The apology, after all, is only half-hearted.  For while Wordsworth esteemed Scott highly and was careful to speak publicly of his work with a qualified respect, it is well known that, in private, he set little value upon it, and once somewhat petulantly declared that all Scott’s poetry was not worth sixpence.  He wrote to Scott, of “Marmion”:  “I think your end has been attained.  That it is not the end which I should wish you to propose to yourself, you will be aware.”  He had visited Scott at Lasswade as early as 1803, and in recording his impressions notes that “his conversation was full of anecdote and averse from disquisition.”  The minstrel was a raconteur and lived in the past, the bard was a moralist and lived in the present.

There are several poems of Wordsworth’s and Scott’s touching upon common ground which serve to contrast their methods sharply and to illustrate in a striking way the precise character of Scott’s romanticism.  “Helvellyn” and “Fidelity” were written independently and celebrate the same incident.  In 1805 a young man lost his way on the Cumberland mountains and perished of exposure.  Three months afterwards his body was found, his faithful dog still watching beside it.  Scott was a lover of dogs—­loved them warmly, individually; so to speak, personally; and all dogs instinctively loved Scott.[18]

Wordsworth had a sort of tepid, theoretical benevolence towards the animal creation in general.  Yet as between the two poets, the advantage in depth of feeling is, as usual, with Wordsworth.  Both render, with perhaps equal power, though in characteristically different ways, the impression of the austere and desolate grandeur of the mountain scenery.  But the thought to which Wordsworth leads up is the mysterious divineness of instinct

          “. . . that strength of feeling, great
  Above all human estimate:”—­

while Scott conducts his story to the reflection that Nature has given the dead man a more stately funeral than the Church could have given, a comparison seemingly dragged in for the sake of a stanzaful of his favourite Gothic imagery.

  “When a Prince to the fate of the Peasant has yielded,
    The tapestry waves dark round the dim-lighted hall;
  With ’scutcheons of silver the coffin is shielded,
    And pages stand mute by the canopied pall: 
  Through the courts at deep midnight the torches are gleaming,
  In the proudly arched chapel the banners are beaming,
  Far adown the long aisle sacred music is streaming,
    Lamenting a chief of the people should fall.”

Wordsworth and Landor, who seldom agreed, agreed that Scott’s most imaginative line was the verse in “Helvellyn”: 

  “When the wind waved his garment how oft didst thou start!”