No More Learning

TO MR. PETER HILL.

["The 'Address to Lochlomond,' which this letter criticises," says
Currie in 1800, "was written by a gentleman, now one of the masters of
the High-school of Edinburgh, and the same who translated the
beautiful story of 'The Paria,' published in the Bee of Dr.
Anderson. "]

_Mauchline, 1st October, 1788. _

I have been here in this country about three days, and all that time
my chief reading has been the "Address to Lochlomond" you were so
obliging as to send to me. Were I impannelled one of the author's
jury, to determine his criminality respecting the sin of poesy, my
verdict should be "guilty! a poet of nature's making! ". It is an
excellent method for improvement, and what I believe every poet does,
to place some favourite classic author in his own walks of study and
composition, before him as a model. Though your author had not
mentioned the name, I could have, at half a glance, guessed his model
to be Thomson. Will my brother-poet forgive me, if I venture to hint
that his imitation of that immortal bard is in two or three places
rather more servile than such a genius as his required:--_e. g. _

"To soothe the maddening passions all to peace. "

ADDRESS.
"To soothe the throbbing passions into peace. "

THOMSON.

I think the "Address" is in simplicity, harmony, and elegance of
versification, fully equal to the "Seasons. " Like Thomson, too, he has
looked into nature for himself: you meet with no copied description.
One particular criticism I made at first reading; in no one instance
has he said too much. He never flags in his progress, but, like a true
poet of nature's making kindles in his course. His beginning is simple
and modest, as if distrustful of the strength of his pinion; only, I
do not altogether like--

-------------------------------"Truth
The soul of every song that's nobly great. "

Fiction is the soul of many a song that is nobly great. Perhaps I am
wrong: this may be but a prose criticism. Is not the phrase in line 7,
page 6, "Great lake," too much vulgarized by every-day language for so
sublime a poem?

"Great mass of waters, theme for nobler song,"

is perhaps no emendation. His enumeration of a comparison with other
lakes is at once harmonious and poetic. Every reader's ideas must
sweep the

"Winding margin of an hundred miles. "

The perspective that follows mountains blue--the imprisoned billows
beating in vain--the wooded isles--the digression on the
yew-tree--"Ben-lomond's lofty, cloud-envelop'd head," &c. are
beautiful. A thunder-storm is a subject which has been often tried,
yet our poet in his grand picture has interjected a circumstance, so
far as I know, entirely original:--

-----------------------------"the gloom
Deep seam'd with frequent streaks of moving fire.