The Knickerbocker | Page 5

applied. They have reference rather to the emotions which their presence produces in himself. Thus, in the first line, 'boding' is not a quality that can be predicated of silence. To the feeling that the silence preceding a storm is wont to excite, the epithet is properly enough applied. So with the expression 'dubious dusk.'
In connection with these extracts, we will look at one taken from SCOTT'S description of the scenery around Loch Katrine:
'Boon nature scattered free and wild, Each plant, or flower, the mountain's child; Here eglantine embalmed the air, Hawthorn and hazel mingled there; The primrose pale, and violet flower, Found in each cleft a narrow bower; Foxglove and night-shade, side by side Emblems of punishment and pride, Grouped their dark hues with every stain The weather-beaten crags retain; With boughs that quaked at every breath, Gray-birch and aspen wept beneath; Aloft the ash and warrior oak Cast anchor in the rifted rock; And higher yet the pine tree hung His scattered trunk, and frequent flung Where seemed the cliffs to meet on high His boughs athwart the narrowed sky. Highest of all, where white peaks glanced, Where glistening streamers waved and danced, The wanderer's eye could barely view The summer heaven's delicious blue.'
The same remarks which we applied to Irving are applicable with some little restriction here. With one or two exceptions, the epithets mark attributes that exist in the subjects. Every one can see at a glance the appropriateness of such terms as pale primrose, gray birch, and narrow bower. They are not dependent for their effect upon any fanciful train of associations which their names may excite.
If we compare the above extracts together, we arrive at certain results which we shall briefly state. We will throw out of view for a moment any pleasure which the rhythm may give us, as foreign to our present purpose. Each of these writers is describing a scene from nature. Each of them has the same object, to interest others by a representation of those sights and sounds that interested themselves. Scott accomplishes his purpose by presenting as exact a picture of nature as it is possible perhaps for words to give. He does not tell us how he is affected by what he sees, and looks upon neither directly nor indirectly. He does not search for any resemblances that are not palpable, and founded in the nature of things. All similes and metaphors which serve to express his own emotions are carefully avoided. The whole is picturesque and life-like in the highest degree, yet every circumstance is mentioned in the cool, unimpassioned way in which we mention any common occurrence.
Thomson accomplishes his purpose by portraying his own feelings; not indeed in so many words, but by the use of those expressions, and by those transitions of thought, which mark a state of emotion. The epithet 'boding,' to which we have referred, is an example. It is an indirect disclosure of the mood of his own mind. At another time it is not improbable that an epithet of a directly opposite meaning would have been selected. The reader is affected by it, because by a law of sympathy, we are affected by whatever reveals the presence of passion in another. It influences us precisely as the tones of the voice of a person in distress influence us. Both are expressive of emotion, and we cannot remain unaffected by them.
This is the main source of the pleasure we feel in reading Thomson's description. It conveys to us but a very indistinct idea of the subject matter. Different readers, according to their mental peculiarities, will be differently affected by it. He does not paint to the bodily eye, but to the eye of the mind; and he will feel most pleasure who puts himself in the same position as the poet, and sees with his eyes and hears with his ears. Unless he can do this, he will derive but little gratification from the perusal.
Less minute than Irving, and more picturesque than Thomson, Scott will probably to most readers give more pleasure than either of them. In conveying lively impressions of natural objects he is unsurpassed, but he is scarcely less successful in inspiring the mind of the reader with the same emotions that fill his own breast. There is ever between the thought and its expression a perfect harmony. It is only when agitated by passion that he uses the language of passion. Hence we never find that timid phraseology which so often disgusts us in Thomson; vox et pr?terea nihil. No one delights more in the use of figurative language, nor employs metaphors that more appropriately convey the sentiment that pervades his mind. In the passage we have quoted are the following lines:
'Aloft the ash and warrior oak Cast