t, tells us that he used to coax a maid to
write letters for him, and that when he was sixteen, on being informed, by
his mother, of Mary's marriage, he nearly fell into convulsions. But in
the history of the calf-loves of poets it is difficult to distinguish
between the imaginative afterthought and the reality. This equally applies
to other recollections of later years. Moore remarks--"that the charm of
scenery, which derives its chief power from fancy and association, should
be felt at an age when fancy is yet hardly awake and associations are but
few, can with difficulty he conceived." But between the ages of eight and
ten, an appreciation of external beauty is sufficiently common. No one
doubts the accuracy of Wordsworth's account, in the _Prelude_ of his early
half-sensuous delight in mountain glory. It is impossible to define the
influence of Nature, either on nations or individuals, or to say
beforehand what selection from his varied surroundings a poet will for
artistic purposes elect to make. Shakespeare rests in meadows and glades,
and leaves to Milton "Teneriffe and Atlas." Burns, who lived for a
considerable part of his life in daily view of the hills of Arran, never
alludes to them. But, in this respect like Shelley, Byron was inspired by
a passion for the high-places of the earth. Their shadow is on half his
verse. "The loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow" perpetually
remind him of one of his constantly recurring refrains,--

He who surpasses or subdues mankind,
Must look down on the hate of those below.

In the course of 1790, after an attack of scarlet fever at Aberdeen he was
taken by his mother to Ballater, and on his recovery spent much of his
time in rambling about the country. "From this period," he says, "I date
my love of mountainous countries. I can never forget the effect, 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." Elsewhere, in _The Island_ he returns,
amid allusions to the Alps and Apennines, to the friends of his youth:--

The infant rapture still survived the boy,
And Lach-na-gair with Ida look'd o'er Troy,
Mixed Celtic memories with the Phrygian mount,
And Highland linns with Castalie's clear fount.

The poet, owing to his physical defect, was not a great climber, and w