the wild, torn ridges of Morven and
Appin--uniting Ben Cruachan to Ben Nevis, and including in its sweep the
lonely and magnificent Glencoe--a region unparalleled in wide Britain
for its quantity and variety of desolate grandeur, where every shape is
bold, every shape blasted, but all blasted at such different angles as
to produce endless diversity, and yet where the whole seems twisted into
a certain terrible harmony; not to speak of the glorious isles

"Placed far amid the melancholy main,"

Iona, which, being interpreted, means the "Island of the Waves," the
rocky cradle of Scotland's Christianity; Staffa with grass growing above
the unspeakable grandeur which lurks in the cathedral-cave below, and
cows peacefully feeding over the tumultuous surge which forms the organ
of the eternal service; and Skye, with its Loch Coriskin, piercing like
a bright arrow the black breast of the shaggy hills of Cuchullin. Burns
had around him only the features of ordinary Scottish scenery, but from
these he drank in no common draught of inspiration; and how admirably
has he reproduced such simple objects as the "burn stealing under the
lang yellow broom," and the "milk-white thorn that scents the evening
gale," the "burnie wimplin' in its glen," and the

"Rough bur-thistle spreadin' wide
Amang the bearded bear."

These objects constituted the poetry of his own fields; they were linked
with his own joys, loves, memories, and sorrows, and these he felt
impelled to enshrine in song. It may, indeed, be doubted if his cast of
mind would have led him to sympathise with bold and savage scenery. In
proof of this, we remember that, although he often had seen the gigantic
ridges of Arran looming through the purple evening air, or with the
"morning suddenly spread" upon their summer summits, or with premature
snow tinging their autumnal tops, he never once alludes to them, so far
as we remember, either in his poetry or prose; and that although he
spent a part of his youth on the wild smuggling coast of Carrick, he has
borrowed little of his imagery from the sea--none, we think, except the
two lines in the "Vision"--

"I saw thee seek the sounding shore,
Delighted with the dashing roar."

His descriptions are almost all of inland scenery. Yet, that there was a
strong sense of the sublime in his mind is manifest from the lines
succeeding the above--

"And when the North his fleecy store
Drove through the sky