his diligence in copying law-papers a means of gratifying his intellectual passions, often writing an unusual quantity, that with the result he might purchase some book or object of virtù which he wished to possess. It should be mentioned that the little room assigned to him on the kitchen-floor of his father's house in George Square was already made a kind of museum by his taste for curiosities, especially those of an antiquarian nature. He never was heard to grudge the years he had spent in his father's painstaking business; on the contrary, he recollected them with pleasure, for it was always a matter of pride with him to be a man of business as well as a man of letters. The discipline of the office gave him a number of little technical habits, which he never afterwards lost. He was, for instance, much of a formalist in the folding and disposal of papers. The writer of this narrative recollects folding a paper in a wrong fashion in his presence, when he instantly undid it, and shewed, with a schoolmasterlike nicety, but with great good-humour, the proper way to perform this little piece of business.

While advancing to manhood, and during its first few years, Scott, besides keeping up his desultory system of reading, attended the meetings of a literary society composed of such youths as himself. A selection of these and of his early schoolfellows, became his ordinary companions. Amongst them was Adam Ferguson, son of the well-known professor of that name; another was William Clerk, son of Mr Clerk of Eldin, and afterwards a member of the Scottish bar. It was the pleasure of this group of young men to take frequent rambles in the country, visiting any ancient castle or other remarkable object within their reach. Scott, notwithstanding his limp, walked as stoutly, and sustained fatigue as well, as any of them. Sometimes they would, according to the general habits of those days, resort to taverns for oysters and punch. Scott entered into such indulgences without losing self-control; but he lived to think this ill-spent time. As to other follies equally besetting to youth, it is admitted by all his early friends that he was in a singular degree pure and blameless. His genial good-humour made him a favourite with his young friends, and they could not deny his possessing much out-of-the-way knowledge; yet it does not appear that they saw in him any intellectual superiority, or reason to expect the brilliant destiny which awaited him. The tendency of all testimony from

those who knew him at this time is rather to set him down as one from whom nothing extraordinary was to be looked for in mature manhood.

We can easily see the grounds of this opinion. Scott had not been a good scholar. He shewed none of the peculiarities of the young sonneteer, for poetry was not yet developed in his nature. Any advantage he possessed over others of his own standing lay

in a kind of learning which seemed useless. It is not, then, surprising that he ranked only with ordinary youths, or perhaps a little below them. It is asserted, however, by James Ballantyne, that there was a certain firmness of understanding in Scott, which enabled him to acquire an ascendency over some of his companions; giving him the power of allaying their quarrels by a few words, and disposing them to submit to him on many other occasions. Still, this must have looked like a quality of the common world, and especially unconnected with literary genius.

When Scott's apprenticeship expired, the father was willing to introduce him at once into a business which would have yielded a tolerable income; but the youth, stirred by ambition, preferred advancing to the bar, for which his service in a writer's office was the reverse of a disqualification. Having therefore passed through the usual studies, he was admitted of the Faculty of Advocates, July 1792. This is a profession in which a young man usually spends a few years to little purpose, unless peculiar advantages in the way of patronage help him on. Scott does not appear to have done more for some sessions than pass creditably enough through certain routine duties which his father and others imposed upon him, and for which only moderate remuneration was made. He wanted the ready fluent address which is required for pleading, and his knowledge of law was not such as to attract business to him as a consulting counsel. While lingering out the first few idle years of professional life, he studied the German language and some of its modern writers. He also continued the same kind of antiquarian reading for which he had already become remarkable. Amongst other things giving a character to his mind, were certain annual journeys he made into the pastoral district of Liddesdale, where the castles of the old Border chiefs, and the legends of their exploits, were still rife. On these occasions, he was accompanied by an intelligent friend, Mr Robert Shortreed, long after sheriff-substitute at Jedburgh. No inns, and hardly any roads, were then in Liddesdale. The farmers were a simple race, knowing nothing of the outward world. So much was this the case, that one honest fellow, at whose house the travellers alighted to spend a night, was actually frightened at the idea of meeting an Edinburgh advocate. Willie o' Milburn, as this hero was called, at length took a careful survey of Scott round a corner of the stable, and getting somewhat reassured from the sight, said to Mr Shortreed: 'Weel, de'il ha'e me if I's be a bit feared for him now; he's just a chield like ourselves, I think.' On these excursions, Scott took down from old people anecdotes of the old rough times, and copies of the ballads in which the adventures of the Elliots and Armstrongs were recorded. Thus were laid the foundations of the collection which became in time the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. The friendship of Mr Edmonstone of Newton led him, in like manner, to visit those districts of Stirlingshire and lower

