No poet ever
equalled Scott in the description of wild and simple scenes and the
expression of wild and simple feelings. But I have said enough now of
his poetry, in which, good as it is, Scott's genius did not reach its
highest point. The hurried tramp of his somewhat monotonous metre, is
apt to weary the ears of men who do not find their sufficient
happiness, as he did, in dreaming of the wild and daring enterprises
of his loved Border-land. The very quality in his verse which makes it
seize so powerfully on the imaginations of plain, bold, adventurous
men, often makes it hammer fatiguingly against the brain of those who
need the relief of a wider horizon and a richer world.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 12: Lockhart's _Life of Scott_, ii. 217.]
[Footnote 13: Lockhart's _Life of Scott_, ii. 226.]
[Footnote 14: Lockhart's _Life of Scott_, v. 248.]
[Footnote 15: Lockhart's _Life of Scott_, v. 338.]
[Footnote 16: Lockhart's _Life of Scott_, ii. 137.]
[Footnote 17: Lockhart's _Life of Scott_, ii. 259.]
[Footnote 18: Lockhart's _Life of Scott_, iii.
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