10. Is Scott more intent on his narrative and general scenes, or on drawing characters clearly and describing their development and change? 11. Compare Scott with Dickens, Eliot, and Balzac as regards the traits mentioned in question 10. "THE LADY OF THE LAKE" 1. Had Fitz-James formerly visited Roderick Dhu's dominions? 2. What was his errand this time? 3. What period in Scottish history do you understand to be covered by the poem? 4. Is the sense of honor and hospitality towards strangers characteristic of the Highland Scotch? 5. Draw a comparison between the fate of the Highlanders and that of the American Indian. X, 385. 6. In what sense are the terms "Gael" and "Saxon" used? 7. Why does Fitz-James hesitate to fight with Roderick Dhu after being safely led beyond the Coilantogle Ford? 8. In the combat was the victory won by physical strength or skill in the use of weapons? 9. Which is the hero, Fitz-James or Roderick Dhu, and why? 10. Byron surpassed Scott in poetry; can you see how? Compare the two. FOR REFERENCE "Famous English Authors of the Nineteenth Century."--BOLTON. "Sir Walter Scott."--CROCKETT AND CAW. "Edinburgh under Sir Walter Scott."--FYFE. "Life of Sir Walter Scott."--LOCKHART. "In the Days of Scott."--JENKS. "Sir Walter Scott."--LANG. WILLIAM WORDSWORTH (1770-1850) Wordsworth, the first of the English poets of Romanticism, came of age just as the storm of the French Revolution broke over Europe. In 1791, after he had taken his degree at Cambridge University, he went to France, where he spent nearly a year, fascinated by the struggle for freedom, and only returned when his friends stopped his allowance and so compelled him to withdraw from danger. He deliberately chose poetry as his profession, working with Coleridge for the purpose of establishing new laws of poetic composition. In 1798 they published a little volume, the "Lyrical Ballads," which marked a radical departure from the artificial and affected style of the latter days of the Classic Age. (See also notes on Coleridge, p. 70 of this volume.) He eventually settled in the Lake District, in the north-west of England, where Coleridge and Southey, the other two 'Lake Poets,' spent many years. His income was a mere trifle, but he and his sister Dorothy lived in tranquil simplicity on the borders of Grasmere until his circumstances improved. In 1802 he was able to marry and soon after he moved to Rydal Mount, a larger abode near by, and also overlooking a stretch of water enclosed by the heathery mountains. Here he spent the last thirty-eight years of his life, dying at the age of eighty. Almost all the greater writers of his day were among his friends and acquaintances.