Nature, or to have been inspired by studying her storms or serenity;
for dissatisfaction and disappointment are the offspring of moral
experience, and have no natural association with the forms of
external things. The habit of associating morose sentiments with any
particular kind of scenery only shows that the sources of the
sullenness arose in similar visible circumstances. It is from these
premises I would infer, that the seeds of Byron's misanthropic
tendencies were implanted during the "silent rages" of his childhood,
and that the effect of mountain scenery, which continued so strong
upon him after he left Scotland, producing the sentiments with which
he has imbued his heroes in the wild circumstances in which he places
them, was mere reminiscence and association. For although the sullen
tone of his mind was not fully brought out until he wrote Childe
Harold, it is yet evident from his Hours of Idleness that he was
tuned to that key before he went abroad. The dark colouring of his
mind was plainly imbibed in a mountainous region, from sombre heaths,
and in the midst of rudeness and grandeur. He had no taste for more
cheerful images, and there are neither rural objects nor villagery in
the scenes he describes, but only loneness and the solemnity of
mountains.

To those who are acquainted with the Scottish character, it is
unnecessary to suggest how very probable it is that Mrs Byron and her
associates were addicted to the oral legends of the district and of
her ancestors, and that the early fancy of the poet was nourished
with the shadowy descriptions in the tales o' the olden time;--at
last this is manifest, that although Byron shows little of the
melancholy and mourning of Ossian, he was yet evidently influenced by
some strong bias and congeniality of taste to brood and cogitate on
topics of the same character as those of that bard. Moreover,