foster nurse, who, poor woman, concealed her affliction from his parents. As the result of this illness he became lame for life in his right leg. A crowded city is a poor place for a lame child, so he was sent to his grandfather Scott's farm, where he grew up the favorite of the shepherds and the pet of his grandmother. Summer days were spent on the hills with the sheep and the shepherds, who were easily prevailed upon to tell their best tales to so appreciative a listener. Evenings and wintry weather he spent in the house coaxing stories out of his grandmother. A chance visitor was a prize, and was towed into port unmercifully. An unmarried aunt, of whom he ever spoke with affection, ransacked old books for stories to read him. The little fellow's memory was prodigious. A single reading of the longest tale was enough; he had it by heart and his childish voice was never weary of repeating it. The household appears at this time to have been devoted to his sole benefit, so much so that the local clergyman, who was accustomed, parish fashion, to hold forth gravely while the family listened, is said to have declared testily, that one might as well try to talk into the mouth of a cannon as attempt profitable conversation where such a child was shouting forth his latest heard ditty.

Scott has described his grandfather in the introduction to the third canto of Marmion as "The thatched mansion's gray-haired sire," etc., and in his preface to Guy Mannering we have an interesting anecdote of the same good gentleman. Smailholme Tower, in the vicinity of his grandfather's home, furnished the scene for one of his

earliest poems, the Eve of St. John, and the same tower is the Avenel Castle of The Abbot and The Monastery. Education. - We have seen already that the early influences about the young Walter were favorable to his becoming a writer. The same aunt who read to him also taught him to read. It appears, however, that he much preferred having her read to him, and that he was wont to suggest the superior wisdom of being allowed to go out to the head shepherd, to whom he refers in line 137 of the introduction to the third canto. His lameness held him back from going early to school. We find him, when quite a lad, visiting London, trying the cure at Bath, and oscillating between Edinburgh and Sandy Knowe. At this period, he tells us, he was anxious that George Washington should be signally defeated, and he gained some credit as a tactician by claiming beforehand that Burgoyne could never find his way among so many far off North American lakes. In October,. 1879, two years after Burgoyne's surrender, Walter was sent to the Edinburgh High School. He made excellent progress in English composition, and was noted for the fluency of his translations, but he was much more interested in the sports of the school yard, and particularly in the good-natured, but none the less vigorous, warfare vigilantly maintained between the boys of the school and the boys of the town. During his high school experience, which lasted five years, Walter read beyond all measure, even to the loss of his dinner; but he appears to have given little attention to his studies outside of the classroom. He was the favorite of his classmates, and, despite his lameness, he

was a leader in their sports and excursions; but he was the despair of his instructors, who thought they saw his talents going to waste. In after life he regretted not having been more systematic in his studies; but we can see that if he did not profit to the full extent by the disciplinary subjects of the high school, he did at least preserve his own natural method of expression, and, whatever he lost by heedlessness and want of application, we can see that his reading, his innocence, and his outdoor life brought him forward with his faculties unimpaired.

From the high school he went, far from well prepared, to the University of Edinburgh, where, at his father's request, he studied Latin, a term of Greek, ethics, moral philosophy, history, and civil and municipal law, — possibly a year's work in all. Lest students should find encouragement in this to neglect their work, we will add that in speaking of this course, Scott regretfully says: "If it should ever fall to the lot of youth to peruse these pages, let such a reader remember that it is with the deepest regret that I recollect in my manhood the opportunities of learning which I neglected in my youth; that through every part of my literary career I have felt pinched and hampered by my own ignorance; and that I would at this moment give half the reputation I have had the good fortune to acquire, if, by doing so, I could rest the remaining part upon a sound foundation of learning and science."

Legal Studies. Scott's father was bent on making a lawyer out of him; so, during the winter of 1785-6, Walter was enrolled in his father's office for a five years'

apprenticeship. Scott's attitude at this time may be known from his own expression of "entering upon the dry and barren wilderness of forms and conveyances." Although Scott was afterward fond of using law terms in his writings, it does not appear that he applied himself closely to a mastery of these legal forms. His desk, from all accounts, was filled up with old chronicles and tales of knight errantry, poetry, and fiction of adventure generally. His spare time was occupied with spinning tales to the office boys or writing short, romantic stories. His holiday afternoons were spent in exploring old bookstalls, unearthing antiquities, and in reading his tales to an intimate in the most lonely recesses of Salisbury Crag. The only part of his legal work in which he took genuine interest was the copying of documents, which he was able to do at a tremendous speed, and which, according to the rules of the office, yielded him a fee at so much per page. The money went for books, but not for books of law. It must not be supposed that Scott was an undutiful son, or that he was in disgrace with his family. He was regarded as a young man of bright parts, who lacked application to any useful pursuit and who wasted brilliant mental powers in uselessly rummaging old libraries, romancing, and attending literary societies. Finally it was decided that Scott should leave the chance of a partnership in his father's office to a younger brother, and that he should prepare himself for admission to the bar as an advocate or pleader in the courts of his native country, a vocation requiring polish, wit, legal knowledge, and skill of address. To this preparation he appears to

have applied himself faithfully for the requisite term of years. He was admitted to the bar in July, 1792, when he "assumed the gown with all its duties and honors." A lively account of the relation which existed between himself and his father may be read in the introductory chapters of Red Gauntlet, which the student should read. Mr. Saunders Fairford, the exact, cautious, careful counsellor-at-law, with his Tory connections, and Whig practice, his love for Alan, and his despair at Alan's ways, is an exact representation, so it was said by those who knew him, of Scott's father. The father's pride may be seen in a line from a private letter: "I have the pleasure to tell you that my son has passed his private Scots law examinations with good approbation. . . . and on Friday he puts on the gown and gives a bit chack of dinner to his friends, as is the custom."

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The Practice of Law. Scott's law business was of the most humble sort. Most of it came through his father's office. His first case in a criminal court was the defence of a veteran poacher and sheep stealer, at Jedburgh, whom he had the satisfaction of helping to escape through some of the meshes of the law. 'You're a lucky scoundrel,' whispered Scott to his client, when the verdict was pronounced. Indeed, I'm just o' your mind,' quoth the desperado, and I'll send you a maukin the morn, man."" A maukin is a hare, which the culprit undoubtedly intended to poach during the night. We can imagine Scott telling the anecdote at his own expense when he returned to the city. Another case was the defence of a housebreaker, who, having no money, and