But to return. Scott showed how nearly he had been touched to the quick by two other acts not so discreet. These were, the establishment of an Annual Register, and of the great publishing house of the Ballantynes, in which he became a silent partner. The last step involved him in grievous embarrassments, and stimulated him to exertions which required "a frame of adamant and soul of fire." At the same time, we find him overwhelmed with poetical, biographical, historical, and critical compositions, together with editorial labours of appalling magnitude. In this multiplication of himself in a thousand forms, we see him always the same, vigorous and effective. "Poetry," he says in one of his letters, "is a scourging crop, and ought not to be hastily repeated. Editing, therefore, may be considered as a green crop of turnips or pease, extremely useful to those whose circumstances do not admit of giving their farm a summer fallow." It might be regretted, however, that he should have wasted powers fitted for so much higher culture on the coarse products of a kitchen garden, which might have been safely trusted to inferior hands.
In 1811, Scott gave to the world his exquisite poem, "The Lady of the Lake." One of his fair friends had remonstrated with him on thus risking again the laurel he had already won. He replied, with characteristic, and, indeed, prophetic spirit, "If I fail, I will write prose all my life. But if I succeed,
"Up wi the bonnie blue bonnet,
The dirk and the feather an a'!'"
