a level, at least in one respect, with his fellow-students. With one chosen friend, he would ascend the Calton Hill, then, in a manner, out of the city; or climb up Arthur's Seat, which towers above it; or, in the grassy vale of St. Leonards, read books of romance or history; or sometimes, throwing the volume down, weave strange stories, like an improvisatore, to delight his admiring companion; or, pacing slowly through the ancient halls of Holyrood Palace, gaze on the pictured faces which were supposed to represent the ancient Scottish kings; or, in hushed awe, silently steal into the very bed-chamber of Mary Stuart, which remains precisely as she left it; or, in the cabinet where Rizzio was slain, see the dark marks of his blood, which popular belief still declares to be ineffaceable. Edinburgh is a city of legends and traditions; and none knew it and them more thoroughly than Scott.

After he had quitted college, where his course of study had been extremely desultory, for he read every thing except what was set down in the regular programme, he was apprenticed to his father, a Writer of the Signet. The family property in the country, though not large, constituted a lairdship; and, hitherto, the army, the navy, and (more rarely) the church had received the younger sons. Scott's father was the first who had condescended to become a lawyer. If Scott himself had not been lame from infancy, he would almost certainly have become a soldier. His tastes, wishes, and feelings were intensely military. He grew, ere his legal servitude was ended, into vigorous manhood, and was a skilful and fearless horseman; but his physical defect, which compelled him at most times to have the assistance of a sturdy stick, disqualified him for the army. After he had become eminent, his mother used to speak of his infirmity as a blessing; adding, that but

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for it he would have been a soldier, and might have fallen in battle.

From his sixteenth year, until he married, in his twenty-sixth, Walter Scott spent most of his leisure hours in wandering through the romantic scenes familiar to him in his childhood, and in visiting most of the places in his native land memorable in history, song, or legend. He continued to collect the relics of ancient poetry, which he regarded so highly; and his means then being limited, and chiefly devoted to the purchase of old books, he was content to live, in his wanderings through the country, in a homely manner among the peasantry, particularly during his annual visits to Liddesdale, a pastoral district, with remains of the castles of the old border chiefs, and many stories about them. There were no inns and few roads in this district, but a great deal of hospitality. Scott made himself at home among the simple inhabitants, who knew little of the outer world, and were charmed with his genial manners and familiar anecdotes. Years afterwards, when he was a renowned author, and, what they thought much higher of, sheriff of the county of Selkirk, one of his former companions said, "He spoke to every man as if he were one of his family." There may have been the pride of condescension in this; but that species of pride is sometimes akin to virtue.

From these sources came, first, a few imitations of the ancient ballads; next, that great work (literally a labor of love; for it was not expected the utmost possible sale would do more than repay the expense of production), "The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border;" after that, a series of national narrative poems, which at once gave their author unprecedented popularity, and were produced with so little apparent effort, that they closely resembled improvisation; and lastly, in company with heavy labors of editorship, criticism,

biography, and history, "The Waverley Novels," which founded a new order of fiction, the historical romance. These novels, with the exception of "Guy Mannering," "The Pirate," "The Black Dwarf," and "The Bride of Lammermoor," are historical: even "The Antiquary" includes scenes arising out of the expectation of the French invasion of England. The series may be said to commence, chronologically, towards the close of the eleventh century, - in the time

of William Rufus, -and to terminate on the eve of the present century. The author varied his scenes from Great Britain to France, Germany, Switzerland, Greece, Turkey, Syria, and India. He wrote of foreign lands and peoples as if he had lived among them, and drew materials for romance from each.

