During this visit to Kelso, he awoke to that feeling of pleasure derived from the contemplation of those natural objects of which he had so fine a perception, and rejoiced over Percy's "Ballads" with heartfelt joy. Sometimes, on a bright summer day, while poring over the latter in a huge platanus-tree in the garden, "fast by the river Tweed," he lost all thought of dinner, usually the chief consideration to a youth with the keen appetite of thirteen. He states that the first few shillings he possessed were devoted to the purchase of the beloved volumes, and that henceforth his companions, and all who would hearken, were overwhelmed with recitations from their pages. Indeed he had an extraordinary memory, which was always used to good purpose, and ever retained such passages of an author as pleased him. He was particularly fond of Spenser, whose knights and ladies were well calculated to please his fancy and stimulate his imagination, as they continued to do in his greatest days. The same feeling3 that led him to luxuriate in the images and descriptions of the "Faery Queen," made him regard all ancient edifices with a peculiar veneration.

Recalled from this pleasant retreat, which was surrounded on every side with objects suggestive of pleasant dreams and charming reminiscences to a youthful poet, Scott, very much to his regret, as may be conceived, returned to Edinburgh, and was sent to college, at which, however, he gave no indications of such talents as were likely to conduct him to extraordinary greatness. Greek, especially, he made so little progress with as to be distinguished in the class by the harsh appellation of the "Greek blockhead ;" but, in after life, he much repented his neglect of it. Perhaps, all things considered, he was not sorry when another sickness sent him once more to Kelso, where he foreswore Latin, forgot the little Greek he had acquired, but read with avidity every-thing that came in his way and was capable of amusing.

Having entered, under the usual articles, upon a course of legal training in the office of his father, whose chief ambition was to see his son "a well-employed lawyer," he applied himself to his new duties with an industry, stimulated partly by a sincere wish to please his parents, and partly by an anxious desire to secure the fees for transcribing deeds, without which he could not conveniently have purchased such books as the bent of his mind led him eagerly, to covet. He acknowledges, indeed, that he was in the habit of keeping romances and other books in his desk, to be read secretly, by snatches, as an opportunity occurred. Moreover, he confesses to having disliked the drudgery and detested the confinement; and, no doubt, when copying documents for a whole day, without intermission, his fancy must often have strayed to the enchanting spot where the Tweed and Teviot form a junction - to the well-loved woods of Mertoun, and the beautiful vale of Melrose. His imagination would rebuild the dilapidated tower of Ercildoune, and people its high and ancient hall with the gallant knights and "ladies laced in pall," who sighed and wept to the strains drawn from the elfin harp of that wondrous Rhymer, of whose fame he was so vigilant a guardian; and the baronial castle of Home would rise before him, not as now, in "desolate grandeur," but as it stood when the argent lion displayed from its battlements seemed to sentinel the rich territory over which it looked. These were the scenes early and indelibly stamped on the tablets of his heart, rendered famous by his pen, and the mention of which to the last stirred his finest sympathies.

But his attention was now attracted to another quarter, and his enthusiasm evoked by fresh scenes. He began to pay his annual visits to the Highlands, and became familiar with the manners, customs, and scenery which, in after years, he depicted so radiantly in "The Lady of the Lake," "Waverley," and "Rob Roy."

About this period he formed a romantic and fanciful attachment, the memory of which is said to have haunted him in maturer years. The object of it was a young lady highly connected, and so well provided for in regard to fortune, that there was little chance of her father's pride being bowed to consent to her marriage with the young student of law, though the latter for years nourished the hope of an ultimate union. A wealthy rival carried her off, as generally happens in such cases; but so strong was the im-pression left by this youthful dream, that it furnished heroines, fair, graceful, and attractive, for some of his choicest and most interesting works of fiction. Meantime, in the second year of his engagement, he had been severely affected by the breaking of a blood-vessel, and, being confined to bed, amused himself with his favourite books, illustrating the battles and sieges of which he read with chess-men, shells, seeds, and pebbles, arranged in such a manner as to represent the hostile armies in battle array. He also had mirrors so placed in his room, as to enable him to watch the troops march to and from their exercise in the neighbouring meadows. Thus was he unconsciously preparing himself for describing scenes of war. It was about this time that he saw, at the house of a friend, the poet Burns, then being lionised in the Scottish capital, who, for some opportune information in regard to a quotation on a print, rewarded him with a kind look, and the cherished words, "You'll be a man yet, sir!" It would be interesting to know what influence an expression so full of meaning and encouragement from the bard of the people had on the future of his immortal successor.

Not much relishing that branch of the legal profession to which his grave father belonged, Scott resolved, much to the old attorney's satisfaction, to qualify for the bar, which he calls "the line of ambition and liberty." In 1792 he assumed the gown, and began to "sweep the boards of the Parliament House;" but as he had already collected a number of curious old books, rare coins, Highland claymores, with all sorts of antiquities within his reach, besides exploring Flodden Field, which, years after, he so gloriously celebrated, and was, in less than three months after being called to the bar, on a raid into Liddesdale in search of Border ballads, it is almost impossible to think that his heart could ever have been earnestly in his professional pursuits. At all events it is certain, that if he made efforts they were not, in the highest degree, successful. However, he was appointed sheriff of Selkirkshire, an office which appears to have been particularly acceptable, as bringing him to localities noted as the scenes of contests on which his works have conferred an enduring fame. His literary productions, up to this date had failed to attract that attention which thev deserved; but the time was fast approaching when his genius was to burst forth in all its brightness. In 1802 he gave to the world" The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border;" and it at once excited public interest, and gave him a standing as a man of letters. Circumstances led him to write "The Lay of the Last Minstrel," which, in 1805, placed him in the first rank of original poets, as it well might. Three years later came "Marmion," followed by "The Lady of the Lake." Then, a new luminary arising to attract all eyes, Scott struck into another path. The success of "Waverley" vindicated his prescience, and encouraged him to go on. His ardent sympathy with the past, which had been inhaled among the crags of Smailholme and gradually extended itself to the whole society of past ages, bore down every obstacle in the way to fame. He poured the vast and hoarded treasures of his great mind and glowing imagination into the heart of Christendom. Deeply attached, as he undoubtedly was, to his country's soil, it was not on it alone that he accomplished his splendid triumphs. In treating of England and France he was equally, if not more successful, as "Ivanhoe" and "Quentin Durward" prove; and in the "Tales of the Crusaders," a wondering world beheld a picture of the ancient warriors of the Crescent and the Cross, and of the manners and customs of the East held up to their view, with the same vividness of colouring and power of delineation, as when the scene was laid amid the stern realities of his native land.

In 1820 Scott was created a baronet. Immense and unprecedented sums were produced by his writings, and up to 1825 no prosperity, recorded of literary men, could be compared to that which he seemed to enjoy. Then came gloomy and disheartening reverses, which suddenly gave the world a knowledge of the authorship of the magical works they had been perusing, and himself an opportunity of proving the ardour of his heroic soul, the resources of his great genius, and that sense of duty which actuated him throughout life, but never more strongly than in his days of darkness.

He died at Abbotsford, his "romance in stone and lime," on the 21st of September, 1832. Perhaps no more fitting resting-place could have been selected for his bones than amid the ruins of Melrose, by that broken stone which covers the ashes of the dread wizard, who spake

"The words that cleft Eildon hills in three, And bridled the Tweed with a curb of stone."

But it was otherwise ordered, and his mortal remains were laid within the hoary Abbey of Dryburgh.