estion if there were ten--of the "Lyrical Ballads"
in all the land of the mountain and the flood. Now Wordsworth is studied
all Scotland over--and Scotland is proud and happy to know, from his
Memorials of the Tours he has made through her brown heaths and shaggy
woods, that the Bard's heart overflows with kindness towards her
children--that his songs have celebrated the simple and heroic character
of her olden times, nor left unhonoured the virtues that yet survive in
her national character. All her generous youth regard him now as a great
Poet; and we have been more affected than we should choose to confess,
by the grateful acknowledgment of many a gifted spirit, that to us it
was owing that they had opened their eyes and their hearts to the
ineffable beauty of that poetry in which they had, under our
instructions, found not a vain visionary delight, but a strength and
succour and consolation, breathed as from a shrine in the silence and
solitude of nature, in which stood their father's hut, sanctifying their
humble birthplace with pious thoughts that made the very weekdays to
them like Sabbaths--nor on the evening of the Sabbath might they not
blamelessly be blended with those breathed from the Bible, enlarging
their souls to religion by those meditative moods which such pure poetry
inspires, and by those habits of reflection which its study forms, when
pursued under the influence of thoughtful peace.

Why, if it were not for that everlasting--we beg pardon--immortal
Wordsworth--the LAKES, and all that belong to them, would be our
own--_jure divino_--for we are the heir-apparent to the

"Sole King of rocky Cumberland."

But Wordsworth never will--never can die; and so we are in danger of
being cheated out of our due dominion. We cannot think this fatherly
treatment of such a son--and yet in our loftiest moods of filial
reverence we have heard ourselves exclaiming, while

"The Cataract of Lodore
Peal'd to our orisons,"

O King! live for ever!

Therefore, with the fear of "The Excursion" before our eyes, we took to
prose--to numerous prose--ay, though we say it that should not say it,
to prose as numerous as any verse--and showed such scenes

"As savage Rosa dash'd, or learned Poussin drew."

Here an English Lake--there a Scottish loch--till Turner grew jealous,
and Thomson flung his brush at one of his own unfinished mountains--when
lo! a miracle! Creative of grandeur in his very despa