Independent of the historical characters of note whom he has presented in his poems, Walter Scott reproduced as many in his novels as would suffice to fill a gallery. In "Ivanhoe," we have Richard the Lion-hearted, false-hearted John, and Robin Hood; in "The Talisman," Richard again appears, in company with Saladin; in "Count Robert of Paris" are Alexius Commenus, Emperor of Greece, and that fair pedant, Anna Commena, his daughter; in "Castle Dangerous," we have "the Black Douglas;" in "The Fair Maid of Perth," Robert the Third of Scotland, his court, and family; in "Quentin Durward," Louis the Eleventh of France, Charles the Bold of Burgundy, the brave Dunois, Cardinal Balue, Philip des Comines, and Oliver le Dain; in "Anne of Geierstein," Louis of France and Charles of Burgundy, with Margaret of Anjou, Edward the Fourth, and Richard the Third of England, René the minstrel-monarch, of Provence, and the Emperor Sigismund of Austria; in "The Monastery" and "The Abbot," the Regent Murray, Mary Stuart, the Lady of Lochleven and George Douglas, bold Ruthven, Lady

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Mary Fleming, and courageous Catherine Seyton; in "Kenilworth," Elizabeth Tudor, with crafty Cecil, Leicester and Amy Robsart, Shakspeare and Spenser, Sussex and Walsingham, and gallant Sir Walter Raleigh; in "The Fortunes of Nigel," James the First, Prince Charles (afterwards "the Martyr "), Buckingham, and Master George Heriot the Edinburgh goldsmith; in "A Legend of Montrose," the Earl of Montrose, Prince Rupert, Argyle, and Burleigh; in "Woodstock," Charles the Second, Oliver Cromwell and his daughter, Buckingham, Rochester, Sir Charles Sedley, the Marquis of Montrose, General Monk, Shakspeare, Ben Jonson, Sir William Davenant, John Milton, Patrick Carey the poet, Queen Eleanor, Rosamond Clifford, and the patriarchal royalist Sir Henry Lee of Ditchley; in "Peveril of the Peak," Charles the Second and Queen Catherine, Queen Henrietta Maria, James the Second and his daughter (afterwards Queen Anne), Ormond, Shaftesbury, the fair Duchess of Richmond, La Belle Louise de Queronaille and Nell Gwynne, Sir Edmondsbury Godfrey and Sir Geoffrey Hudson, Villiers Duke of Buckingham, Elkanah Settle, Thomas Chiffinch and Titus Oates, the Countess and Earl of Derby, ChiefJustice Scroggs, and Colonel Thomas Blood, who attempted to steal the king's crown out of the Tower of London, and was pensioned for his audacity, the faithful keeper who prevented the theft being left to starve; in "The Betrothed," Henry the Second of England, Richard and John Plantagenet, and Sir Hugo de Lacy; in "Old Mortality," John Balfour of Burleigh, Archbishop Sharpe, the Duke of Monmouth, Claverhouse, and the Duke of Lauderdale; in "Rob Roy," the famous raider from whom the tale is named; in "The Heart of Mid Lothian," Queen Caroline and her court, the Duke of Argyle, and Captain Porteus; in “Waverley," the Young Chevalier, Col

onel Gardiner, and the butcher-duke of Cumberland; in "The Surgeon's Daughter," Hyder Ali and his son Tippoo Saib; in "Redgauntlet," the Chevalier Charles Stuart, Miss Walkinshaw, and "Black Colin Campbell."

The original creations of Scott's own genius were even more numerous than these: perhaps it would be more accurate to say, without detracting from his invention, that he scarcely ever drew any character, not historical, without having some one in his mind whom he had met, or read or heard of. The introduction of small traits and peculiarities gave a marked individuality to the various fictitious persons whom he presented. When he drew from history, he seized the salient points which contemporaries had noticed, and freely used them for his purpose. The general accuracy of this class of characters is freely admitted by his most severe critics. His poetic temperament invested the pictures of memory with the glow of imagination; yet he rarely lost sight of Nature. Hence his descriptions of scenery have breadth as well as detail, and are accurate as well as vivid.

His poetic temperament, which almost justified him in believing that, from an ascending series of successes as a writer, as he told Wordsworth, he could easily make any amount of money that he required, made him resolve to become a lord of the soil, at vast cost, and on a large scale, and plan a residence for himself. He was not content with a mansion, but erected that singular imitation of the olden style, which as it stands on the estate of Abbotsford, overlooking his well-beloved Tweed, well deserves the designation of "a romance in stone and lime." This stately dwelling, which is estimated to have cost thirty thousand pounds sterling, may be said to exhibit a great deal of the genius of its designer. It united. the picturesque, castellated architecture of a remote