Nature-poetry. Our spring-meads, with their buttercups and daisies, are redolent of poetry; and the field-paths that take us through them, and the hedgerows white with hawthorns, and resounding with the songs of birds, are alike poetical. Of all peoples, therefore, we should always be the first, as we are now, to cultivate that Nature-poetry to which attention has been called in this Essay.

XII.

THE LITERARY CHARM OF SCENIC ASSOCIATIONS.*

T is well at times to direct attention to a thing that is too often lost sight of, or not paid sufficient attention to; and that is, the pleasures that we may derive from literary study in regard to the regions that we may visit for profit or for delight. Now if we look round upon these, whether in fact or in fancy, we shall find that they derive their interest from many and varied sources. Of one, the celebrity may be mainly due to the beauty of its scenery, amidst which we find our truest recreation or enjoyment; another may derive its interest from some heroic struggle for freedom, which, like a trumpet call, may have aroused even distant nations from the sleep and degeneration of ages; while a third may have been the birthplace, or may have acted as the nursing mother of that literature, or of those arts and sciences which have done so much to civilise, embellish, soften, and elevate the whole human race. But from whatever source their celebrity be derived, we shall find that a large amount of their interest arises from the literary charm of the associations that cluster round their scenery.

These associations we find lovingly recalled, or prominently set forth, in the writings of those to whom we are accustomed to look for guidance, instruction, or entertainment. Poets have sung the praises of these regions; historians have chronicled the great deeds that have been done within their borders; biographers have commemorated the lives and works of the illustrious worthies to whom these lands have given birth; and legend and romance have invested their very names with a halo of splendour and renown.

*

A lecture delivered to the members of the Richmond Athenæum.

As to what constitutes the abiding interest of these lands of "scenic associations," we shall learn much if we compare some such land with regions that have not yet figured largely in the arena of human story. Contrast, for example, our own country -teeming, as it does, in memories of the past --with that "dark continent," as we call it, wherein human thought is borne ever onward towards a future that no man would dare to foretell. At home, the remotest records of our race-its joys and its griefs, its glories and its triumphs-live in history, live in poetry, and live in the very features of the land; we read them in many a book, sing them in many a song, and are reminded of them in many a scene that we look upon in our daily life. But when we turn to Africa, what a contrast! Till lately, over almost the whole of that vast continent, we were wont to find that

"Geographers, on Afric Maps,

Put savage beasts to fill up gaps;
And o'er unhabitable downs,

Placed elephants for want of towns."

Lonely hitherto save in one famous river-valley, and the country in regard to which was fought the mighty death-struggle between two famous races, whereof one produced the greatest general of antiquity, and the other developed fighting-powers that made them the conquerors of the world-Africa has been unjoined with written story and the recorded life of man, and thus has been slowly emerging into the light of day, mainly through the narratives of the exploits of adventurous travellers or hunters; the reports of recent discoveries by heroic explorers; the untiring efforts of earnest men to put down the appalling traffic in slaves; and the noble self-sacrifice of some illustrious hero such as Livingstone or Gordon, whose life, and deeds, and glorious death may justly make us, like King George the Third, glory in the name of Briton." Hence this whole region has furnished virgin soil whereon the wildest romances may locate and develop the most amazing fictions.

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But if we turn to the classic spots that form the subject of our theme, we shall find that the very names of many of them are magic words, more potent than ever was enchanter's wand. To those who are familiar with old-world story, they recall the distant and the past; bring up, in long perspective, scenes renowned for their surpassing beauty, hallowed by deeds of patriots, heroes and martyrs; associated to all time with the writings of historians, philosophers, and sages, whose lives were passed among them; or peopled by beings historical, legendary, or created by poets and romancers-beings who will haunt each spot with which they are identified, and who, though imaginary, will make their existence felt, and be as present to us as the well-remembered faces of familiar friends. Of the kind of feeling here referred to, we have an admirable example in the following lines, wherein Sir Walter Scott speaks of the scenes around three of his favourite rivers :

"Still, as I view each well-known scene,

Think what is now, and what hath been,

Seems as, to me, of all bereft,

Sole friends thy woods and streams were left;
And thus I love them better still,

Even in extremity of ill.

By Yarrow's stream still let me stray,
Though none shall guide my lonely way,
Still feel the breeze down Ettrick break,
Although it chill my withered cheek;
Still lay my head by Teviot Stone,
Though there, forgotten and alone,
The Bard may draw his parting groan."

And what a touching illustration of the sentiment expressed in these lines is afforded by the closing scenes in the poet's life! He had been taken to southern climes, in hopes to recruit his shattered health, but in vain. As Wordsworth says:

"Nature's loveliest looks,

Art's noblest relics, history's rich bequests,
Failed to re-animate and but feebly cheered
The whole world's Darling."

While hurrying home to die--when the very labourers in the London streets inquired tenderly about the house where he was lying unconscious-the first thing that roused him, as he lay almost insensible on a couch in his carriage, was the sight of the old familiar places; by and by he was heard to murmur a name or two-" Gala water, surely; Buckholm; Torwoodlee"; then the outline of the Eildon Hills burst upon him, and he became greatly excited; and when at length, he caught sight of his own. house in the distance, he sprang up with a cry of delight. And at last, after this "Bard had drawn his parting groan," four of the cited lines were most appropriately inscribed on the pedestal of his statue in Selkirk, in "proud and affectionate remembrance of Sir Walter Scott."

