184.  The western waves, etc.  This description of the Trosachs was written amid the scenery it delineates, in the summer of 1809.  The Quarterly Review (May, 1810) says of the poet:  “He sees everything with a painter’s eye.  Whatever he represents has a character of individuality, and is drawn with an accuracy and minuteness of discrimination which we are not accustomed to expect from mere verbal description.  It is because Mr. Scott usually delineates those objects with which he is perfectly familiar that his touch is so easy, correct, and animated.  The rocks, the ravines, and the torrents which he exhibits are not the imperfect sketches of a hurried traveller, but the finished studies of a resident artist.”  See also on 278 below.

Ruskin (Modern Painters, iii. 278) refers to “the love of color” as a leading element in Scott’s love of beauty.  He might have quoted the present passage among the illustrations he adds.

195.  The native bulwarks, etc.  The Ms. has “The mimic castles of the pass.”

196.  The tower, etc.  Cf.  Gen. xi. 1-9.

198.  The rocky.  The 1st ed. has “Their rocky,” etc.

204.  Nor were, etc.  The Ms. reads:  “Nor were these mighty bulwarks bare.”

208.  Dewdrop sheen.  Not “dewdrops sheen,” or “dewdrops’ sheen,” as sometimes printed.  Sheen = shining, bright; as in v. 10 below.  Cf.  Spenser, F. Q. ii. 1. 10:  “So faire and sheene;” Id. iii. 4. 51:  “in top of heaven sheene,” etc.  See Wb.  The Ms. has here:  “Bright glistening with the dewdrop sheen.”

212.  Boon.  Bountiful.  Cf.  Milton, P. L. iv. 242: 

    “Flowers worthy of Paradise, which not nice art
     In beds and curious knots, but nature boon
     Pour’d forth profuse on hill, and dale, and plain.”

See also P. L. ix. 793:  “jocund and boon.”

217.  Bower.  In the old sense of chamber, lodging-place; as in iv. 413 and vi. 218 below.  Cf.  Spenser, F. Q. iii. 1. 58: 

    “Eftesoones long waxen torches weren light
     Unto their bowres to guyden every guest.”

For clift (= cleft), the reading of the 1st ed. and unquestionably what Scott wrote, every other edition that we have seen reads “cliff.”

219.  Emblems of punishment and pride.  See on iii. 19 below.

222, 223.  Note the imperfect rhyme in breath and beneath.  Cf. 224-25, 256-57, 435-36, 445-46 below.  Such instances are comparatively rare in Scott’s poetry.  Some rhymes that appear to be imperfect are to be explained by peculiarities of Scottish pronunciation.  See on 363 below.

227.  Shaltered.  The Ms. has “scathed;” also “rugged arms athwart the sky” in 229, and “twinkling” for glistening in 231.  The 1st ed. has “scattered” for shattered; corrected in the Errata.

231.  Streamers.  Of ivy or other vines.