[39] No. 415.
[40] John Hill Burton, in his "Reign of Queen Anne" give a passage from a letter of one Captain Burt, superintendent of certain road-making operations in the Scotch Highlands, by way of showing how very modern a person Carlyle's picturesque tourist is. The captain describes the romantic scenery of the glens as "horrid prospects." It was considerably later in the century that Dr. Johnson said, in answer to Boswell's timid suggestion that Scotland had a great many noble wild prospects, "I believe, sir, you have a great many, Norway, too, has noble wild prospects, and Lapland is remarkable for prodigious noble wild prospects. But, sir, let me tell you, the noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees is the high-road that leads him to England."
[41] See also Gray's letter to Rev. James Brown (1763) inclosing a drawing, in reference to a small ruined chapel at York Minster; and a letter (about 1765) to Jas. Bentham, Prebendary of Ely whose "Essay on Gothic Architecture" has been wrongly attributed to Gray.
[42] To Mrs. Dorothy Gray, 1739.
[43] To Richard West, 1739.
[44] Gray, Walpole, and West had been schoolfellows and intimates at Eton.
[45] To West, 1740.
[46] To Mrs. Dorothy Gray, 1740.
[47] "Pearch's Collection" (VII. 138) gives an elegiac quatrain poem on "The Ruins of Netley Abbey," by a poet with the suggestive name of George Keate; and "The Alps," in heavy Thomsonian blank verse (VII. 107) by the same hand.
[48] "A soft and lulling sound is heard
Of streams inaudible by day."
The White Doe of Rylstone, Wordsworth.