esolutions. Though I never renewed my acquaintance with him, I often
saw him, for he filled some inferior office in one of the courts of
law at Edinburgh. Poor fellow! I believe he is dead; he took early to
drinking."

[Footnote 53: Mr. Irving inclines to think that this incident
must have occurred during Scott's attendance on Luke Fraser,
not after he went to Dr. Adam; and he also suspects that the
boy referred to sat at the top, not of the _class_, but of
Scott's own bench or division of the class.]

The autobiography tells us that his translations in verse from Horace
and Virgil were often approved by Dr. Adam. One of these little
pieces, written in a weak boyish scrawl, within pencilled marks still
visible, had been carefully preserved by his mother; it was found
folded up in a cover inscribed by the old lady--"_My Walter's first
lines_, 1782."

"In awful ruins AEtna thunders nigh,
And sends in pitchy whirlwinds to the sky
Black clouds of smoke, which, still as they aspire,
From their dark sides there bursts the glowing fire;
At other times huge balls of fire are toss'd,
That lick the stars, and in the smoke are lost:
Sometimes the mount, with vast convulsions torn,
Emits huge rocks, which instantly are borne
With loud explosions to the starry skies,
The stones made liquid as the huge mass flies,
Then back again with greater weight recoils,
While AEtna thundering from the bottom boils."

I {p.082} gather from Mr. Irving that these lines were considered as
the second best set of those produced on the occasion--Colin Mackenzie
of Portmore, through life Scott's dear friend, carrying off the
premium.

In his Introduction to the Lay, he alludes to an original effusion of
these "schoolboy days," prompted by a thunderstorm, which he says "was
much approved of, until a malevolent critic sprung up in the shape of
an apothecary's blue-buskined wife, who affirmed that my most sweet
poetry was copied from an old magazine. I never" (he continues)
"forgave the imputation, and even now I acknowledge some resentment
against the poor woman's memory. She indeed accused me unjustly when
she said I had stolen my poem ready made; but as I had, like most
premature poets, copied all the words and ideas of which my verses
consisted, she was so far right. I made one or tw