Perthshire where he afterwards localised his Lady of the Lake. There he learned much of the more recent rough times of the Highlands, and even conversed with one gentleman who had had to do with Rob Roy. These things constituted the real education of Scott's mind, as far as his character as a literary man is concerned.

Overlooking some boyish efforts in verse, which he had long forgotten, Scott could not be said to have as yet attempted the vocation of a poet. He must be considered as somewhat singular in the tuneful list, as having written no poetry worthy of the name before his twenty-fifth year. The cause of this undoubtedly lay in the preponderance which circumstances had hitherto given to other portions of his well-poised character, his anxiety to be a successful man of business, and a respected man of the world. It becomes, however, the more wonderful, as Scott, from early youth, had entertained a zealous affection for a young lady somewhat above his own rank in life, and who was well qualified to inspire a sonnet. At length, in 1796, the hearing a translation of Bürger's ballad of Lenore roused him to a similar attempt, and he produced in one night a most spirited version of this remarkable production. It was appreciated highly by a few persons of sensibility, among whom was Jane Anne Cranstoun, afterwards Countess Purgstall. In October of the above-named year, he was induced to venture into print with his translation of Lenore, joined to that of another of Bürger's ballads, The Wild Huntsman; but the little volume entirely failed to attract public attention.

From his earliest thinking years, Scott had been of Tory leanings. Montrose, Claverhouse, and the heroes of the '15 and '45, were his favourites in Scottish history, by reason of the romantic circumstances with which they were connected. More retrospective at all times than prospective, he partook deeply in the zeal with which liberal politics were now discouraged in Britain. In April 1794-the time when Robespierre was at his zenith in France-some Irish students produced a riot in the Edinburgh theatre by calling for revolutionary tunes. Scott and some other young zealots of the opposite side distinguished themselves much in the tumult; he himself was bound over to keep the peace, with three broken heads laid to his especial charge. In the early part of 1797, we find him exhibiting his political sentiments in a more laudable manner, by joining a troop of volunteer cavalry as their quarter-master, and writing a war-song for them. In the drills and other doings of this corps, he displayed an ardour which lay deep in his nature, and which had a strong affinity for military affairs. But the affair told in no discernible way on his future life. He was about this time subjected to a severe trial of spirit by the marriage of his mistress to a more fortunate lover. Even thirty years afterwards, he could not set down a few words about this lady in his journal without some agitation. His disappointment, by perhaps a natural reaction of feeling, led soon after to a change in his condition. Spending a few idle days at Gilsland

Wells in Cumberland, he chanced there to meet a young French emigrée lady of English extraction, named Charlotte Carpenter. Possessing beauty and some little fortune, she suited Scott both as a poet and a man of the world, and little more than two months from the commencement of their acquaintance, they were united at Carlisle. He now commenced housekeeping in Edinburgh, where he had hitherto lived in his father's house.

