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