He entered the University of Edinburgh in October, 1783; but his attendance there was only for two sessions. About the age of fifteen the rupture of a blood-vessel again reduced him to a very weak state, and during the space of two years bodily and mental exertion were forbidden. He had recourse for amusement to a circulating library, “rich,” he says, “in works of fiction, from the romances of chivalry, and the ponderous folios of Cyrus and Cassandra, down to the most approved works of later times. I was plunged into this great ocean of reading without compass or pilot, and unless when some one had the charity to play at chess with me I was allowed to do nothing, save read, from morning to night.... I believe I read almost all the old romances, old plays, and epic poetry in that formidable collection, and no doubt was unconsciously amassing materials for the task in which it has been my lot to be so much employed. At the same time I did not in all respects abuse the license permitted me. Familiar acquaintance with the specious miracles of fiction brought with it some degree of satiety, and I began by degrees to seek in histories, memoirs, voyages and travels, and the like, events nearly as wonderful as those which were the work of the imagination, with the additional advantage that they were at least in a great measure true. The lapse of two years, during which I was left to the service of my own free will, was followed by a temporary residence in the country, where I was again very lonely but for the amusement which I derived from a good though old-fashioned library. The vague and wild use which I made of this advantage I cannot describe better than by referring my reader to the desultory studies of Waverley in a similar situation; the passages concerning whose reading were imitated from recollections of my own.”
After recovering from this illness his constitution changed, and he became unusually robust, and capable of enduring great bodily and mental fatigue; even his lameness occasioning no serious inconvenience. He then applied himself in earnest to the study of law, and, to acquire a thorough knowledge of its technicalities, went through the duties of a clerk in his father’s office. He completed the usual course of legal education, and was called to the bar in July, 1792. He seemed however little anxious for business; and as usual, business unsought came slowly: in his legal capacity he acquired neither wealth nor distinction. But, in amends for this, in those days of volunteer corps, he made an admirable quarter-master to the Edinburgh Light Dragoons; and his zeal and skill, and the popularity which his high powers of social entertainment procured, recommended him to the friendship of the Duke of Buccleugh, by whose interest he obtained, in December, 1799, the appointment of Sheriff of Selkirkshire, with a salary of 300l. He had married in 1797 Miss Carpenter, a lady of foreign birth but English parentage, possessed of fortune sufficient, when added to the salary of his office, and his own patrimonial inheritance, to release him from the necessity of labouring at the bar for a livelihood. This was a step on which his mind had been some time bent. “My profession and I,” he says, “came to stand nearly on the footing which honest Slender consoled himself on having established with Mistress Anne Page—‘There was no great love between us at the beginning, and it pleased Heaven to decrease it on farther acquaintance.’ I became sensible that the time was come when I must either buckle myself resolutely to ‘the toil by day, the lamp by night,’ renouncing all the Dalilahs of my imagination, or bid adieu to the profession of the law, and hold another course.”
Scott was not a premature writer; he had reached his twenty-fifth year before he tried his strength in composition, excepting a few trivial attempts in childhood; and his name was still unknown to the public, when he resolved to devote his powers to literature. His first essays were made about 1796, when his attention was caught by the Leonora, and other poems of Bürger, which he translated and published anonymously. “The adventure,” he says, “proved a dead loss, and a great part of this edition was condemned to the service of the trunk-maker.” His next performance was a translation of Goethe’s drama, Goetz of Berlichingen, published in 1799. But he continued his devotion to ballad poetry, and as his confidence rose, essayed his strength in Glenfinlas, and the Eve of St. John, his first original compositions. At Lasswade on the banks of the Esk, about five miles from Edinburgh, where he spent several summers after his marriage, he prosecuted with increased zeal and success his favourite inquiries into the antiquities and legendary song of his country, and commenced the work which gave him a name in literature, the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. “The materials for this work were collected during various excursions, or raids, as Sir Walter was wont to call them, through the most remote recesses of the border glens, made by the poetical compiler in person, assisted by one or two other enthusiasts in ballad lore. Pre-eminent among his coadjutors in this undertaking was Dr. John Leyden, an enthusiastic borderer and ballad-monger like himself, and to whom he has gratefully acknowledged his obligations both in verse and prose.”
“Some amusing anecdotes have been printed, and others are still extant in oral tradition among the border hills, of the circumstances attending the collection of these ballads. The old women, who were almost the only remaining depositories of ancient song and tradition, though proud of being solicited to recite them by ‘so grand a man’ as an Edinburgh Advocate, could not repress their astonishment that ‘a man o’ sense and lair’ should spend his time in writing into a book ‘auld ballads and stories of the bluidy Border wars, and paipish times....’ The Minstrelsy was printed at Kelso, in 1802, at first in two volumes, to which a third was added in the second edition. Two years subsequently Scott published the romance of Sir Tristram, a Scottish metrical tale of the thirteenth century, which he showed, in a learned disquisition, to have been composed by Thomas of Ercildown, commonly called the Rhymer.”
