‘Or see yon weather-beaten hind, Whose sluggish herds before him wind, Whose tattered plaid and rugged cheek His Northern clime and kindred speak; Through England’s laughing meads he goes, And England’s wealth around him flows; Ask if it would content him well, At ease in those gay plains to dwell, Where hedgerows spread a verdant screen, And spires and forests intervene, And the neat cottage peeps between? No, not for these would he exchange His dark Lochaber’s boundless range, Not for fair Devon’s meads forsake Ben Nevis grey and Garry’s lake.’ ‘Thus while I ape the measures wild Of tales that charmed me yet a child, Rude though they be, still, with the chime, Return the thoughts of early time; And feelings roused in life’s first day, Glow in the line and prompt the lay. Then rise those crags, that mountain tower, Which charmed my fancy’s wakening hour. Though no broad river swept along, To claim perchance heroic song; Though sighed no groves in summer gale, To prompt of love a softer tale; Though scarce a puny streamlet’s speed Claimed homage from a shepherd’s reed, Yet was poetic impulse given By the green hill and clear blue heaven. It was a barren scene and wild, Where naked cliffs were rudely piled, But ever and anon between, Lay velvet tufts of loveliest green; And well the lonely infant knew Recesses where the wallflower grew, And honeysuckle loved to crawl Up the low crag and ruined wall. ... From me, thus nurtured, dost thou ask The classic poet’s well-conned task? Nay, Erskine, nay—On the wild hill Let the wild heathbell flourish still; Cherish the tulip, prune the vine, But freely let the woodbine twine, And leave untrimmed the eglantine. Nay, my friend, nay—Since oft thy praise Hath given fresh vigour to my lays, Since oft thy judgment could refine My flattened thought or cumbrous line, Still kind, as is thy wont, attend, And in the minstrel spare the friend. Though wild as cloud, as stream, as gale, Flow forth, flow unrestrained, my tale.’ And this is wise, for there is beauty in the North as well as in the South. Only it is to be remembered that the beauty of the Trosachs is the result of but a few elements—say birch and brushwood, rough hills and narrow dells, much heather and many stones—while the beauty of England is one thing in one district and one in another; is here the combination of one set of qualities, and there the harmony of opposite ones, and is everywhere made up of many details and delicate refinements; all which require an exquisite delicacy of perceptive organisation, a seeing eye, a minutely hearing ear. Scott’s is the strong admiration of a rough mind; Shakespeare’s, the nice minuteness of a susceptible one.