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servation, that some of the distinguished audience of the previous evening had believed with difficulty that his lordship was not a Frenchman. Scott, who had picked up, rather than learned, what French he knew, pronounced it "after the manner of Stratforde le Bow," and assuredly could never have been complimented on his Parisian or even his Provençal accent. In this respect, however, he sinned in good company for Charles James Fox, though he wrote and spoke French with ease, insisted on giving it an English pronunciation; calling "Bordeaux" Burdux, for example.

Among his other accomplishments, that of dancing could not be included, of course, owing to his lameness, a defect which Shakspeare and Byron also had. His personal activity and endurance were very great. Few places were so steep that he could not climb. He said in his final "Introduction to the Lay," that, after the improvement of his health, he had, since the incapacitating circumstance of his lameness, distinguished himself by the endurance of toil on foot or horseback; having often walked thirty miles a day, and rode upwards of a hundred, without resting. He was an excellent horseman, a good judge of the "points" of a steed; and was handy enough to saddle, and even, at a pinch, to groom, the animal that had borne him. He also knew, and highly valued, a good dog; and was keen and skilful in field-sports. In his prosperity, he assembled his friends and neighbors of all degrees, once a year at least, at what was called the Abbotsford Hunt, by which the hares on the estate were very much thinned; for Lockhart writes, "We had commonly, as we returned, hares enough to supply with soup for a week following the wife of every farmer that attended." Scott was not a follower of Izaak Walton after his youth was over, though he relished the

ÆT. 26.]

GAMES OF SKILL AND CHANCE.

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son's definition of an angler,

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enthusiasm, simplicity, and quaintness of that idyllic writer. He used to justify himself by quoting Johna stick with a worm at one end, and a fool at the other," but would sometimes confess that he had not the patience necessary for success in that art, and, instead of watching for a rise or a bite, would let his thoughts run away with him into the realms of poetry and romance.

He was a good chess-player in his youth, but abandoned it soon after he entered the university. It was a sad waste of brains, he said; a throwing-away of time, in which a man might acquire a new language, upon a game, which, however ingenious, was only a game. He objected, too, to a mere amusement absorbing and perplexing the mind, which might require, not exercise, but repose. As I have already said, he preferred backgammon, which he played indifferently, but often with vociferous glee. I do not remember whether there was a billiard-table in Abbotsford; but Scott either did not or would not play. In a letter to his son Walter in 1819, soon after he had become a cornet of hussars, he said, "In every point of view, field-sports are preferable to the indoors amusement of the billiard-table, which is too often the lounging-place for idle young officers, where there is nothing to be got but a habit of throwing away time, and an acquaintance with the very worst society: I mean, at public billiard-rooms; for unquestionably the game itself is a pretty one when practised among gentlemen, and not made a constant habit of. But public billiard-tables are almost always the resort of blacklegs and sharpers, and all that numerous class whom the French call chevaliers d'industrie; and we, knights of the whipping-post." As for cards, though he certainly could play whist, which was a game much more popular "sixty years since" than now, they were never used in Abbotsford. Once, when it

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was proposed to have a rubber, Scott smiled, and answered, Certainly have as many games as you please here is a nice quiet table. But" (and there came a merry twinkle into his eye) "I think there was a pair of cards somewhere in the house four or five years ago, and not more than half of them have been lost."

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CHAPTER VI.

Study of German Literature. — Bürger's "Lenore."-Taylor's and Scott's Translations. - Goethe's "Goetz."- First Love. - Pursuit. - Encourage ment. - Rejection.-End of a Romance.-Caught in the Rebound.- Die Vernon at Gilsland.The Popping-Stone.-Mystery of a Bride's Parentage.- Benedick the Married Man.

IN

1793-1798.

N an introduction to one of his own poems, Scott has stated with exact care the very day and year on which the literary persons of Edinburgh "were first made aware of the existence of works of genius in a language cognate with the English, and possessed of the same manly force of expression. They learned, at the same time, that the taste which dictated the German compositions was of a kind as nearly allied to the English as their own language." Upon the 21st April, 1788, when Scott was in his seventeenth year, Henry Mackenzie read in Edinburgh, to the Royal Society, an essay on German literature, which produced a powerful effect. The majority of his auditors, with minds highly cultivated, then first heard something of the productions of Lessing, Klopstock, Schiller, and other German poets of eminence. They had probably read a translation of "The Sorrows of Werther" (a sentimental novel founded on Goethe's own love for a betrothed lady, and the suicide of a young man named Jerusalem), which, being more sensational than English fiction of that period, was in every one's hands. Mackenzie's essay treated chiefly of the German drama, which chiefly consisted

of tragedies in prose until Schiller showed that blank verse was the proper medium for this kind of composition.

One effect from Mackenzie's revelation was a desire, on the part of Scott and some of his friends, to study German. Dr. Willich, a German medical gentleman then living in Edinburgh, who undertook to instruct them, soon lost his patience with Scott, who, even more than the others, desired to master the masterpieces of German literature without the trouble and delay of learning the language from the grammar. Gesner's "Death of Abel," which Scott called a pietistic story, was put into their hands, as very easy German to begin with; but they had no sympathy with the characters and incidents of that antediluvian idyl. They contrived, however, to acquire sufficient knowledge of the language to interest them in it; and, by laborious private study, most of the class became able to read Lessing, Kant, and Gerstenberg, whose tragedy of "Ugolino" is said to have inspired Schiller, Goethe, and Klinger. Scott took very kindly to the modern imaginative literature of Germany: it best suited his taste, and the language was less difficult. He translated all that he could procure of the poetry of Goethe, Schiller, and Bürger, putting them into plain English prose. Mr. Gillies says that he also dealt in this manner with some of the now-forgotten romances of Spiess, then an eminent manufacturer for the Minerva press of Germany. These translations were mere exercises; but they broke him into the manner of authorship. About this time appeared the first translation of "The Robbers" of Schiller, by Mr. Tytler; and the enthusiasm with which it was received greatly increased the general taste in Scotland for German compositions.

Scott's legal practice, whether in Edinburgh or

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