Genius, born in a rude age," a youthful shepherd who "lived in Gothic
days." But nothing less truly Gothic or medieval could easily be
imagined than the actual process of this young poet's education. Instead
of being taught to carve and ride and play the flute, like Chaucer's
squire who

"Cowde songes make and wel endite,
Juste and eek daunce, and wel purtraye and write,"

Edwin wanders alone upon the mountains and in solitary places and is
instructed in history, philosophy, and science--and even in Vergil--by an
aged hermit, who sits on a mossy rock, with his harp beside him, and
delivers lectures. The subject of the poem, indeed, is properly the
education of nature; and in a way it anticipates Wordsworth's "Prelude,"
as this hoary sage does the "Solitary" of "The Excursion." Beattie
justifies his use of Spenser's stanza on the ground that it "seems, from
its Gothic structure and original, to bear some relation to the subject
and spirit of the poem." He makes no attempt, however, to follow
Spenser's "antique expressions." The following passage will illustrate
as well as any the romantic character of the whole:

"When the long-sounding curfew from afar
Loaded with loud lament the lonely gale,
Young Edwin, lighted by the evening star,
Lingering and listening, wandered down the vale.
There would he dream of graves and corses pale,
And ghosts that to the charnel-dungeon throng,
And drag a length of clanking chain, and wail,
Till silenced by the owl's terrific song,
Or blast that shrieks by fits the shuddering aisles along.