbed by 
avarice, the peace and purity of its primitive pastoralism. 
Previous to its possession by shepherds, this district had 
formed part of the great forest of Jedwood, had been the haunt of 
boars and wolves, and had afforded a sylvan home of refuge to 
runaways and outlaws ; while its solitudes of glade and green- 
wood had, from time to time, been alarmed by hounds and 
hunting-horns, or the sterner cries of Border warfare, when 
often the hunt was merely a prelude to the battle. Here was 
Chevy Chase, and here the Douglas was wont to exercise his 
limbs and replenish his larder, to the envy of Percy, his English 
neighbour and rival. I'rom coveting Percy took to claiming a 
share in the pleasures and treasures of the chase ; and he bravely 
vowed, according to the old ballad, that he would hunt in the 
mountains of Cheviot within three days, in spite of all the opjx)- 
