But situation, and was then almost in a state of dotage. the Scotch Law lectures were those of Mr David Hume, who still continues to occupy that situation with as much honour to himself as advantage to his country. I copied over his lectures twice with my own hand, from notes taken in the class, and when I have had occasion to consult them, I can never sufficiently admire the penetration and clearness of conception which were necessary to the arrangement of the fabric of law, formed originally under the strictest influence of feudal principles, and innovated, altered, and broken in upon by the change of times, of habits, and of manners, until it resembles some ancient castle, partly entire, partly ruinous, partly dilapidated, patched and altered during the succession of ages by a thousand additions and combinations, yet still exhibiting, with the marks of its antiquity, symptoms of the skill and wisdom of its founders, and capable of being analysed and made the subject of a methodical plan by an architect who can understand the various styles of the different ages in which it was subjected to alteration. Such an architect has Mr Hume been to the law of Scotland, neither wandering into fanciful and abstruse disquisitions, which are the more proper subject of the antiquary, nor satisfied with presenting to his pupils a dry and undigested detail of the laws in their present state, but combining the past state of our legal enactments with the present, and tracing clearly and judiciously the changes which took place, and the causes which led to them. Under these auspices I commenced my legal studies. A little parlour was assigned me in my father's house, which was spacious and convenient, and I took the exclusive possession of my new realms with all the feelings of novelty and liberty. Let me do justice to the only years of my life in which I applied to learning with stern, steady, and undeviating industry. The rule of my friend Clerk and myself was, that we should mutually qualify ourselves for undergoing an examination upon certain points of law every morning in the week, Sundays excepted. This was at first to have taken place alternately at each other's houses, but we soon discovered that my friend's resolution was inadequate to severing him from his couch at the early hour fixed for this exercitation. Accordingly I agreed to go every morning to his house, which, being at the extremity of Princes Street, New Town, was a walk of two miles. With great punctuality, however, I beat him up to his task every morning before seven o'clock, and in the course of two summers, we went, by way of question and answer, through the whole of Heineccius's Analysis of the Institutes and Pandects, as well as through the smaller copy of Erskine's Institutes of the Law of Scotland. This course of study enabled us to pass with credit the usual trials, which, by the regulations of the Faculty of Advocates, must be undergone by every candidate for admission into their body. My friend William Clerk and I passed these ordeals on the same days-namely, the Civil Law trial on the [30th June 1791], and the Scots Law trial on the [6th July 1792]. On the [11th July 1792] we both assumed the gown with all its duties and honours. My progress in life during these two or three years had been gradually enlarging my acquaintance, and facilitating my entrance into good company. My father and mother, already advanced in life, saw little society at home, excepting that of near relations, or upon particular occasions, so that I was left to form connections in a great measure for myself. It is not difficult for a youth with a real desire to please and be pleased, to make his way into good society in Edinburgh-or indeed anywhere-and my family connections, if they did not greatly further, had nothing to embarrass my progress. I was a gentleman, and so welcome anywhere, if so be I could behave myself, as Tony Lumpkin says, 'in a concatenation accordingly.' [To the everlasting regret of the reader, Scott dropped the story of his life at this point. In the next chapter begins the consecutive narrative of his life from the pen of Dr Robert Chambers.] CHAPTER III. ANCESTRY AND ANECDOTES OF EARLY YEARS- ALTER SCOTT derived his origin from a family which was conspicuous in the rude and warlike times of the Scottish Border; but his father, as befitted a peaceable age, had devoted himself to legal business in Edinburgh: he was what is called in Scotland a Writer to the Signet, or practitioner of the highest grade next to the barristers. The mother of the novelist was daughter to an eminent medical professor of the Edinburgh University, Dr Rutherford. Simple worth and good manners alone distinguished this couple, whose lot it was to have six children that survived infancy, of whom the subject of this notice was the third. He was born in Edinburgh on the 15th August 1771. A fever in infancy being attended with an effect fatal to the use of his right limb, he was sent to be brought up at the farmhouse of his paternal grandfather, that free exercise in the open air might have a chance of working his cure by the recovery of the constitution. This new situation was romantic. Five or six miles from Kelso, and overlooking the course of the Tweed, is a little upland district, where the rocks push through a meagre soil, the highest being crowned by one of those tall narrow fortalices, once required by a warlike population on the Borders, but now almost all dismantled. Here was placed the retreat of the future poet. Decent and venerable relatives around the old-fashioned fireside; the affairs of a pastoral farm out of doors; an extensive tract of beautiful country presented to the eye, and the rocks and turrets of Smailholm Tower to ramble amongst-it was upon these things that the mind of Scott awoke from the sleep of infancy. For a long time he could at the most crawl about the house and its neighbourhood; but the intellect was early active. He listened with deep interest to the stories which his relatives had to tell of the old riding times of the Border history, as well as to their recollections of the romantic war of 1745; and, learning to read beside the knee of a kind aunt, he quickly seized upon such specimens of poetry and history as were within his reach-Ramsay's Tea-table Miscellany, to wit, and Josephus's Wars of the Jews. 'He says,' writes Lockhart, 'that his consciousness of existence dated from Sandyknowe; and how deep and indelible was the impression which its romantic localities had left on his imagination, I need not remind the readers of Marmion and the Eve of St John. 'There are still living in that neighbourhood two old women, who were in the domestic service of Sandyknowe, when the lame child was brought thither in the third year of his age. One of them, Tibby Hunter, remembers his coming well; and that "he was a sweet-tempered bairn, |