e
are informed, on the authority of his nurse, that he never even scaled the
easily attainable summit of the "steep frowning" hill of which he has made
such effective use. But the impression of it from a distance was none the
less genuine. In the midst of a generous address, in _Don Juan_, to
Jeffrey, he again refers to the same associations with the country of his
early training:--

But I am half a Scot by birth, and bred
A whole one; and my heart flies to my head
As "Auld Lang Syne" brings Scotland, one and all--
Scotch plaids, Scotch snoods, the blue hills and clear streams,
The Dee, the Don, Balgounie's brig's black wall--
All my boy feelings, all my gentler dreams
Of what I then dreamt, clothed in their own pall,
Like Banquo's offspring...

Byron's allusions to Scotland are variable and inconsistent. His satire on
her reviewers was sharpened by the show of national as well as personal
antipathy; and when, about the time of its production, a young lady
remarked that he had a little of the northern manner of speech, he burst
out "Good God! I hope not. I would rather the whole d----d country was
sunk in the sea. I the Scotch accent!" But, in the passage from which we
have quoted, the swirl of feeling on the other side continues,--

I rail'd at Scots to show my wrath and wit,
Which must be own'd was sensitive and surly.
Yet 'tis in vain such sallies to permit;
They cannot quench young feelings, fresh and early.
I scotch'd, not kill'd, the Scotchman in my blood,
And love the land of mountain and of flood.

This suggests a few words on a question of more than local interest.
Byron's most careful biographer has said of him: "Although on his first
expedition to Greece he was dressed in the tartan of the Gordon clan, yet
the whole bent of his mind, and the character of his poetry, are anything
but Scottish. Scottish nationality is tainted with narrow and provincial
elements. Byron's poetic character, on the other hand, is universal and
cosmopolitan. He had no attachment to localities, and never devoted
himself to the study of the history of Scotland and its romantic legends."
Somewhat similarly Thomas Campbell remarks of Burns, "he was the most
un-Scotsmanlike of Scotchmen, having no caution." Rough national verdicts
are apt to be superficial. Mr. Leslie Stephen, in a review of Hawthorne,
has commented on the extent to which the nobler qualities and conquering
energy of the English charact