In January 1791, he made the acquaintance of Francis (afterwards Lord) Jeffrey, and made an excursion to Northumberland, when he first visited | the field of Flodden. "The Scott was called to the bar, 11th July 1792, and during the autumn vacation made another excursion into Northumberland, and he also visited Liddesdale, in search of materials for The Minstrelsy of the Border. He now commenced to study German,-works of genius in that language having been brought under the notice of Edinburgh society by Henry. Mackenzie, Man of Feeling." In 1793, he went to Galloway, to investigate the case of a minister whom he was employed to defend before the General Assembly on a charge of profanity and drunkenness. His defence of the rev. delinquent was unsuccessful, and his reception by the venerable Court was not calculated to increase his love for his profession; but his jaunt to Galloway afforded the only opportunity he ever had of seeing the scenery of Guy Mannering. In the autumn of this year he first visited the scenery of The Lady of the Lake, and extended his excursion into Forfarshire, where he inspected Glammis and Dunottar Castles, and near the latter first saw the prototype of Old Mortality. In October 1796, he published | his translation of Lenore and The Wild Huntsman, but their appreciation was confined to the circle of his own friends and acquaintances. During the autumn vacation of 1797, he visited Cumberland; and while staying at Gilsland, first met Charlotte Margaret Carpenter, the daughter of a French gentleman | of English descent. Scott and Miss Carpenter, after obtaining the sanction of her guardian, were married at Carlisle, 24th December 1797. After their marriage, they lived in lodgings in George Street, Edinburgh; but in the summer of 1798, they rented a cottage at the beautiful village of Lasswade; and here Scott composed most of those ballads in which he first displayed his poetic powers. In 1799, he published Goethe's Goetz von Berlichingen, for the copyright of which he got 25 guineas; and about the same time he wrote "The House of Aspen" and several other poems. This year, through the influence of the Duke of Buccleuch and Lord Melville, he was appointed Sheriff of Selkirk, with a salary of £300 a-year. The Minstrelsy occupied his leisure during 1800 and 1801, and his researches brought him into intimate connection with several literary coadjutors, among whom were Richard Heber, the accomplished John Leyden, William Laidlaw, Joseph Ritson, the antiquarian, George Ellis, and James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, under whose uncouth appearance and manners Scott discovered a poet with originality, wit, and absurdity, that amused and delighted him. In January 1802, The Minstrelsy, in two volumes, printed by Ballantyne at Kelso, was published by Cadell & Davis, London. The first edition consisted of 800 copies, and Scott's share of the profits was £78, IOS. In autumn, he wrote the draft of The Lay of the Last Minstrel, which he at first designed as a ballad for a third volume of The Minstrelsy. In 1803, while in London, he sold the copyright of The Minstrelsy, including the third volume, to Longman & Co. for £500, and made extracts for Sir Tristrem from MSS. in the Duke of Roxburghe's library. He also visited Oxford with his friend Heber. In September he was first visited by Wordsworth and his sister, and he conducted them over Roslin Chapel and Melrose Abbey. He also assisted the Ettrick Shepherd, by inducing Constable to publish Hogg's Mountain Bard. In 1804, he removed to Ashestiel, near Selkirk. by Jeffrey in The Edinburgh, its success was very great-8000 copies having sold in six months. It was followed by Dryden's Works in 18 volumes, which was highly spoken of in The Edinburgh, in a review by Hallam, the historian. As soon as Dryden was off his hands, he took up Swift's Works, for which Constable & Co. agreed to give £1500. In November, he was visited by John Murray, the London publisher, who informed him of his project of a Review in opposition to The Edinburgh. Scott entered heartily into the scheme, and wrote Gifford, the proposed editor, his views on the subject. Such was the origin of The Quarterly Review, to the establishment of which Scott was urged by his breach with The Edinburgh, on account of its review of Marmion, and his dislike of its political creed. In January 1809, an estrangement with Constable & Co. ended in an open rupture; and immediately after, Scott and Ballantyne started an opposition pub The Lay of the Last Minstrel was published in January 1805, and its success decided him in making literature his profession. It was reviewed by Jeffrey in the Edinburgh Review in terms of high praise. The author's share of the profits of the first edition was £169; and he sold the copyright for £500. Scott now entered into a secret partnership with his printer Ballantyne, and set about with much alacrity to pro-lishing house, under the name of John mote the interests of the business. For this purpose he undertook an edition of Dryden's Works, besides projecting an edition of The British Poets, which was not entered upon. In 