humility as his models; there was doubtless national preIdilection in his estimate.'

[The print here referred to, over which Scott saw Burns shed tears, was presented by Sir Adam Ferguson to Dr Robert Chambers. It is now in the museum of the Chambers Institution, Peebles.]

CHAPTER V.

I

ADVOCATE AND AUTHOR.

HILE 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.

'On one of his first long walks with William Clerk of Eldin and others of the same set,' says Lockhart, 'their pace being about four miles an hour, was found rather too much for Scott, and he offered to contract for three, which measure was thenceforth considered as the legal one. At this rate they often continued to wander from five in the morning till eight in the evening, halting for such refresh

ment at mid-day as any village alehouse might afford. On many occasions, however, they had stretched so far into the country, that they were obliged to be absent from home all night; and though great was the alarm which the first occurrence of this sort created in George Square, the family soon got accustomed to such things, and little notice was taken even though Walter remained away for the better part of a week. I have heard him laugh heartily over the recollections of one protracted excursion, towards the close of which the party found themselves a long day's walk-thirty miles, I think—from Edinburgh, without a single sixpence left among them. "We were put to our shifts," said he; "but we asked every now and then at a cottage door for a drink of water; and one or two of the goodwives, observing our worn-out looks, brought forth milk in place of water-so with that, and hips and haws, we came in little the worse." His father met him with some impatient questions as to what he had been living on so long, for the old man well knew how scantily his pocket was supplied. "Pretty much like the young ravens," answered he. "I only wished I had been as good a player on the flute as poor George Primrose in The Vicar of Wakefield. If I had his art, I should like nothing better than to tramp like him from cottage to cottage over the world.""I doubt," said the grave Clerk to the Signet, "I greatly doubt, sir, you were born for nae better than a gangrel scrapegut." Some allusions to reproaches of this kind occur in the Memoir, and we find others in letters subsequent to his admission at the bar.'

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, and said: 'Depend upon it, of all vices drinking is the most incompatible with greatness.' 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 showed 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

F

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, I's no 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 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. One who well remembered young Walter Scott as seen in the Old Assembly Rooms, says, 'Young Walter Scott was a comely creature. He had outgrown the sallowness of early ill-health, and had a fresh brilliant complexion. His eyes were clear, open, and well set, with a changeful radiance, to which teeth of the most perfect regularity and whiteness lent their assistance, while the noble expanse and elevation of the brow gave to the whole aspect a dignity far above the charm of mere features. His smile was always delightful; and I can easily fancy the peculiar intermixture of tenderness and gravity with playful innocent hilarity and humour in the expression, as being well calculated to fix a fair lady's eye. His figure, excepting the blemish in one limb, must in those days have been eminently handsome; tall, much above the usual standard, it was cast in the very mould of a young Hercules, the head set on with singular grace, the throat and chest after the truest model of the antique, the hands delicately finished, the whole outline that of extraordinary vigour, without as yet a touch of clumsiness. When he had acquired a little facility of manner, his conversation must have been such as