His friend, Mr. Morritt of Rokeby, testifies; "He was but half satisfied
with the most beautiful scenery when he could not connect it with some
local legend." Scott had to the full the romantic love of mountain and
lake, yet "to me," he confesses, "the wandering over the field of
Bannockburn was the source of more exquisite pleasure than gazing upon
the celebrated landscape from the battlements of Stirling Castle. I do
not by any means infer that I was dead to the feeling of picturesque
scenery. . . . But show me an old castle or a field of battle and I was
at home at once." And again: "The love of natural beauty, more
especially when combined with ancient ruins or remains of our fathers'
piety[16] or splendour, became with me an insatiable passion." It was
not in this sense that high mountains were a "passion" to Byron, nor yet
to Wordsworth. In a letter to Miss Seward, Scott wrote of popular
poetry: "Much of its peculiar charm is indeed, I believe, to be
attributed solely to its _locality_. . . . In some verses of that
eccentric but admirable poet Coleridge[17] he talks of

"'An old rude tale that suited well
The ruins wild and hoary.'

"I think there are few who have not been in some degree touched with this
local sympathy. Tell a peasant an ordinary tale of robbery and murder,
and perhaps you may fail to interest him; but, to excite his terrors, you
assure him it happened on the very heath he usually crosses, or to a man
whose family he has known, and you rarely meet such a mere image of
humanity as remains entirely unmoved. I suspect it is pretty much the
same with myself."

Scott liked to feel solid ground of history, or at least of legend, under
his feet. He connected his wildest tales, like "Glenfinlas" and "The Eve