's boyhood one of his teachers noticed that he
could follow and enjoy the meaning of what he read in Latin better than
many of his school-fellows who knew more about the language, and it was
the same all through his life--he got what he wanted from foreign
literatures with very little trouble.

Scott constantly refers to the work of Percy, Warton, Tressan,[77]
Ritson, and Ellis, in the study of ancient romances, but in editing _Sir
Tristrem_ he made one part of the field his own, and became the
authority whom he felt obliged to quote in the Essay on Romance.

Thomas the Rhymer of Erceldoune was at first an object of interest to
Scott because of the ballad of _True Thomas_ and the traditions
concerning him that floated about the countryside. The "Rhymer's Glen"
was afterwards a cherished possession of Scott's own on the Abbotsford
estate. In the Advocates' Library at Edinburgh, of which Scott was in
1795 appointed a curator, was an important manuscript that contained
among other metrical romances one professing to be a copy of that
written by Thomas of Erceldoune on Sir Tristrem. From a careful piecing
together of evidence furnished by this poem and by Robert of Brunne,
with the assistance of certain legal documents which supplied dates,
Scott built up about the old poet a theory that he elaborated in his
edition of _Sir Tristrem_, published in 1804, and that continued to
interest him vividly as long as he lived. It reappears in many of his
critical writings[78] and also in the novels. In the _Bride of
Lammermoor_ Ravenswood goes to his death in compliance with the prophecy
of Thomas quoted by the superstitious Caleb Balderstone. And in _Castle
Dangerous_ Bertram, who is unconvincing perhaps because he is endowed
with the literary and antiquarian tastes of a Walter Scott himself, is
actuated by an irrepressible desire to discover works of the Rhymer.

Scott's edition of _Sir Tristrem_ gives--besides the text, introduction,
and notes--a short conclusion written by himself in imitation of the
original poet's style. Much of his theory has fallen. He considered this
_Sir Tristrem_ to be the first of the written versions of that story, a
supposition that was not long tenable. The poem is now known to be based
upon a French original, and many scholars think the name Erceldoune was
arbitrarily inserted by the English translator; though Mr. McNeill, the
latest editor, thinks there is a "reasonable probability" in favor of
Scot