s.

With the publication of the _Minstrelsy_, Scott of course became known
as a literary antiquary. He was naturally called upon for help when the
_Edinburgh Review_ was started a few weeks afterwards, especially as
Jeffrey, who soon became the editor, had long been his friend. The
articles that he wrote during 1803 and 1804 were of a sort that most
evidently connected itself with the work he had been doing: reviews, for
example, of Southey's _Amadis de Gaul_, and of Ellis's _Early English
Poetry_. During 1805-6 the range of his reviewing became wider and he
included some modern books, especially two or three which offered
opportunity for good fun-making. About 1806, however, his aversion to
the political principles which dominated the _Edinburgh Review_ became
so strong that he refused to continue as a contributor, and only once,
years later, did he again write an article for that periodical.

In the same year, 1806, Scott supplied with editorial apparatus and
issued anonymously _Original Memoirs Written during the Great Civil
War_, the first of what proved to be a long list of publications having
historical interest, sometimes reprints, sometimes original editions
from old manuscripts, to which he contributed a greater or less amount
of material in the shape of introductions and notes. These were
undertaken in a few cases for money, in others simply because they
struck him as interesting and useful labors. It is easy to trace the
relation of this to his other work, particularly to the novels. He once
wrote to a friend, "The editing a new edition of _Somers's Tracts_ some
years ago made me wonderfully well acquainted with the little traits
which marked parties and characters in the seventeenth century, and the
embodying them is really an amusing task."[4] Among the works which he
edited in this way the number of historical memoirs is noticeable. After
the volume that has been mentioned as the first, he prepared another
book of _Memoirs of the Great Civil War_; and we find in the list a
_Secret History of the Court of James I._, _Memoirs of the Reign of King
Charles I._, Count Grammont's _Memoirs of the Court of Charles II._, _A
History of Queen Elizabeth's Favourites_, etc. Such books as these,
besides furnishing material for his novels, led Scott to acquire a mass
of information that enabled him to perform with great facility and with
admirable results whatever editorial work he might choose to undertake.

These lab