mance, with some favourite companion of his studies, or pouring into the ears of the latter his own boyish legends, glowing with
"achievements high,
And circumstance of chivalry."
A critical knowledge of these languages he seems not to have obtained, and even in the French made but an indifferent figure in conversation. An accurate acquaintance with the pronunciation and prosody of a foreign tongue is undoubtedly a desirable accomplishment; but it is, after all, a mere accomplishment subordinate to the great purposes for which a language is to be learned. Scott did not, as is too often the case, mistake the shell for the kernel. He looked on language only as the key to unlock the foreign stores of wisdom, the pearls of inestimable price, wherever found, with which to enrich his native literature.
After a brief residence at the University, he was regularly indented as an apprentice to his father in 1786, One can hardly imagine a situation less congenial with the ardent, effervescing spirit of a poetic fancy, fettered down to a daily routine of drudgery scarcely above that of a mere scrivener, It proved, however, a useful school of discipline to him. It formed early habits of method, punctuality, and laborious industry; business habits, in short, most adverse to the poetic temperament, but indispensable to the accomplishment of the gigantic tasks which he afterward assumed. He has himself borne testimony to his general diligence in his new vocation, and