We now see Scott as a young married man, spending the winter in the bosom of a frugal but elegant society in Edinburgh, and the summer months in a retired cottage on the beautiful banks of the Esk at Lasswade; cultivating, as before, literary tastes, and storing his mind with his favourite kind of learning, but not as yet conscious of his active literary powers, or thinking of aught but the duties of his profession and the claims of his little family. Simple and manly in habits, good-humoured, and averse to disputation, full of delightful information, kind and obliging to all who came near him, yet possessed of a rectitude and solidity of understanding which never allowed him to be the fool of any of his feelings, it is no wonder that Walter Scott was a general favourite, or that he attracted the regard of several persons of rank, as the Duke of Buccleuch, Lord Melville, and others. It was through the kindness of the first of these noblemen that, in 1799, he obtained the appointment of sheriff of Selkirkshire, an office of light duty, with a salary of £300 per annum. Though anxious to attain professional reputation, to which literary notoriety is supposed to be adverse, he could not altogether refrain from the poetical exercises in which he had already broken ground. We therefore find him at this time translating and publishing a version of Goethe's Goetz von Berlichingen, a drama of such a romantic cast as harmonised entirely with his peculiar taste. He also was induced, by Mr M. G. Lewis, the well-known author of The Monk, to write two or three ballads on supernatural themes for a collection which was to be entitled Tales of Wonder. Goetz appeared in February 1799, but met the fate of the former publication. When the Tales of Wonder came out, Scott's ballads, though unfortunate in their association, obtained some praise, yet, on the whole, might also be considered as a failure. These would have been disappointments to a man who had set his heart on literary reputation. To Scott, who was at all periods of his career humbleminded about his literary efforts, they were nothing of the kind. In this respect he was a pattern to all authors, present and to come.

The circumstances seem to have been almost accidental which led him to make his first serious adventure in the literary world. His schoolfellow, James Ballantyne, was now settled at Kelso in the management of a weekly newspaper. Merely to give employment to his friend's types during the intervals of their ordinary use, Scott proposed to print a small collection of the old ballads which for some years he had been collecting on the Border. When the design

was formed, he set about preparing the work, for which he soon obtained some assistance from Richard Heber and John Leyden— the former an Englishman of fortune, and an enthusiastic collector of books; the latter a Scottish peasant's son, who had studied for the church, and become a marvel of learning, especially in languages and antiquities. The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border thus grew upon his hands, until it became such an assemblage of ballads, ancient and modern, and of historical annotation, as could only be contained in three octavo volumes. The first two made their appearance in January 1802, and met a favourable reception. Many of the ballads were entirely new to the world; even those which had been published before, here appeared in superior versions. Industry in the collection of copies, and taste in the selection of readings, had enabled the editor to present this branch of popular literature with attractions it never possessed before; while the graceful and intelligent prose interspersed throughout, rich with curious learning, and enlivened by many a pleasant traditionary anecdote, served to constitute the whole as a most agreeable mélange. The work gave Scott at once a respectable place in the literary republic, more indeed as an editor than as an author, though one would suppose few could be altogether insensible to the spirit and graphic power displayed in the ballads of his own composition.

The public generally, and the booksellers in particular, were agreeably surprised to find the Minstrelsy, while bearing the unwonted imprint of 'Kelso,' a marvel of beautiful typography; a circumstance owing to the good taste of James Ballantyne, and which was of some avail in increasing the popularity of the work. It appears that Scott, besides some gains from the first edition, obtained soon after £500 for the copyright.

About this time he inherited between five and six thousand pounds from a paternal uncle. This, with his share of his deceased father's property, his sheriffship, and his wife's allowance from her brother, now advancing to fortune in India, made his income altogether about a thousand a year. He had been ten years at the bar with little success; his gains seldom reaching two hundred a year, and these from the merest drudgeries of the profession. It began, therefore, to appear to him that, in as far as any further income might be required to support his station in life, and advance the prospects of his children, it would be well to look for it rather to some post in the Court of Session, such as one of the principal clerkships, than to practice as a barrister. Assured in the meantime against want, and trusting to such a prospect being realisable by his friends the Buccleuchs and Melvilles, he gradually became disposed to give more of his regards to literature. As to income from this source, he had little hope or faith. Literary research and composition were as yet their own reward with him; if any more solid remuneration accrued, he was happy to receive it; but he would not depend on