1806, he went to London, and obtained the appointment of Clerk to the Court of Session. He was much fêted, dined with the Princess Caroline, and at Holland House; and made the acquaintance of Joanna Baillie. In November he commenced Marmion, for which Constable & Co. gave him a thousand guineas without seeing a line of it. It was published in February 1808, and though unfavourably reviewed Ballantyne & Co., with John as manager. In the new concern, Scott's interest was one-half, kept secret as in the case of the printing business. In July, he visited the Trossachs, and at Cambusmore, near Callander, wrote part of The Lady of the Lake, which made its appearance in 1810, as the first venture of John Ballantyne & Co. It was, as Jeffrey predicted, the most popular of Scott's poems, and its reception turned his attention more to the Highlands, and determined his making a tour to the Hebrides, in place of one he contemplated to the theatre of the Peninsular campaign. The firm of John Ballan tyne & Co. was not long established, £4000 to meet their immediate necessiwhen its affairs began to give Scott❘ ties. About the same time, he was cause of uneasiness; and his mortifica- offered the Laureateship, which, with tion was such, that in writing his brother, he expressed his intention of going to India. In 1811, The Vision of Don Roderick, the profits of which formed his contribution to the fund for the relief of the Portuguese who suffered in consequence of the war, was published, and brought £100 into the committee's funds. In the summer he bought, for £4000, a small property of about 100 acres, near Melrose, called Clarty Hole; and in December he informed Mr Morritt of his intention to make Rokeby the subject of a poem to raise the means for building a cottage at Abbotsford-the name he gave his property. In the beginning of 1812, Scott came into possession of his salary of £1300 ayear, and in July he opened a correspondence with Lord Byron, which led to an intimate friendship between them. In May he removed to Abbotsford, still in an unfinished state; yet amid all the bustle and confusion incident to such circumstances, there was no abatement of his literary labours. About Christmas, Rokeby made its appearance, and ten thousand of it sold in three months. In March 1813, The Bridal of Triermain was published anonymously. In May, the affairs of John Ballantyne & Co. arrived at a condition which determined Scott to have the concern wound up, and he opened negotiations with Constable and Co. for that purpose; while he was under the necessity of asking the Duke of Buccleuch's guarantee for a credit of the duke's advice, he declined, recommending Southey for the honour. In the autumn of this year, the fragment of Waverley, written in 1805, turned up accidentally, and he resolved to finish it. He objected to be taxed on his literary earnings as property, and being legally advised, resisted the claim, which was then abandoned by the Lords of the Treasury. In December, at the request of the Town Council of Edinburgh, he drew up a congratulatory address to the Prince Regent, on the prosperous course of public events, which, when presented, the prince characterised as the most elegant a sovereign ever received, or a subject offered. On this occasion he received the freedom of the city and a piece of plate. In 1814, Swift's Life and Works was published. He also contemplated an edition of Pope's works on the same scale, but never overtook it. Waverley appeared in July, and its sale amounted to 5000 copies by the end of the year. The vacation of this summer was devoted to a voyage round the coast of Scotland, during which he kept an interesting diary. The Lord of the Isles appeared in January 1815, and its reception was the first indication of a decline of his poetic popularity. It was while writing it, that he made the acquaintance of Joseph Train, to whose researches it owes some notes. Guy Mannering, the work of six weeks, followed in February, and its success equalled that of Waverley. Being in London this year, he first met Byron, when the two poets became fast friends, and on parting exchanged gifts, in imitation of the heroes in the Iliad. He dined twice with the Prince Regent, who presented him with a valuable gold snuff-box, as a memorial of their first meeting. Urged by the enthusiasm that followed the victory of Waterloo, he set out for the Continent on the 15th July. In the course of his tour-his first on the Continent-he visited Antwerp, Brussels, and the field of Waterloo, whence he proceeded to Paris, where he was received with much distinction by the Duke of Wellington. In October was published The Field of Waterloo, the profits of the first edition of which were given for the relief of the widows and orphans of those slain in the battle. His observations on the Continent, contained in his letters to Mrs Scott, were published in January 1816, as Paul's Letters to his Kinsfolk; and in May appeared The Antiquary, of which 6000 sold in six days. As a ruse on the public, the first series of Tales of My Landlord, which appeared in December, wanted "The Author of Waverley" on the title-page, yet