Part 13

Autumn, 337.

To William Simpson, stanza 15.

Elegy on Captain Matthew Henderson.

Poem on Pastoral Poetry.

Winter, a Dirge.

A Winter Night.

The gloomy night is gathering fast.

To Mary in Heaven.

This was remarked by Wordsworth in the prefatory note to his lines on Mossgiel.

The Vision.

Scott was familiar with this natural trait. '"That's the Forth," said the Bailie, with an air of reverence, which I have observed the Scotch usually pay to their distinguished rivers. The Clyde, the Tweed, the Forth, the Spey, are usually named by those who dwell on their banks with a sort of respect and pride, and I have known duels occasioned by any word of disparagement.'--Rob Roy, vol. ii., chap. xi.

Arnold, On the Study of Celtic Literature, 1867, p. 152.

The quotations here given are from Dr. Clerk's translation of Macpherson's Gaelic version of the Poems. The question has been much disputed whether his English or Gaelic is the original. There can be no doubt that, on the whole, the Gaelic shows greater vividness and accuracy in the description of landscape than the more vague and bombastic English of Macpherson. Dr. Clerk, who has given a literal rendering of the Gaelic line for line, remarks: 'I believe that a careful analysis would resolve very much of Ossian's most weird imagery into idealised representations of the ever-varying and truly wonderful aspects of cloud and mist, of sea and mountain, which may be seen by every observant eye in the Highlands, and it is no fancy to say that the perusal of these poems, as we have them, may be well illustrated by travelling a range of the Highland mountains.'--Poems of Ossian, Dissertation, vol. i. p. lxv.

Fingal, iii. 3.

Fingal, i. 211.

In Burt's Letters, which give so graphic a picture of the condition of the Highlands of Scotland between the two risings of 1715 and 1745, the general impression made at that time on the mind of an intelligent stranger by the scenery of the region may be gathered from the following quotations: 'I shall soon conclude this description of the outward appearance of the mountains, which I am already tired of, as a disagreeable subject.... There is not much variety, but gloomy spaces, different rocks, heath, and high and low, ... the whole of a dismal gloomy brown drawing upon a dirty purple; and most of all disagreeable when the heath is in bloom. But of all the views, I think the most horrid is, to look at the hills from east to west, or vice versa; for then the eye penetrates far among them, and sees more particularly their stupendous bulk, frightful irregularity, and horrid gloom, made yet more sombrous by the shades and faint reflections they communicate one to another.'--Letters from a Gentleman in the North of Scotland to his Friend in London. Fifth edit., vol. i. p. 285.

In writing to Mason he says: 'I am returned from Scotland charmed with my expedition: it is of the Highlands I speak; the Lowlands are worth seeing once, but the mountains are ecstatic, and ought to be visited in pilgrimage once a year. None but those monstrous creatures of God know how to join so much beauty with so much horror. A fig for your poets, painters, gardeners, and clergymen, that have not been among them, their imagination can be made up of nothing but bowling-greens, flowering shrubs, horse-ponds, Fleet ditches, shell-grottoes, and Chinese rails. Then I had so beautiful an autumn; Italy could hardly produce a nobler scene, and this so sweetly contrasted with that perfection of nastiness and total want of accommodation, that Scotland only can supply.'--Gray's Works, edit. E. Gosse, vol. iii. p. 223.

Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland, 1775, p. 84.

Sedgwick did his best to enlighten the poet by his famous Four Letters on the Geology of the Lake District; but these came too late. They were published at Kendal in 1846, and Wordsworth died in 1850.

Some drill and bore The solid earth, and from the strata there Extract a register, by which we learn, That He who made it, and revealed its date To Moses, was mistaken in its age.

--The Task, bk. iii. 150.

You may trace him oft By scars which his activity has left Beside our roads and pathways, though, thank Heaven, This covert nook reports not of his hand-- He who with pocket-hammer smites the edge Of luckless rock or prominent stone, disguised In weather-stains or crusted o'er by Nature With her first growths, detaching by the stroke A chip or splinter--to resolve his doubts: And, with that ready answer satisfied, The substance classes by some barbarous name, And hurries on; or from the fragments picks His specimen, if but haply interveined With sparkling mineral, or should crystal cube Lurk in its cells--and thinks himself enriched, Wealthier, and doubtless wiser, than before!

The Excursion, bk. iii.

St. Ronan's Well, chap. ii. The passage is quoted postea p. 166.

The Origin of the Scenery of the British Islands

The insular position of these islands, which we are apt to regard as an essential and aboriginal feature, is merely accidental, and has not always been maintained. The intimate relation of Britain with the Continent is well shown by the Admiralty charts. If the west of Europe were elevated 200 feet--that is, the height of the London Monument--the Straits of Dover, half of the North Sea, and a large part of the English Channel would be turned into dry land. If the elevation extended to 600 feet--that is, merely the united heights of St. Paul's and the Monument--the whole of the North Sea, the Baltic, and the English Channel would become land. There would likewise be added to the European area a belt of territory from 100 to 150 miles broad, stretching to the west of Ireland and Scotland.

With an uprise of 600 feet a vast plain would unite Britain to Denmark, Holland, and Belgium, and would present two platforms, of which the more southerly would stretch from what are now the Straits of Dover northward to the northern edge of the Dogger Bank, where a steep declivity, doubtless a prolongation of the Jurassic and Cretaceous escarpments of Yorkshire, descends to the northern or lower platform. This submarine escarpment is trenched towards the west by a magnificent valley through which the united waters of the Rhine and Thames would flow, between the Dogger Bank and the Yorkshire cliffs. Another gap further east would allow the combined Elbe and Weser to escape into the northern plain. Possibly all these rivers would unite on that plain, but, in any case, they would fall into a noble fjord which would then be revealed following the trend of the southern coast line of Norway. Altogether an area more than thrice that of Britain would be added to Europe. By a total rise of 1800 feet, Britain would be united to the Faroe Islands and Iceland; while the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans would be separated.

GEOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF BRITAIN.