"From the high promontory gazed
The stranger, awe-struck and amazed."
The Critical Review (Aug. 1820) remarks of this portion of the poem (184
fol.): "Perhaps the art of landscape-painting in poetry has never been
displayed in higher perfection than in these stanzas, to which rigid
criticism might possibly object that the picture is somewhat too minute,
and that the contemplation of it detains the traveller somewhat too long
from the main purpose of his pilgrimage, but which it would be an act of
the greatest injustice to break into fragments and present by piecemeal.
Not so the magnificent scene which bursts upon the bewildered hunter
as he emerges at length from the dell, and commands at one view the
beautiful expanse of Loch Katrine."
281. Churchman. In its old sense of one holding high office in the
church. Cf. Shakespeare, 2 Hen. VI. i. 3. 72, where Cardinal Beaufort is
called "the imperious churchman," etc.
285. Cloister. Monastery; originally, the covered walk around the inner
court of the building.