ave been
signalized by unusual sacrifices. I ought to have mentioned that,
since my fourteenth or fifteenth year, my health, originally delicate,
had been extremely robust. From infancy I had laboured under the
infirmity of a severe lameness, but, as I believe is usually the case
with men of spirit who suffer under personal inconveniences of this
nature, I had, since the improvement of my health, in defiance of this
incapacitating circumstance, distinguished myself by the endurance of
toil on foot or horseback, having often walked thirty miles a-day, and
rode upwards of a hundred without stopping. In this manner I made many
pleasant journeys through parts of the country then not very
accessible, gaining more amusement and instruction than I have been
able to acquire since I have travelled in a more commodious manner. I
practised most sylvan sports also with some success and with great
delight. But these pleasures must have been all resigned, or used with
great moderation, had I determined to regain my station at the bar."
After well weighing these matters, Sir Walter resolved on quitting his
avocations in the law for literature; though he determined that
literature should be his staff but not his crutch, and that the
profits of his labour, however convenient otherwise, should not become
necessary to his ordinary expenses.

THE LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL.

Sir Walter's secession from the law was followed by the production of
his noblest poem--_the Lay of the Last Minstrel_--the origin of which
is thus related by the author:

"The lovely young Countess of Dalkeith, afterwards Harriet, Duchess of
Buccleuch, had come to the land of her husband, with the desire of
making herself acquainted with its traditions and customs. Of course,
where all made it a pride and pleasure to gratify her wishes, she soon
heard enough of Border lore; among others, an aged gentleman of
property, near Langholm, communicated to her ladyship the story of
Gilpin Horner--a tradition in which the narrator and many more of that
county were firm believers. The young Countess, much delighted with
the legend, and the gravity and full confidence with which it was
told, enjoined it on me as a task to compose a ballad on the subject.
Of course, to hear was to obey; and thus the goblin story, objected to
by several critics as an excrescence upon the poem, was, in fact, the
occasion of its being written."

Sir Walter having composed the first two or thr