Page:The Poetry of Architecture.djvu/250

238, but it is one great open common sewer. The rocks of the castle are noble in themselves, but they guide the eye to barracks at the top and cauliflowers at the bottom; the Calton, though commanding a glorious group of city, mountain, and ocean, is suspended over the very jaws of perpetually active chimneys; and even Arthur's seat, though fine in form, and clean, which is saying a good deal, is a mere heap of black cinders, Vesuvius without its vigour or its vines. Nevertheless, as the monument is to be at Edinburgh, we must do the best we can. The first question is, Are we to have it in the city or the country? and, to decide this, we must determine which was Scott's ruling spirit, the love of nature or of man. His descriptive pieces are universally allowed to be lively and characteristic, but not first rate; they have been far excelled by many writers, for the simple reason, that Scott, while he brings his landscape clearly before his reader's eyes, puts no soul into it, when he has done so; while other poets give a meaning and a humanity to every part of nature, which is to its loveliness what the breathing spirit is to the human countenance. We have not space for quotations, but any one may understand our meaning, who will compare Scott's description of the Dell of the Greta, in Rokeby, with the speech of Beatrice, beginning "But I remember, two miles on this side of the fort," in Act iii. Scene 1 of the Cenci; or who will take the trouble to compare carefully any piece he chooses of Scott's proudest description, with bits relating to similar scenery in