the sale was equal to that of the other series. The reception of Harold the Dauntless, which was published anonymously in January 1817, determined his resolution to make no more serious attempts in poetry. In August he was visited by Washington Irving, who, long after, wrote a pleasing account of his reception. After Irving came Lady Byron, followed by Sir David Wilkie, who painted Scott's family as a group of peasants. Rob Roy was issued in December 1817, in an edition of 10,000 copies, but in a fortnight after other 3000 were required to meet the demand. The Heart of Midlothian appeared in June, and its reception in Scotland was unprecedented. In November, Scott was informed of the Prince Regent's wish to make him a baronet; and the intimation, received about the same time, that to his children was left the reversion of the fortune of their uncle, who died in India, removed any scruples about accepting the honour. In 1819, he sold all his copyrights to Constable & Co. for £12,000, the expenses of his buildings at Abbotsford, and the purchase of his son's commission, entailing this necessity. In June, the third series of Tales of My Landlord, consisting of The Bride of Lammermoor, and The Legend of Montrose, appeared; and in September he was visited by Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, afterwards King of the Belgians. About Christmas Ivanhoe was published, and was received in England with great enthusiasm. The Monastery, by the "Author of Waverley," was published in March 1820, and was considered a falling off. During vacation he went to London, and sat for his portrait to Sir Thomas Lawrence, by order of the king, and to Chantrey for his bust. He now received his baronetcy from the hands of the king, who remarked that it was the first creation of his reign. In May, the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge offered him the Degree of Doctor of Civil Laws, but he was unable to leave Scotland for the purpose. The plicity and disregard of exactness, assumed the 25th January, Burns' natal day, whether under a vague feeling of such a coincidence being an auspicious omen, or other equally irrational influence, it is impossible to tell; yet as he was baptized on the 9th December 1770, he| must have been born at least a fortnight earlier. He was the son of Robert Hogg, a shepherd in Ettrick Forest, Selkirkshire, who, having tried to improve his circumstances by farming, lost what savings he had accumulated as a shepherd, and was obliged to return to his original occupation. This reverse of fortune overtook the family when the poet was about six years old: he was therefore withdrawn from school, and in his seventh year was sent to herding -his wages being a ewe lamb, and a pair of shoes every six months, besides his board. In his eighth year he received a quarter's additional schooling, and learned to read the Bible. Thus ended his formal education. Being promoted from cow-herding to sheep-herding-a more dignified and leisurely employment-he procured a violin, and commenced teaching himself the native airs, cultivating his sense of harmony, and his national feelings. In his eighteenth year he fell in with Hamilton's modernized version of Blind Harry's Wallace, and Ramsay's Gentle Shepherd, which he says he wished had been in prose; he had a difficulty too with the Scotch of the latter. His love of reading soon procured him other books; and his naturally poetic ardour being soon touched, he began to try his hand at rhyme before he mastered the art of writing. To write was his next effort, and in this he soon acquired passable efficiency. This was all the artificial superstructure that he required. In 1797, while in the service of the father of William Laidlaw, Scott's amanuensis, and the author of "Lucy's Flitting," he obtained a copy of "Tam o' Shanter," which he committed to memory. He strongly felt and expressed the stimulus which it gave to the incipient promptings of his own muse. In 1800, he leased a small farm, where he kept his aged parents. He was known for some time as a local poet; but being in Edinburgh this year, he put his song of "Donald Macdonald " into general circulation, and it soon became a popular favourite. He visited Edinburgh again next year, and placed in the hands of a printer his first book, Scottish Pastoral Songs, etc., a little volume of 64 pages, full of all kinds of blunders, but now so scarce as to be reckoned a bibliographical treasure. Scott was at this time (1801) busy collecting the materials of his Border Minstrelsy, and, being on one of his excursions to the Forest, was introduced to Hogg by Laidlaw, when an intimacy which ripened into friendship sprung up between these, to a large extent kindred spirits, which only ended with their lives. Hogg and his mother greatly aided Scott with ballads, preserved mostly by tradition. But the shepherd's farm did not keep him long out of difficulties, and he had to give it up. His efforts to obtain a situation as sheepfarm manager in the Highlands were also unsuccessful, when Scott came to his assistance, and got Constable, then his publisher, to publish an edition of |
