he
_Minstrelsy_ that some of the young men of Scott's circle in Edinburgh
were stimulated by what the novelist, Henry Mackenzie, told them of the
beauties of German literature, to form a class for the study of that
language. This was when Scott was twenty-one, but it was still four
years before he found himself writing those translations which mark the
sufficiently modest beginning of his literary career. His enthusiasm for
German literature was not at first tempered by any critical
discrimination, if we may judge from the opinions of one or two of his
friends who labored to point out to him the extravagance and false
sentiment which he was too ready to admire along with the real genius of
some of his models.[31] Apparently their efforts were useful, for in a
review written in 1806 we find Scott, in a remark on Buerger, referring
to "the taste for outrageous sensibility, which disgraces most German
poetry."[32] His special interest in the Germans was an early mood which
seems not to have returned. After the process of translation had
discovered to him his verse-making faculty, he naturally passed on to
the writing of original poems, and circumstances of a half accidental
sort determined that the Scottish ballads which he had always loved
should absorb his attention for the next two or three years.

The publication of a book of ballads was first suggested by Scott as an
opportunity for his friend Ballantyne to exhibit his skill as a printer
and so increase his business. "I have been for years collecting old
Border ballads," Scott remarked, "and I think I could with little
trouble put together such a selection from them as might make a neat
little volume to sell for four or five shillings."[33] From this casual
proposition resulted _The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border_, published
in three volumes in 1802-3 and often revised and reissued during the
editor's lifetime.

This book and the prefaces to his own novels are likely to be thought of
first when Scott is spoken of as a critic. The connection between the
_Minstrelsy_ and the novels has often been pointed out, ever since the
day of the contemporary who, on reading the ballads with their
introductions, exclaimed that in that book were the elements of a
hundred historical romances.[34] The interest of the earlier work is
undoubtedly multiplied by the associations in the light of which we read
it--associations connected with the editor's whole experience as an
author,