ing forth of Scott's bright day, neither Crabbe nor Moore had yet produced anything equal to their powers. Campbell, who, after attracting a large share of the public attention by his "Pleasures of Hope" and a few other short pieces, had laid aside his lyre for some five or six years, returned to woo the public favor by his "Gertrude of Wyoming" only after Scott had directed the public taste to narrative poetry; and Byron, who eventually outdid Scott and forced him to seek for greener laurels "in fresh fields and pastures new," in the most taking of his earlier productions seems to have owed his inspiration to the author of the "Lay of the Last Minstrel." It has been observed that "his 'Giaour,' 'The Bride of Abydos,' The Corsair,' etc., were, in reality, only Oriental lays and roTurkish Marmions' and 'Ladies of the Lake,' -yet containing nothing comparable to the great passages in those wonderful poems."

mances,

Walter Scott was born in Edinburgh on the 15th of August, 1771. "A Scotchman," says his biographer, "is nothing without his pedigree; and without tracing the family line back to its illustrious stock, the ducal house of Buccleugh, one dare not pass over" all of those ancestors whom Sir Walter especially loved to commemorate. There is his great-grandfather Walter, called Beardie, a stanch old Jacobite, who swore never to cut his beard until "Jamie should have his own again;" and as Jamie never did get his own again, he wore the venerable appendage till the day of his death. The portrait of Beardie, now at Abbotsford, is said strongly to resemble Sir Walter.

Then there is Beardie's grandfather, Auld Watt of Harden, a famous moss-trooper, the hero of a hundred Border songs, to whom nothing in the way of plunder came amiss that was not "too hot or too heavy;" and

there also is his wife, Mary Scott, "the Flower of Yarrow," who, when the last ox taken from English pastures was eaten, gave her liege lord an intimation of the poverty of the larder by placing on the board before him a pair of spurs in a covered dish, as a hint that he must bestir himself if he wanted to dine on the morrow.

It was this same stanch old Watt Harden who, returning with his armed retainers from a foray on the rich meadows of the south, driving a gallant herd before him, after grudgingly eying a large haystack upon the road, shook his fist at it, and rode grimly away, muttering, "By my soul, had ye but four feet, ye would na stan' there lang!" Then there is Auld Watt's comely son, who, riding a raid on the lands of Sir Gideon Murray, was caught by the baron and sentenced to be hanged, and cannily saved his neck by marrying the worst-looking of the baron's three unmarketable daughters, who is said to have been "precisely the ugliest girl in broad Scotland."

There too are the minstrels of his race, rough old Walter Scott, who sang of the glories of his clan; John Scott the Lamiter, or cripple; and William the Boltfoot, who left his deformity to Sir Walter.

Beardie himself has handed down to his descendants, as a specimen of his Latin poet-craft, a convivial chorus, which, translated, is,

"The beard shall grow, the beard shall grow

Until the thistle again shall blow."

In strong contrast to these bold Borderers and minstrels of Clan Scott another of Sir Walter's race is pictured by his biographer: a serene old man of ninety, who rises to welcome his now illustrious nephew; tall and erect he is, with long flowing hair, whitened like

silver. Kissing Walter on both cheeks, he heartily exclaims: "God bless thee, Walter, my man! thou hast risen to be great, but thou wert always good." The father of the poet, a writer to the signet, is said to have been the first of his lineage who was not soldier, sailor, or moss-trooper.

Walter Scott, when a child of eight summers, was found on recovery from a fever to have lost the use of his right leg. Quacks and regular physicians were alike unsuccessful in their attempts to restore to the infant poet his power of locomotion; but what the doctors failed to do, outdoor life and his own impatient desires effected; and after a time he began to stand a little, and by and by to walk and run, after a lame fashion.

He passes an independent child-life, by sea-side or among the heather, and is at length promoted from the old corn-baillie's shoulder to a Shetland pony of his own. Thus the time wears on till the lame boy is sent to school. In the Edinburgh High School he is more distinguished in the yards than in the class; for with that resolute will which served him so well in harder pulls, he has struggled with his natural infirmity until he can run, jump, and "climb the kittle nine stanes " with anybody. He is rather behind his class, both in years and progress, and he loves "better than lear" to lie under a high hill of leaves in the garden, reading "Ossian," Percy's "Reliques," and Spenser's "Faery Queen."

One of his school-fellows long remembers how he always got through his task first, and then, true to his inborn vocation, would whisper, "Come, slink over beside me, Jamie, and I'll tell you a story." At thirteen he is sent to the university. Having but "little Latin," he resolves to have "less Greek," and is here known as theGreek blockhead." A severe and dangerous ill

ness intervenes, and on returning to the university, he is found to have forgotten the very letters of the Greek alphabet. Of old ballads he knows a good stock, and has already been famous for his metrical translations at the High School. He confesses to a dislike to Latin, simply because it is classical, but having several favorite authors in this tongue, keeps up his knowledge of it, and can always read it sufficiently well. The languages of his beloved poets and romancers - French, Spanish, and Italian he reads with facility, but never speaks them. Later in life he learns some German, but at all times his chief studies are in English. In 1786 he is apprenticed to his father's profession. It is dry work; but whatever is to be done, reading, copying, going about, he does it with diligence. His miscellaneous readings exhaust the circulating library, and he is continually amassing new information of every kind.

He loves well to be with wood, water, and wilderness. All his holidays are spent in walking; and his good father says, "Surely, he was born to be a pedlar." "I only wish," responds the son, "that I were 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 about from cottage to cottage." " I doubt," says the grave, prosaic father, "I greatly doubt, sir, ye were born for nae better than a gangrel scraper."

In 1792 the poet puts on the advocate's robe. In his vacations, during seven successive years, the young lawyer makes "raids," as he calls them, into Liddesdale, where the rude, clannish people, still cleaving to the customs of their forefathers, have stores of mosstrooping legends. Here, at farm-house, manse, and cottage, he gathers old ballads, old tunes, and

"A fouth of auld nicknackets,

Rusty airn caps and jinglin jackets,”

"treasures," says his biographer, "for which he would have renounced the lord chief-justiceship, had it been offered him." "He was makin himsel a' the time," says his shrewd Scotch guide in these excursions; "but he didna ken maybe what he was about until years had passed." In 1796 appears his first publication, "Lenore" and the Wild Huntsman," translated from the German of Bürger. "Upon my word," exclaims one of his lady friends, "Walter Scott is going to turn out a poet!" "Lenore" is coldly received, but he determines to go on in spite of it.

At twenty-six the poet is "sair beside himself" for Miss Charlotte Parker. The lady is of French parentage, and very lovely and lovable, though not his first love. He woos and wins her, and she is his true and faithful wife for many long years. The same year, having been appointed sheriff of Selkirkshire, Scott is enabled to quit the drudgery of his profession, of which he says, after the manner of Slender in his wooing of Ann Page, "There was no great love between us in the beginning, and it pleased Heaven to decrease it on further acquaintance." Three years go by, and then the first and second volumes of the "Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border" make their appearance. They are well received, and in the ensuing year the last volume is published. In 1805 appears the "Lay of the Last Minstrel; it is enthusiastically received. And now, under the tall old trees by the Tweed-side, or wandering away along the wilderness through which the Yarrow creeps from her fountains, pacing his good black steed up and down the sands, to the "slow song of the sea," or galloping over brake, bush, and scar, reckless as his own