“These works, especially the Border Minstrelsy, were favourably received by the public, and established Scott’s reputation on a very respectable footing, as an excellent poetical antiquary, and as a writer of considerable power and promise, both in verse and prose. As yet, however, he had produced no composition of originality and importance sufficient to secure that high and permanent rank in literature, to which his secret ambition led him to aspire. But he had now a subject in hand which was destined to attain for him a popularity far beyond what his most sanguine hopes could have ventured to anticipate.”
“The Lay of the Last Minstrel appeared in 1805. The structure of the verse was suggested, as the author states, by the Christabel of Coleridge; a part of which had been repeated to him about the year 1800. The originality, wildness, poetical beauty, and descriptive powers of Scott’s Border romance produced an effect on the public mind, only to be equalled perhaps by some of the earlier works of Byron.”
“In the spring of 1806 Sir Walter obtained an appointment, which, he says, completely met his moderate wishes as to preferment. This was the office of a principal Clerk of Session, of which the duties are by no means heavy, though personal attendance during the sitting of the courts is required. Mr. Pitt, under whose administration the appointment had been granted, having died before it was officially completed, the succeeding Whig ministry had the satisfaction of confirming it. The emoluments of this office were about 1200l. a year; but Scott received no part of the salary till 1812, the appointment being a reversionary one.”
His reputation and his fortune seemed now to be completely established. Marmion, published in 1808, and the Lady of the Lake, in 1810, were received each with greater favour than its predecessor. Don Roderick, 1811, was not successful; Rokeby, 1813, and The Lord of the Isles, 1814, were generally thought inferior in merit to his earlier works. This might arise, in part, from the extraordinary rapidity of their composition: for Rokeby was commenced September 15, and finished December 31, 1812; and the Lord of the Isles was written in the following autumn, with equal rapidity, but under circumstances which rendered the task a burden, and damped the fire of his muse. Still these, like their predecessors, commanded very large sales, and brought in large sums to the author, and large profits to the publishers. His popularity, however, was on the ebb, and it was the general impression that Scott had nearly written himself out. At the time when this was said, he had already published one anonymous poem, the Bridal of Triermain, 1810, as if ashamed of his prolific pen. Afterwards, in 1817, he published Harold the Dauntless, in the same way. The censure, however, was not unfounded; and the two last acknowledged poems of Scott were inferior in interest and execution to his earlier productions. Another reason for the decrease of Scott’s popularity he has himself assigned, in the rapid growth of Lord Byron’s.
It was about the end of 1813 that accident threw in his way the mislaid manuscript of the beginning of Waverley, seven chapters of which he had composed in 1805, and had thrown aside, in deference to the unfavourable opinion of a critical friend. At different times he had been inclined to resume this work, but had been prevented by the loss of the manuscript: which he now applied himself in earnest to complete. Waverley was published in the summer of 1814; and obtained success beyond the author’s fondest expectations. The history of this wonderful series of works of fiction, and the author’s reasons for adopting and retaining his incognito, are familiar to the public, through his own account in the Introduction to the Waverley Novels. The manner in which the secret was kept is a remarkable anecdote in literary history: for, whatever conclusions might be drawn from internal evidence by Scott’s intimate friends, and from putting things together by the public, not a particle of external evidence was produced to fasten it upon him, until the failure of Constable’s house in 1826 led to Scott’s public avowal of the authorship in 1827. Perhaps this mystery tended to keep alive the public interest: perhaps also Scott had a keener relish of the homage paid to the Great Unknown, than if it had been offered to him in his own person.
Scott’s metrical romances, as they were composed with unexampled rapidity, commanded also unexampled prices from the booksellers. And at the same time he found leisure for a variety of laborious works in criticism, biography, and miscellaneous literature, which added considerably both to his funds and his reputation. Among these were new editions of the works of Dryden and Swift, with biographical accounts; Sadler’s State Papers; Somers’s Tracts; Lives of the Novelists; besides numerous contributions to encyclopædias, reviews, and other periodical publications. His scheme of devoting himself to literature had borne fruit of fame and profit beyond his brightest anticipations. His certain income (we presume after the year 1812) is said by Mr. Pringle to have exceeded 2000l.: and he was supposed to double that sum by the exuberant harvest of his brain.