race of kings, a body of separate traditions, and a
peculiar crisis of reformation issuing in peculiar forms of religious
worship, confirmed and strengthened the national idiosyncrasy. If a
difference between the races be allowed, it is sufficient for the present
purpose. _That_ allowed, and Scot and Southern being fecund in literary
genius, it becomes an interesting inquiry to what extent the great
literary men of the one race have influenced the great literary men of
the other. On the whole, perhaps, the two races may fairly cry quits.
Not unfrequently, indeed, have literary influences arisen in the north
and travelled southwards. There were the Scottish ballads, for instance,
there was Burns, there was Sir Walter Scott, there is Mr. Carlyle. The
literary influence represented by each of these arose in Scotland, and
has either passed or is passing "in music out of sight" in England. The
energy of the northern wave has rolled into the southern waters. On the
other hand, we can mark the literary influences travelling from the south
northward. The English Chaucer rises, and the current of his influence
is long afterwards visible in the Scottish King James, and the Scottish
poet Dunbar. That which was Prior and Gay in London, became Allan Ramsay
when it reached Edinburgh. Inspiration, not unfrequently, has travelled,
like summer, from the south northwards; just as, when the day is over,
and the lamps are lighted in London, the radiance of the setting sun is
lingering on the splintered peaks and rosy friths of the Hebrides. All
this, however, is a matter of the past; literary influence can no longer
be expected to travel leisurely from south to north, or from north to
south. In times of literary activity, as at the beginning of the present
century, the atmosphere of passion or speculation envelop the entire
island, and Scottish and English writers simultaneously draw from it what
their peculiar natures prompt--just as in the same garden the rose drinks
crimson and the convolvulus azure from the superincumbent air.

Chaucer must always remain a name in British literary history. He
appeared at a time when the Saxon and Norman races had become fused, and
when ancient bitternesses were lost in the proud title of Englishman. He
was the first great poet the island produced; and he wrote for the most
part in the language of the people, with just the slightest infusion of
the courtlier Norman element, which gives to hi