ite pleasure than
gazing upon the celebrated landscape from the battlements of Stirling
castle. I do not by any means infer that I was dead to the feeling of
picturesque scenery; on the contrary, few delighted more in its
general effect. But I was unable with the eye of a painter to dissect
the various parts of the scene, to comprehend how the one bore upon
the other, to estimate the effect which various features of the view
had in producing its leading and general effect. I have never, indeed,
been capable of doing this with precision or {p.043} nicety, though
my latter studies have led me to amend and arrange my original ideas
upon the subject. Even the humble ambition, which I long cherished, of
making sketches of those places which interested me, from a defect of
eye or of hand was totally ineffectual. After long study and many
efforts, I was unable to apply the elements of perspective or of shade
to the scene before me, and was obliged to relinquish in despair an
art which I was most anxious to practise. But show me an old castle or
a field of battle, and I was at home at once, filled it with its
combatants in their proper costume, and overwhelmed my hearers by the
enthusiasm of my description. In crossing Magus Moor, near St.
Andrews, the spirit moved me to give a picture of the assassination of
the Archbishop of St. Andrews to some fellow-travellers with whom I
was accidentally associated, and one of them, though well acquainted
with the story, protested my narrative had frightened away his night's
sleep. I mention this to show the distinction between a sense of the
picturesque in action and in scenery. If I have since been able in
poetry to trace with some success the principles of the latter, it has
always been with reference to its general and leading features, or
under some alliance with moral feeling; and even this proficiency has
cost me study.--Meanwhile I endeavored to make amends for my ignorance
of drawing, by adopting a sort of technical memory respecting the
scenes I visited: Wherever I went, I cut a piece of a branch from a
tree--these constituted what I called my log-book; and I intended to
have a set of chessmen out of them, each having reference to the place
where it was cut--as the kings from Falkland and Holy-Rood; the queens
from Queen Mary's yew-tree at Crookston; the bishops from abbeys or
episcopal palaces; the knights from baronial residences; the rooks
from royal fortresses; and the pawns g