so absorbed in his book, as to be inattentive to everything around him.

About this time, Scott became acquainted with some remarkable characters, both at his father's house and in the society which he met. Many of these furnished outlines for the heroes and heroines, who figured in after days in his novels. He frequently went to see his Uncle Rutherford, an eminent physician of Edinburgh, who had a good library, to which Walter was much devoted. He would often bring his book to the table at breakfast, and when his uncle begged him to lay it down till he had done eating, he would say, "Please let me read through this paragraph." It often happened, however, that the end of the paragraph was not found till he was again and again reminded that his breakfast was waiting.

Scott was also, even thus early, a famous storyteller. It was a frequent custom with him and some of his companions to get together, and recount long stories of giants and dwarfs, ghosts and knights, fierce battles and fairy enchantments. Often, during the holidays, would he and his chosen mates withdraw to some quiet nook upon Arthur's Seat, or Salisbury Crags,-lofty peaks, almost overhanging the city of Edinburgh,—and there spend hours, and almost days, fabricating and imparting these wild, but boyish ro

mances.

When he was about ten years old, he was one day m the room, as some one spoke of the heavy rains that had fallen. "It is Caledonia weeping for the poverty of her soil," said the boy; thus giving an evidence of the poetic turn of his mind. About this time,

as he was coming home from school, he was overtaken by a thunder-storm. His mother, who was expecting him, was alarmed at his non-appearance; and when, after the storm had cleared away, he came home, she began to reprimand him severely. He then said that he took shelter in one of the public stairways, common in Edinburgh, and while there, wrote some lines, which he drew from his pocket, and showed to her. As they are the first of his attempts at poetical composition, we give them to the reader :

Loud o'er my head what awful thunders roll,
And vivid lightnings flash from pole to pole;
It is thy voice, my God, which bids them fly;
Thy voice directs them through the vaulted sky;
Then let the good thy mighty power revere,
And hardened sinners thy just judgments fear.

In 1783, Scott was transferred to the University of Edinburgh; but the next year, he broke a blood-vessel, which reduced him to the verge of the grave. He was, for a long time, so weak as not to be allowed to speak a loud word, and he was allowed to eat nothing but a spoonful of rice at long intervals. He was permitted, however, to read as much as he pleased, and, having access to a large mass of books of fiction, in a circulating library, he says of himself, that, being denied everything else, he became a "glutton of books." He continued feeble for two years, which time he spent in reading, with no other design than amusement. He, however, perused many works of history, travels, and voyages; and thus, as his memory was very retentive, he stored his mind with a great amount of miscellaneous knowledge.

About the year 1786, Scott saw Burns, the poet; and as he has told us of his feelings on the occasion, and given us a good portrait of that extraordinary man, we quote his words :-" 'I was a lad of fifteen, when he first came to Edinboro', but had sense and feeling enough to be much interested in his poetry, and would have given the world to know him; but I had very little acquaintance with any literary people, and still less with the gentry of the west country, the two sets that he most frequented. Mr. Thomas Grierson was, at that time, a clerk of my father's. He knew Burns, and promised to ask him to his lodgings to dinner, but had no opportunity to keep his word; otherwise, I might have seen more of this distinguished man. As it was, I saw him one day at the late venerable Professor Ferguson's, where there were several gentlemen of literary reputation, among whom I recollect the celebrated Mr. Dugald Stewart. Of course, we youngsters sat silent, looked and listened. The only thing I remember, which was remarkable in Burns's manner, was the effect produced upon him by a print of Banbury's, representing a soldier lying dead on the snow, his dog sitting in misery on one side; on the other, his widow, with a child in her These lines were written beneath :

arms.

'Cold on Canadian hills, or Minden's plain,
Perhaps that parent wept her soldier slain-
Bent o'er her babe, her eye dissolved in dew;
The big drops mingling with the milk he drew,
Gave the sad presage of his future years,

The child of misery, baptized in tears.'

"Burns seemed much affected by the print or

rather, the ideas which it suggested to his mind. He actually shed tears. He asked whose the lines were; and it chanced that nobody but myself remembered that they occur in a half-forgotten poem of Langhorne's, called by the unpromising title of The Justice of the Peace.' I whispered my information to a friend present, who mentioned it to Burns, who rewarded me with a look and a word, which, though of mere civility, I then received and still recollect with great pleasure.

"His person was strong and robust; his manners rustic, not clownish; a sort of dignified plainness and simplicity, which received part of its effect, perhaps, from one's knowledge of his extraordinary talents. His features are represented in Mr. Nasmyth's picture; but, to me, it conveys the idea that they are diminished, as if seen in perspective. I think his countenance was more massive than it looks in any of the portraits. I would have taken the poet, had I not known what he was, for a very sagacious country farmer, of the old Scottish school, i. e., none of your modern agriculturists, who keep laborers for their drudgery, but the douce gude man, who held his own plough. There was a strong expression of sense and shrewdness in all his lineaments; the eye alone, I think, indicated the poetical character and temperament. It was large, and of a dark cast, and glowed,—— I say literally glowed,-when he spoke with feeling or interest. I never saw such another eye in a human head, though I have seen the most distinguished men in my time.

“His conversation expressed perfect self-confidence,

without the slightest presumption. Among the men who were the most learned of their time and country, he expressed himself with perfect firmness, but without the least intrusive forwardness; and when he differed in opinion, he did not hesitate to express it firmly, yet, at the same time, with modesty. I do not remember any part of his conversation distinctly enough to be quoted, nor did I ever see him again, except in the street, when he did not recognise me, as I could not expect he should. He was much caressed in Edinburgh, but, considering what literary emoluments have been since his day, the efforts made for his relief were extremely trifling."

In his earlier rambles, Scott often travelled on foot, attended by two companions-one, a youth about ten or twelve years old, named George Walkinshaw, the other an old dog named Snap. The first was rather simple, and the last uncommonly sagacious. It is said. that old Snap, who was always accustomed to sleep at his master's bedside, when the latter wanted any particular servant, and would only name him,would set out and find him, and bark at him, until he went to his master. On account of this, and other similar proofs of wisdom, above his race, George had a kind of reverence for the brute, and was accustomed to say that he was not altogether canny; by which he meant to insinuate that he was a little bewitched.

With these two friends, young Walter would trudge over hill and valley, sometimes being absent for weeks. A few articles of necessity were packed in a bundle, and strapped to George's back. In this guise they wandered from house to house. When