And lest the poet's estimate of the simple virtue which
is thus jeopardized should be suspected of partiality, it may be
allowable to corroborate it by the testimony of an eminent man, not
a native of the district, though a settler therein in later life,
and whose writings, perhaps, have done more than any man's since
Wordsworth to increase the sum of human enjoyment derived both from
Art and from Nature.
"The Border peasantry of Scotland and England," says Mr. Ruskin,[6]
"painted with absolute fidelity by Scott and Wordsworth,--(for
leading types out of this exhaustless portraiture, I may name
Dandie Dinmont, and Michael,) are hitherto a scarcely injured race;
whose strength and virtue yet survive to represent the body and soul
of England, before her days of mechanical decrepitude, and
commercial dishonour. There are men working in my own fields who
might have fought with Henry the Fifth at Agincourt, without being
discerned from among his knights; I can take my tradesmen's word for
a thousand pounds; my garden gate opens on the latch to the public
road, by day and night, without fear of any foot entering but my own;
and my girl-guests may wander by road or moorland, or through every
bosky dell of this wild wood, free as the heather-bees or squirrels.
Pages:
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227