Scott, who was a native of Aberdeen, paid him a
visit at Venice in the year 1819, in talking of the haunts of his
childhood, one of the places he particularly mentioned was
Wallace-nook, a spot where there is a rude statue of the Scottish
chief still standing. From first to last, indeed, these recollections
of the country of his youth never forsook him. In his early voyage
into Greece, not only the shapes of the mountains, but the kilts and
hardy forms of the Albanese,--all, as he says, "carried him back to
Morven;" and, in his last fatal expedition, the dress which he himself
chiefly wore at Cephalonia was a tartan jacket.
Cordial, however, and deep as were the impressions which he retained
of Scotland, he would sometimes in this, as in all his other amiable
feelings, endeavour perversely to belie his own better nature; and,
when under the excitement of anger or ridicule, persuade not only
others, but even himself, that the whole current of his feelings ran
directly otherwise. The abuse with which, in his anger against the
Edinburgh Review, he overwhelmed every thing Scotch, is an instance of
this temporary triumph of wilfulness; and, at any time, the least
association of ridicule with the country or its inhabitants was
sufficient, for the moment, to put all his sentiment to flight. A
friend of his once described to me the half playful rage, into which
she saw him thrown, one day, by a heedless girl, who remarked that she
thought he had a little of the Scotch accent.
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