I was under the impression that the work referred to was the well-known ‘Sketches descriptive of Picturesque Scenery on the Southern Confines of Perthshire,’ by the Rev. Patrick Graham, minister of Aberfoyle, but it is satisfactory to find that Mr. Graham was not alone in his admiration of Highland scenery in those early days. A neighbour of his, the Rev. James Robertson, who was presented to the parish of Callander in 1768, wrote a description of the Trossachs in Sir John Sinclair’s Statistical Account, and from the fact of his using the very sentence quoted by Miss Wordsworth, I have no doubt he was the author of the
little pamphlet. Miss Spence in her ‘Caledonian Excursion,’ 1811, says that the Honourable Mrs. Murray told the minister of Callander that Scott ought to have dedicated ‘The Lady of the Lake’ to her as the discoverer of the Trossachs—‘Pray, Madam,’ said the good doctor, ‘when did you write your Tour?’ ‘In the year 1794.’ [314] ‘Then, Madam, it is no presumption in me to consider that I was the person who in 1790 made the Trossachs first known, for except to the natives and a few individuals in this neighbourhood, this remarkable place had never been heard of.’ Mr. Robertson died in 1812. There were thus at least two notices of the Trossachs published before Mr. Graham’s Sketches: these were not published till 1806. The Lady of the Lake was first published in 1810.
[101] Note 11.—‘Dutch myrtle.’—Page 101.
This seems to be the name by which Miss Wordsworth knew the plant which Lowlanders generally call bog myrtle, Border men gale, or sweet gale, and Highlanders roid (pronounced as roitch). Botanists, I believe, know it as Myrica Gale, a most fragrant plant or shrub, growing generally in moist and mossy ground. Perhaps nothing more surely brings back the feeling that you are in the very Highlands than the first scent of this plant caught on the breeze.
[116] Note 12.—‘Bonnier than Loch Lomond.’—Page 116.
As an illustration of local jealousy, I may mention that when Mr. Jamieson, the editor of the fifth edition of Burt’s Letters, was in the Highlands in 1814, four years after the publication of Scott’s Poem, and eleven after the Wordsworths’ visit, he met a savage-looking fellow on the top of Ben Lomond, the image of ‘Red Murdoch,’ who told him that he had been a guide to the mountain for more than forty years, but now ‘a Walter Scott’ had spoiled his trade. ‘I wish,’ said he, ‘I had him in a ferry over Loch Lomond; I should be after sinking the boat, if I drowned myself into the bargain, for ever since he wrote his “Lady of the Lake,” as they call it, everybody goes to see that filthy hole, Loch Ketterine. The devil confound his ladies and his lakes!’
Note 13.—‘For poor Ann Tyson’s sake.’—Page 145.
The dame with whom Wordsworth lodged at Hawkshead. Of her he has spoken with affectionate tenderness in the ‘Prelude:’—
‘The thoughts of gratitude shall fall like dew
Upon thy grave, good creature!’