There are dark craggy mountains around the Grey-Mare's-Tail,
echoing to the roar of its stupendous cataract; and romantic and
beautiful green hills, and inaccessible heights, surrounding and
towering over St Mary's Loch, and the Loch of the Lowes. To the
sublimity of that vast academy, in which he had learned to invoke the
Muse, the poet has referred in the "Queen's Wake":--
"The bard on Ettrick's mountain green,
In Nature's bosom nursed had been;
And oft had mark'd in forest lone
The beauties on her mountain throne;
Had seen her deck the wildwood tree,
And star with snowy gems the lea;
In loveliest colours paint the plain,
And sow the moor with purple grain;
By golden mead and mountain sheer,
Had view'd the Ettrick waving clear,
When shadowy flocks of purest snow
Seem'd grazing in a world below."
Glorious as was his academy, the genius of the poet was not precocious.
Forgetting everything he had learned at school, he spent his intervals
of toil in desultory amusements, or in pursuing his own shadow upon the
hills. As he grew older, he discovered the possession of a musical ear;
and saving five shillings of his earnings, he purchased an old violin,
upon which he learned to play his favourite tunes. He had now attained
his fourteenth year; and in the constant hope of improving his
circumstances, had served twelve masters.
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