more especially when combined with ancient ruins or remains of our fathers' piety or splendor, became within me an insatiable passion, which, if circumstances had permitted, I would willingly have gratified by traveling half over the globe." His gigantic memory had always appropriated most eagerly the heroic and romantic elements of verse, tale, and history, from the days when, a child, he read Pope's translation of Homer aloud to his mother, to the time when he hunted ballads and chased traditions with the keen zest of a scholar and an antiquary. The first notable outcome of these researches was his "Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border," published in 1802. To this collection of ancient Border ballads, which he had spent years in collecting, were added some spirited new ones which he had deftly shaped to the old models. This form of poetic expression was especially suited to the genius of Scott, and the class of subjects to which it was usually adapted had long been the object of his enthusiastic study. The amplification, then, of the ballad to the proportions of the more pretentious metrical romance came by a natural process of crystallization of the elements of a rare power, profound research, and inspiring themes. The first of the more ambitious efforts of Scott was the "Lay of the Last Minstrel," which was published in 1805. This became immediately and generally popular, and paved the way for the favorable reception of later productions. In 1808 "Marmion," the greatest poetical work of Scott, appeared. This was so enthusiastically received, that a certain friend urged him to be satisfied with such unexampled success, and refrain from publishing anything more, lest he impair his prestige. To this he replied, "If I fail, it is a sign that I ought never to have suc But if I ceeded, and I will write prose for life: you shall see no change "Up with the bonnie blue bonnet, In this confident, buoyant spirit he made another venture, "The Lady of the Lake," published in 1810; and its extraordinary success justified his expectations. How sincere and widespread was the enthusiastic appreciation of this poem may be judged from the following instance, mentioned in Lockhart's "Life of Scott:" "In the course of the day, when 'The Lady of the Lake' first reached Sir Adam Fergusson, he was posted with his company on a point of ground exposed to the enemy's artillery, somewhere, no doubt, on the lines of Torres Vedras. The men were ordered to lie prostrate on the ground. While they kept that attitude, the captain, kneeling at the head, read aloud the description of the battle in Canto VI., and the listening soldiers only interrupted him by a joyous huzza when the French shot struck the bank close above them." We are not surprised at the soldierly tribute to the power of a poet "through whose head a regiment of horse had been exercising since he was five years old," whose sympathies had always been in touch with heroic achievement and chivalrous enterprise, and whose poems rang "with the quick, metrical tramp of his own moss-troopers;" but this was only a fractional though precious part of the applause that greeted him. "The whole country rang with the praises of the poet; crowds set off to view the scenery of Loch Katrine, till then comparatively unknown; and, as the book came out just before the season for excursions, every house and inn in that neighborhood was crammed with a constant succession of visitors." " Scott, in speaking of this poem, says, The ancient manners, the habits and customs, of the aboriginal race by whom the Highlands of Scotland were inhabited, had always appeared to me peculiarly adapted to poetry. The change in their manners, too, had taken place almost within my own time, or at least I had learned many particulars concerning the ancient state of the Highlands from the old men of the last generation. I had also read a great deal, seen much, and heard more, of the romantic country where I was in the habit of spending every autumn; and the scenery of Loch Katrine was connected with the recollection of many a dear friend and merry expedition of former days. This poem, the action of which lay among scenes so beautiful, and so deeply imprinted upon my recollections, was a labor of love; and it was no less so to recall the manners and incidents introduced. The frequent custom of James IV., and particularly of James V., of walking through the kingdom in disguise, afforded me the hint of an incident which never fails to be interesting if managed with the slightest address or dexterity." The high-water mark of Scott's popularity as a poet was reached with "The Lady of the Lake." In 1813 he published "Rokeby," and in 1814 "The Lord of the Isles." In the latter year "Waverley" appeared anonymously; and with this prose romance began Scott's career as a novelist, which extended through fourteen years. In this period of time he wrote twentythree novels, besides some other works of minor importance. "The land of the lakes and the mountains, and of the brave men," as the old Scots called their country, included the two great divisions, the Highlands and the Borders, which were so much wilder and more barbarous than the others, that they might be said to be altogether without law. Although nominally subject to the King of Scotland, yet they were so untamable that the enforcement of justice was almost as difficult as the subjugation of a foreign people. The Highlands, rocky and mountainous parts of the country, comprised a large share of the north of Scotland. It was into these pathless wilds that the Romans drove the ancient Britons, and it was from these retreats that the fugitives afterward sallied forth to harass their conquerors. The language of the Highlands, the Gaelic, was totally different from that of the Lowlands, which resembled English. The dress of the mountaineers also differed from that of the Lowlanders. They wore a plaid or mantle of frieze, or of a striped stuff called tartan, one end of which, being wrapped around the waist, formed a short petticoat, which descended to the knee, while the rest they folded around them like a sort of cloak. Their feet were covered with buskins made of rawhide; and the usual head covering was a cap called a "bonnet." They went always armed. Their weapons were bows and arrows, large swords, poleaxes, and daggers for close fight. For defense they had a round wooden shield, or target, stuck full of nails, and their great men had shirts of mail composed of links of iron. The common men sometimes wore a jacket of leather, having plates of metal stitched into it, but usually had no armor. The Highlanders were divided into clans or tribes. bers of a clan supposed themselves to be descended from the same common ancestor, whose name distinguished them from other clans. Thus, one tribe was called MacDonald, which signifies the sons of Donald; another MacGregor, the sons of Gregor; MacNeil, the sons of Neil; and so on. They yielded All mem unquestioning obedience to their chief, even when their submission to his orders implied disloyalty to the King. Each tribe had its own special territory, any invasion of which was punished as severely as though the foe had been of another nationality. Macaulay says of the sentiment that actuated them, “Their intense attachment to their own tribe and to their own patriarch, though politically an evil, partook of the nature of virtue. The sentiment was misdirected and ill-regulated, but still it was heroic. There must be some elevation of soul in a man who loves the society of which he is a member, and the leader whom he follows, with a love stronger than the love of life. It was true that the Highlander had few scruples about shedding the blood of an enemy; but it was not less true that he had high notions of the duty of observing faith to allies, and hospitality to guests." The Highlanders were continually at war with the Lowlanders. They did not regard their plundering raids upon the richer grounds of the Lowlands as robbery, but as rightful recovery of possessions which had been wrongfully wrested from their ancestors. The Lowlanders, equal in courage and superior in discipline, could not be easily overcome, and thus there was almost constant war or discord between them. Some of the more powerful Highland chiefs set themselves up as independent sovereigns, and even made alliances with the English in their own name. Macaulay says that "national enmities have always been fiercest among Borderers; and the enmity between the Highland Borderer and the Lowland Borderer along the whole frontier was the growth of ages, and was kept fresh by constant injuries." The Borderers were also divided into clans, and their devotion to their chieftain was complete. From their proximity to England, and their frequent incursions |