e at Ashestiel, where he remained from
1804 to 1812. As to his literary work here, it was enormous.

Besides finishing _The Lay of the Last Minstrel_, writing _Marmion_,
_The Lady of the Lake_, part of _The Bridal of Triermain_, and part of
_Rokeby_, and writing reviews, he wrote a _Life of Dryden_, and edited
his works anew with some care, in eighteen volumes, edited _Somers's
Collection of Tracts_, in thirteen volumes, quarto, _Sir Ralph
Sadler's Life, Letters, and State Papers_, in three volumes, quarto,
_Miss Seward's Life and Poetical Works_, _The Secret History of the
Court of James I_., in two volumes, _Strutt's Queenhoo Hall_, in four
volumes, 12mo., and various other single volumes, and began his heavy
work on the edition of Swift. This was the literary work of eight
years, during which he had the duties of his Sheriffship, and, after
he gave up his practice as a barrister, the duties of his Deputy
Clerkship of Session to discharge regularly. The editing of Dryden
alone would have seemed to most men of leisure a pretty full
occupation for these eight years, and though I do not know that Scott
edited with the anxious care with which that sort of work is often now
prepared, that he went into all the arguments for a doubtful reading
with the pains that Mr. Dyce spent on the various readings of
Shakespeare, or that Mr. Spedding spent on a various reading of Bacon,
yet Scott did his work in a steady, workmanlike manner, which
satisfied the most fastidious critics of that day, and he was never, I
believe, charged with hurrying or scamping it. His biographies of
Swift and Dryden are plain solid pieces of work--not exactly the works
of art which biographies have been made in our day--not comparable to
Carlyle's studies of Cromwell or Frederick, or, in point of art, even
to the life of John Sterling, but still sensible and interesting,
sound in judgment, and animated in style.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 24: Lockhart's _Life of Scott_, ii. 268-9.]

CHAPTER VIII.

REMOVAL TO ABBOTSFORD, AND LIFE THERE.

In May, 1812, Scott having now at last obtained the salary of the
Clerkship of Session, the work of which he had for more than five
years discharged without pay, indulged himself in realizing his
favourite dream of buying a "mountain farm" at Abbotsford,--five miles
lower down the Tweed than his cottage at Ashestiel, which was now
again claimed by the family of Russell,--and migrated thither with his
household