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And from the grassy slope he sees
The Greta flow to meet the Tees,
Where issuing from her darksome bed,
She caught the morning's eastern red,
And through the softening vale below
Rolled her bright waves in rosy glow,
All blushing to her bridal bed,

Like some shy maid, in convent bred;

While linnet, lark, and blackbird gay
Sing forth her nuptial roundelay."

Is Scott, or are the persons of his story, gay at this moment? Far from it. Neither Scott nor Risingham are happy, kut the Greta is: and Scott's sympathy is ready for the Greta, on the instant.

Observe, therefore, this is not pathetic fallacy; for there is no passion in Scott which alters nature. It is not the lover's passion, making him think the larkspurs are listening for his lady's foot; it is not the miser's passion, making him think that dead leaves are falling coins; but it is an inherent and continual habit of thought, which Scott shares with the moderns in general, being, in fact, nothing else than the instinctive sense which men must have of the Divine presence, not formed into distinct belief. In the Greek it created, as we saw, the faithfully believed gods of the elements: in Dante and the mediævals, it formed the faithfully believed angelic presence: in the modern, it creates no perfect form, does not apprehend distinctly any Divine being or operation; but only a dim, slightly credited animation in the natural object, accompanied with great interest and affection for it. This feeling is quite universal with us, only varying in depth according to the greatness of the heart that holds it; and in Scott, being more than usually intense, and accompanied with infinite affection and quickness of sympathy, it enables him to conquer all tendencies to the pathetic fallacy, and, instead of making Nature

anywise subordinate to himself, he makes himself subordinate
to her follows her lead simply-does not venture to bring his
own cares and thoughts into her pure and quiet presence—
paints her in her simple and universal truth, adding no result
of momentary passion or fancy, and appears, therefore, at first
shallower than other poets, being in reality wider and healthier.
"What am I?" he says continually,
"that I should trouble
this sincere nature with my thoughts. I happen to be feverish
and depressed, and I could see a great many sad and strange
things in those waves and flowers; but I have no business to
see such things. Gay Greta! sweet harebells! you are not
sad nor strange to most people; you are but bright water and
blue blossoms; you shall not be anything else to me, except.
that I cannot help thinking you are a little alive,—no one
can help thinking that." And thus, as Nature is bright,

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serene, or gloomy, Scott takes her temper, and paints her as
she is; nothing of himself being ever intruded, except that
far-away Eolian tone, of which he is unconscious; and some
times a stray syllable or two, like that about Blackford Hill,
distinctly stating personal feeling, but all the more modestly
for that distinctness, and for the clear consciousness that it is
not the chiming brook, nor the corn-fields, that are sad, but
only the boy that rests by them; so returning on the instant
to reflect, in all honesty, the image of Nature as she is meant
by all to be received; nor that in fine words, but in the first
that come; nor with comment of far-fetched thoughts, but
with easy thoughts, such as all sensible men ought to have in
such places, only spoken sweetly; and evidently also with an
undercurrent of more profound reflection, which here and there
murmurs for a moment, and which I think, if we choose, we
may continually pierce down to, and drink deeply from, but
which Scott leaves us to seek, or shun, at our pleasure.

And in consequence of this unselfishness and humility, Scott's

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enjoyment of Nature is incomparably greater than that of any other poet I know. All the rest carry their cares to her, and begin maundering in her ears about their own affairs. Tennyson goes out on a furzy common, and sees it is calm autumn sunshine, but it gives him no pleasure. He only remembers that it is

"Dead calm in that noble breast

Which heaves but with the heaving deep."

He sees a thundercloud in the evening, and would have "doted and pored" on it, but cannot, for fear it should bring the ship bad weather. Keats drinks the beauty of Nature violently; but has no more real sympathy with her than he has with a bottle of claret. His palate is fine; but he "bursts joy's grape against it," gets nothing but misery, and a bitter taste of dregs out of his desperate draught.

Byron and Shelley are nearly the same, only with less truth of perception, and even more troublesome selfishness. Wordsworth is more like Scott, and understands how to be happy, but yet cannot altogether rid himself of the sense that he is a V philosopher, and ought always to be saying something wise. He has also a vague notion that Nature would not be able to get on well without Wordsworth; and finds a considerable part of his pleasure in looking at himself, as well as at her. But with Scott the love is entirely humble and unselfish. “I, Scott, am nothing, and less than nothing; but these crags, and heaths, and clouds, how great they are, how lovely, how for ever to be beloved, only for their own silent, thoughtless sake!"

This pure passion for nature in its abstract being, is stil! increased in its intensity by the two elements above taken notice of the love of antiquity, and the love of color and

beautiful form, mortified in our streets, and seeking for food in the wilderness and the ruin : both feelings, observe, instinc tive in Scott from his childhood, as everything that makes a man great is always.

"And well the lonely infant knew
Recesses where the wallflower grew,
And honeysuckle loved to crawl,
Up the long crag and ruined wall.

I deemed such nooks the sweetest shade
The sun in all its round surveyed."

Not that these could have been instinctive in a child in the

:

Middle Ages. The sentiments of a people increase or diminish in intensity from generation to generation,--every disposition of the parents affecting the frame of the mind in their offspring the soldier's child is born to be yet more a soldier, and the politician's to be still more a politician; even the slightest colors of sentiment and affection are transmitted to the heirs of life; and the crowning expression of the mind of a people is given when some infant of highest capacity, and sealed with the impress of this national character, is born where providential circumstances permit the full development of the powers it has received straight from Heaven, and the passions which it has inherited from its fathers.

This love of ancientness, and that of natural beauty, associ ate themselves also in Scott with the love of liberty, which was indeed at the root even of all his Jacobite tendencies in politics. For, putting aside certain predilections about landed property, and family name, and "gentlemanliness" in the club sense of the word,-respecting which I do not now inquire whether they were weak or wise,-the main element which makes Scott like Cavaliers better than Puritans is, that he thinks the former free and masterful as well as loyal; and

the latter formal and slavish. He is loyal, not so much in respect for law, as in unselfish love for the king; and his sympathy is quite as ready for any active borderer who breaks the law, or fights the king, in what Scott thinks a generous way, as for the king himself. Rebellion of a rough, free, and bold kind he is always delighted by; he only objects to rebellion on principle and in form: bare-headed and open-throated treason he will abet to any extent, but shrinks from it in a peaked hat and starched collar: nay, politically, he only delights in kingship itself, because he looks upon it as the head and centre of liberty; and thinks that, keeping hold of a king's hand, one may get rid of the cramps and fences of law; and that the people may be governed by the whistle, as a Highland clan on the open hill-side, instead of being shut up into hurdled folds or hedged fields, as sheep or cattle left masterless.

And thus nature becomes dear to Scott in a threefold way: dear to him, first, as containing those remains or memories of the past, which he cannot find in cities, and giving hope of Prætorian mound or knight's grave, in every green slope and shade of its desolate places ;-dear, secondly, in its moorland liberty, which has for him just as high a charm as the fenced garden had for the medieval:

"For I was wayward, bold, and wild,

A self-willed imp-a grandame's child;
But, half a plague, and half a jest,
Was still endured, beloved, caressed:
For 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;"

-and dear to him, finally, in that perfect beauty, denied alike