of the uncommon attribute of genius.  He was born a healthy child, but soon after became exposed to serious peril by being some time tended by a consumptive nurse.  When scarcely two years old he was seized with an illness which deprived him of the proper use of his right limb, a loss which continued during his life.  With the view of retrieving his strength, he was sent to reside with his paternal grandfather, Robert Scott, who rented the farm of Sandyknowe, in the vicinity of Smailholm Tower, in Roxburghshire.  Shortly after his arrival at Sandyknowe, he narrowly escaped destruction through the frantic desperation of a maniac attendant; but he had afterwards to congratulate himself on being enabled to form an early acquaintance with rural scenes.  No advantage accruing to his lameness, he was, in his fourth year, removed to Bath, where he remained twelve months, without experiencing benefit from the mineral waters.  During the three following years he chiefly resided at Sandyknowe.  In his eighth year he returned to Edinburgh, with his mind largely stored with border legends, chiefly derived from the recitations of his grandmother, a person of a romantic inclination and sprightly intelligence.  At this period, Pope’s translation of Homer, and the more amusing songs in Ramsay’s “Evergreen,” were his favourite studies; and he took delight in reading aloud, with suitable emphasis, the more striking passages, or verses, to his mother, who sought every incentive to stimulate his native propensity.  In 1778 he was sent to the High School, where he possessed the advantage of instruction under Mr Luke Fraser, an able scholar, and Dr Adam, the distinguished rector.  His progress in scholarship was not equal to his talents; he was already a devotee to romance, and experienced greater gratification in retiring with a friend to some quiet spot in the country, to relate or to listen to a fictitious tale, than in giving his principal attention to the prescribed tasks of the schoolroom.  As he became older, the love of miscellaneous literature, especially the works of the great masters of fiction, amounted to a passion; and as his memory was singularly tenacious, he accumulated a great extent and variety of miscellaneous information.

On the completion of his attendance at the High School, he was sent to reside with some relations at Kelso; and in this interesting locality his growing attachment to the national minstrelsy and legendary lore received a fresh impulse.  On his return to Edinburgh he entered the University, in which he matriculated as a student of Latin and Greek, in October 1793.  His progress was not more marked than it had been at the High School, insomuch that Mr Dalziel, the professor of Greek, was induced to give public expression as to his hopeless incapacity.  The professor fortunately survived to make ample compensation for the rashness of his prediction.

The juvenile inclinations of the future poet were entirely directed to a military life; but his continued lameness interposed an insuperable difficulty, and was a source of deep mortification.  He was at length induced to adopt a profession suitable to his physical capabilities, entering into indentures with his father in his fourteenth year.  To his confinement at the desk, sufficiently irksome to a youth of his aspirations, he was chiefly reconciled by the consideration that his fees as a clerk enabled him to purchase books.