Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey | Page 7

Gallashiels, and Torwoodlie, and
Gallawater; and in that direction you see Teviotdale, and the Braes of
Yarrow; and Ettrick stream, winding along, like a silver thread, to
throw itself into the Tweed."
He went on thus to call over names celebrated in Scottish song, and
most of which had recently received a romantic interest from his own
pen. In fact, I saw a great part of the border country spread out before
me, and could trace the scenes of those poems and romances which had,
in a manner, bewitched the world. I gazed about me for a time with
mute surprise, I may almost say with disappointment. I beheld a mere
succession of gray waving hills, line beyond line, as far as my eye
could reach; monotonous in their aspect, and so destitute of trees, that
one could almost see a stout fly walking along their profile; and the
far-famed Tweed appeared a naked stream, flowing between bare hills,
without a tree or thicket on its banks; and yet, such had been the magic
web of poetry and romance thrown over the whole, that it had a greater
charm for me than the richest scenery I beheld in England.
I could not help giving utterance to my thoughts. Scott hummed for a
moment to himself, and looked grave; he had no idea of having his

muse complimented at the expense of his native hills. "It may be
partiality," said he, at length; "but to my eye, these gray bills and all
this wild border country have beauties peculiar to themselves. I like the
very nakedness of the land; it has something bold, and stern, and
solitary about it. When I have been for some time in the rich scenery
about Edinburgh, which is like ornamented garden land, I begin to wish
myself back again among my own honest gray hills; and if I did not see
the heather at least once a year, I think I should die!"
The last words were said with an honest warmth, accompanied with a
thump on the ground with his staff, by way of emphasis, that showed
his heart was in his speech. He vindicated the Tweed, too, as a beautiful
stream in itself, and observed that he did not dislike it for being bare of
trees, probably from having been much of an angler in his time, and an
angler does not like to have a stream overhung by trees, which
embarrass him in the exercise of his rod and line.
I took occasion to plead, in like manner, the associations of early life,
for my disappointment in respect to the surrounding scenery. I had been
so accustomed to hills crowned with forests, and streams breaking their
way through a wilderness of trees, that all my ideas of romantic
landscape were apt to be well wooded.
"Aye, and that's the great charm of your country," cried Scott. "You
love the forest as I do the heather--but I would not have you think I do
not feel the glory of a great woodland prospect. There is nothing I
should like more than to be in the midst of one of your grand, wild,
original forests with the idea of hundreds of miles of untrodden forest
around me. I once saw, at Leith, an immense stick of timber, just
landed from America. It must have been an enormous tree when it
stood on its native soil, at its full height, and with all its branches. I
gazed at it with admiration; it seemed like one of the gigantic obelisks
which are now and then brought from Egypt, to shame the pigmy
monuments of Europe; and, in fact, these vast aboriginal trees, that
have sheltered the Indians before the intrusion of the white men, are the
monuments and antiquities of your country."
The conversation here turned upon Campbell's poem of "Gertrude of

Wyoming," as illustrative of the poetic materials furnished by
American scenery. Scott spoke of it in that liberal style in which I
always found him to speak of the writings of his contemporaries. He
cited several passages of it with great delight. "What a pity it is," said
he, "that Campbell does not write more and oftener, and give full sweep
to his genius. He has wings that would bear him to the skies; and he
does now and then spread them grandly, but folds them up again and
resumes his perch, as if he was afraid to launch away. He don't know or
won't trust his own strength. Even when he has done a thing well, he
has often misgivings about it. He left out several fine passages of his
Lochiel, but I got him to restore some of them." Here Scott repeated
several passages in a magnificent style. "What a grand idea is that,"