1831, shortly before Scott set out for Naples, and the two poets went in
company to the ruins of Newark Castle. It is characteristic that in
"Yarrow Revisited," which commemorates the incident, the Bard of Rydal
should think it necessary to offer an apology for his distinguished
host's habit of romanticising nature--that nature which Wordsworth,
romantic neither in temper nor choice of subject, treated after so
different a fashion.

"Nor deem that localised Romance
Plays false with our affections;
Unsanctifies our tears--made sport
For fanciful dejections:
Ah no! the visions of the past
Sustain the heart in feeling
Life as she is--our changeful Life,
With friends and kindred dealing."

The apology, after all, is only half-hearted. For while Wordsworth
esteemed Scott highly and was careful to speak publicly of his work with
a qualified respect, it is well known that, in private, he set little
value upon it, and once somewhat petulantly declared that all Scott's
poetry was not worth sixpence. He wrote to Scott, of "Marmion": "I think
your end has been attained. That it is not the end which I should wish
you to propose to yourself, you will be aware." He had visited Scott at
Lasswade as early as 1803, and in recording his impressions notes that
"his conversation was full of anecdote and averse from disquisition."
The minstrel was a _raconteur_ and lived in the past, the bard was a
moralist and lived in the present.

There are several poems of Wordsworth's and Scott's touching upon common