The poet, owing to his physical defect, was not a great climber, and we are informed, on the authority of his nurse, that he never even scaled the easily attainable summit of the "steep frowning" hill of which he has made such effective use. But the impression of it from a distance was none the less genuine. In the midst of a generous address, in _Don Juan_, to Jeffrey, he again refers to the same associations with the country of his early training:-- But I am half a Scot by birth, and bred A whole one; and my heart flies to my head As "Auld Lang Syne" brings Scotland, one and all-- Scotch plaids, Scotch snoods, the blue hills and clear streams, The Dee, the Don, Balgounie's brig's black wall-- All my boy feelings, all my gentler dreams Of what I then dreamt, clothed in their own pall, Like Banquo's offspring... Byron's allusions to Scotland are variable and inconsistent. His satire on her reviewers was sharpened by the show of national as well as personal antipathy; and when, about the time of its production, a young lady remarked that he had a little of the northern manner of speech, he burst out "Good God! I hope not. I would rather the whole d----d country was sunk in the sea. I the Scotch accent!" But, in the passage from which we have quoted, the swirl of feeling on the other side continues,-- I rail'd at Scots to show my wrath and wit, Which must be own'd was sensitive and surly. Yet 'tis in vain such sallies to permit; They cannot quench young feelings, fresh and early. I scotch'd, not kill'd, the Scotchman in my blood, And love the land of mountain and of flood.