Nor is it poets alone of whom such emotions take full possession. The same sentiments have been frequently expressed by many men of varied tastes, habits, and occupations; and many more have felt them, and have been deeply influenced by them, though often, perhaps, unconsciously. An example of the way in which these associations cling round us, and haunt us in times of quiet thought, occurs in the touching account which his wife gives of the last days of a late distinguished statesman. They had been one day reading together in the Philippians; and after referring back to the account of Philippi given in the Acts of the Apostles, he spoke much about his voyage in the Mediterranean, and said there was one morning at Saloniki (the ancient Thessalonica) which he could never forget. The town was rising from the shore along the slopes of the hill above the sea, our magnificent fleet lay at anchor below, and far away in the background rose the mighty peaks of Olympus. He was full of the impressions of that scene and all its varied associations; of the old mythology, dead and passed away; of the mingled races, of

Mahommedanism and the modern world, and of the perplexities suggested by the long course of change and decay, flux and reflux, in religion and in human progress.

Truly enough did Dr. Johnson-a man nowise given to sentiment-express the feelings of the best part of mankind when he said that "to abstract the mind from all local emotion would be impossible if it were endeavoured, and would be foolish if it were possible. Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses, whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings. Far from me and my friends be such frigid philosophy as would conduct us indifferent and unmoved over any ground which has been dignified by wisdom, bravery, or virtue. That man is little to be envied, whose patriotism would not gain force upon the Plain of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona."

But besides the places where great men have lived, or great things have been done, we visit with almost equal interest the scenes that have resounded in poetry, legend, or romance. A prominent American statesman once said that, while the relations of his countrymen were cordial towards Britain in general, their hearts especially warmed towards Scotland. If the country had no claim to the attention of the civilised world except its literature, said he, and if all its fine literature were abolished except the writings of Scott and Burns, it would still have a peculiar sort of claim upon all English-speaking people. With Falstaff, I can say, he added, that these two men have given us "medicines to make us love you." They have not only invested your history and your scenery with an interest that will never pass away, and that is world-wide; but they people your country all over with those charming creations of the imagination that have passed into reality. Was the spectacle ever before seen in this world of thousands of intelligent and cultivated people thronging to see the scenes and localities of events that never happened, and the hearths and homes of people that never lived? Yet that was to be seen every summer in Scotland; and it will continue to be seen far into those summers that we shall never see.

Some of these lands of scenic associations many of us have, no doubt, already visited. They live in our memory as "things of beauty," to be to us "joys for ever." We recall with vivid delight the emotions excited in us by some scene of transcendent loveliness, or of legendary or poetic renown, and we are thus enabled to realise that pleasure which the Roman poet (Martial) ranks among the highest when he says that:

that is to say:

"Hoc est

Vivere bis, vita posse priore frui,"

"Whoso in thought enjoys his former life,

Thus lives twice over.

Then again, we may hope perhaps by and by to visit other such scenes, and no preparation of mind will enable us to derive the fullest enjoyment from our travels so well as to know what has rendered famous the places we are about to visit, and to cultivate therewith our faculty for discerning and appreciating the beautiful by becoming familiar with what has been written about them by those best expositors of our noblest thoughts, the poets. To those who have acquired this culture, the poets are the very best of all travelling companions, seeing as they do themselves, and as they enable their votaries to see-many things that are invisible to common eyes, investing the landscape with human feeling, and casting upon it

"The light that never was on sea or land,

The consecration and the poet's dream."

When we travel with the poets in reality, we find that they cast a glamour over the landscape, hanging, like Orlando in the forest of Arden, "Odes on hawthorns and elegies on thistles"; and when, as age steals on us, we are content to enjoy those delightful travels by the fireside, we never fail to find that—

"From them we learn whatever lies
Beneath each changing zone,

And see, when looking with their eyes,
Better than with our own."

More than 2,000 years ago, Pindar said, it is the divine power of song that keeps noble deeds from being buried in the silent grave, and even great virtues are enveloped in thick darkness if they are unsung by the poet; and this tribute to the power of poetry has been echoed by Horace, in a very famous passage, and has been reiterated by many poets since, especially by Scott, in the following lines:

"Call it not vain; they do not err
Who say that when the poet dies
Mute Nature mourns her worshipper
And celebrates his obsequies:
Who say, tall cliff and cavern lone
For the departed bard make moan;
That mountains weep in crystal rill;
That flowers in tears of balm distil;
Through his loved grove that breezes sigh,
And oaks, in deeper groan, reply ;
And rivers teach their rushing wave
To murmur dirges round his grave.
Not that, in sooth, o'er mortal urn,
Those things inanimate can mourn;
But that the stream, the wood, the gale,
Is vocal with the plaintive wail
Of those who, else forgotten long,
Lived in the poet's faithful song,
And, with the poet's parting breath,

Whose memory feels a second death."

It is a touching comment on these lines to learn that, on the burial-day of the poet, the scenery which, through the power of