mper nor choice of subject, treated after so
different a fashion.

"Nor deem that localised Romance
Plays false with our affections;
Unsanctifies our tears--made sport
For fanciful dejections:
Ah no! the visions of the past
Sustain the heart in feeling
Life as she is--our changeful Life,
With friends and kindred dealing."

The apology, after all, is only half-hearted. For while Wordsworth
esteemed Scott highly and was careful to speak publicly of his work with
a qualified respect, it is well known that, in private, he set little
value upon it, and once somewhat petulantly declared that all Scott's
poetry was not worth sixpence. He wrote to Scott, of "Marmion": "I think
your end has been attained. That it is not the end which I should wish
you to propose to yourself, you will be aware." He had visited Scott at
Lasswade as early as 1803, and in recording his impressions notes that
"his conversation was full of anecdote and averse from disquisition."
The minstrel was a _raconteur_ and lived in the past, the bard was a
moralist and lived in the present.

There are several poems of Wordsworth's and Scott's touching upon common
ground which serve to contrast their methods sharply and to illustrate in
a striking way the precise character of Scott's romanticism. "Helvellyn"
and "Fidelity" were written independently and celebrate the same
incident. In 1805 a young man lost his way on the Cumberland mountains
and perished of exposure. Three months afterwards his body was found,
his faithful dog still watching beside it. Scott was a lover of
dogs--loved them warmly, individually; so to speak, personally; and all
dogs instinctively loved Scott.[18]

Wordsworth had a sort of tepid, theoretical benevolence towards the
animal creation in general. Yet as between the two poets, the advantage
in depth of feeling is, as usual, with Wordsworth. Both render, with
perhaps equal power, though in characteristically different ways, the
impression of the austere and desolate grandeur of the mountain scenery.
But the thought to which Wordsworth leads up is the mysterious divineness
of instinct

". . . that strength of feeling, great
Above all human estimate:"--

while Scott conducts his story to the reflection that Nature has given
the dead man a more stately funeral than the Church could have given, a
comparison seemingly dragged in for the sake of a stanzaful of his
favourite Gothic image