Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I | Page 9

from them. As materials, indeed, for
the poetic faculty, when developed, to work upon, these impressions of
the new and wonderful retained from childhood, and retained with all
the vividness of recollection which belongs to genius, may form, it is
true, the purest and most precious part of that aliment, with which the
memory of the poet feeds his imagination. But still, it is the
newly-awakened power within him that is the source of the charm;--it
is the force of fancy alone that, acting upon his recollections,
impregnates, as it were, all the past with poesy. In this respect, such
impressions of natural scenery as Lord Byron received in his childhood
must be classed with the various other remembrances which that period
leaves behind--of its innocence, its sports, its first hopes and
affections--all of them reminiscences which the poet afterwards
converts to his use, but which no more make the poet than--to apply an
illustration of Byron's own--the honey can be said to make the bee that
treasures it.
When it happens--as was the case with Lord Byron in Greece--that the
same peculiar features of nature, over which Memory has shed this
reflective charm, are reproduced before the eyes under new and
inspiring circumstances, and with all the accessories which an
imagination, in its full vigour and wealth, can lend them, then, indeed,
do both the past and present combine to make the enchantment
complete; and never was there a heart more borne away by this
confluence of feelings than that of Byron. In a poem, written about a
year or two before his death,[18] he traces all his enjoyment of
mountain scenery to the impressions received during his residence in
the Highlands; and even attributes the pleasure which he experienced in
gazing upon Ida and Parnassus, far less to classic remembrances, than
to those fond and deep-felt associations by which they brought back the
memory of his boyhood and Lachin-y-gair.

He who first met the Highland's swelling blue, Will love each peak that
shows a kindred hue, Hail in each crag a friend's familiar face, And
clasp the mountain in his mind's embrace. Long have I roam'd through
lands which are not mine, Adored the Alp, and loved the Apennine,
Revered Parnassus, and beheld the steep Jove's Ida and Olympus crown
the deep: But 'twas not all long ages' lore, nor all Their nature held me
in their thrilling thrall; The infant rapture still survived the boy, And
Loch-na-gar with Ida look'd o'er Troy, Mix'd Celtic memories with the
Phrygian mount, And Highland linns with Castalie's clear fount.
In a note appended to this passage, we find him falling into that sort of
anachronism in the history of his own feelings, which I have above
adverted to as not uncommon, and referring to childhood itself that love
of mountain prospects, which was but the after result of his imaginative
recollections of that period.
"From this period" (the time of his residence in the Highlands) "I date
my love of mountainous countries. I can never forget the effect, a few
years afterwards in England, of the only thing I had long seen, even in
miniature, of a mountain, in the Malvern Hills. After I returned to
Cheltenham, I used to watch them every afternoon at sunset, with a
sensation which I cannot describe." His love of solitary rambles, and
his taste for exploring in all directions, led him not unfrequently so far,
as to excite serious apprehensions for his safety. While at Aberdeen, he
used often to steal from home unperceived;--sometimes he would find
his way to the sea-side; and once, after a long and anxious search, they
found the adventurous little rover struggling in a sort of morass or
marsh, from which he was unable to extricate himself.
In the course of one of his summer excursions up Dee-side, he had an
opportunity of seeing still more of the wild beauties of the Highlands
than even the neighbourhood of their residence at Ballatrech afforded,
--having been taken by his mother through the romantic passes that
lead to Invercauld, and as far up as the small waterfall, called the Linn
of Dee. Here his love of adventure had nearly cost him his life. As he
was scrambling along a declivity that overhung the fall, some heather
caught his lame foot, and he fell. Already he was rolling downward,

when the attendant luckily caught hold of him, and was but just in time
to save him from being killed. It was about this period, when he was
not quite eight years old, that a feeling partaking more of the nature of
love than it is easy to believe possible in so young a child, took,
according to his own account, entire possession of his thoughts, and
showed how early, in this passion, as