Much has been said of the effect of fine scenery upon the development of genius. And as this is the theme of one-half of the "Minstrel," we must be permitted a few remarks on it. The finest scenery in the world cannot, then, 'create' genius. A dunce, born in the Vale of Tempe, will remain a dunce still. And, on the other hand, a poet reared in St Giles or the Goosedubs will develop his poetic vein. The true influences, we suspect, of scenery on genius are the following:--1st, Where poetry lies deep and latent in a deep but silent nature, scenery will act like the rod of Moses on the rock in bringing forth the struggling waters--it will prompt to imitation, and gradually supply language. 2d, Early familiarity with the beautiful aspects of nature will enable the youth of genius to realize the descriptions of nature in the great poetic masters, to test their truth, and imbibe their spirit, by comparing them day by day with their archetypes. He can stand on a snow-clad mountain, with Thomson's "Winter" in his hands. He can walk through a wood of pines, swinging in the tempest, and repeat Coleridge's "Ode to Schiller." He can, lying on a twilight hill, with twilight mountains darkening into night around him, and twilight fields and rivers glimmering far below, and one cataract, touching the grand piano of the silence into melancholy music, turn round and see in the north-east the moon rising in that "clouded majesty" of which Milton had spoken long before. He can take the "Lady of the Lake" to the same summit, while afternoon, the everlasting autumn of the day, is shedding its thoughtful and mellow lines over the landscape, and can see in it a counterpart of the scene at the Trosachs--the woodlands, the mountains, the isle, the westland heaven--all, except the chase, the stag, and the stranger, and these the imagination can supply; or he can plunge into the moorlands, and reaching, toward the close of a summer's day, some insulated peak, can see a storm of wild mountains between him and the west, dark and proud, like captives at the chariot-wheels of the sun, and smitten here and there into reluctant splendour by his beams, and think of all the gorgeous descriptions of sunset and its momentary miracles to be found in Scott, Byron, Wilson, Croly, Shelley, Wordsworth, and Coleridge; or he can from some mighty Ben look abroad over a country--Scotland, and the sea below, the blue heaven above, till, in his enthusiasm, he might deem that he could lay his one hand on the mane of the ocean, and his other on the tresses of the sun, and feels for the first time the force of Beattie's own fine words-- "All the dread magnificence of Heaven."