Sir Walter Scott as a Lawyer. allies over a bowl of punch later on, and to cheer him up after what he thought was a dismal failure, one of them proposed a song entitled "The Tailor." "The tailor he came ben to sew, And weel he kenned the way o'l" "Ah," said Scott, with a groan, "the tailor was a better man than me, sirs; for he didna venture ben until he kenned the way." He waited for clients for some years, but his fees were small. His fee-book shows his earnings to have been as follows : he made in his first year £24 35., in his second year £57 155., in his third year £84 45., in his fourth £90, and in his fifth from November, 1796, to July, 1797, £144 IDS. He was appointed sheriff of Selkirkshire on the i6th of December, 1799, at a salary of iyx> per annum. To quote his biographer: "The duties of the office were far from heavy; the territory small, peaceful and pas toral . . . and he turned with redoubled zeal to his project of editing the ballads, many of the best of which belong to this very district of his favorite border." He was appointed clerk of the Court of Sessions about the year 1806, at a salary of £1300 a year, but he did not receive the salary attached to the office until some years after ward. His predecessor was one George Home
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of Wedderburn, an old friend of Scott's fam ily, who had held the position ior over thirty years. Sir Walter offered to relieve him from the duties of the office, and allow him to draw the salary during his lifetime. A patent was accordingly issued in their joint names. Scott found, however, that Mr. Home had no present intention of going over to the great majority, and in a letter some years afterward he complained to an intimate friend of having the old man of the sea on his back. A few of Scott's friends regretted that an important case had not been entrusted to him, as advocate. They believed that he would have reached an eminent position at the bar, if he had had a fair chance. Let us venture the opinion that Scott's mind after his first trip to the Highlands with the sergeant, from Stirling, never rested seriously upon legal procedure or legal principles. He was day by day, in imagination, wandering over the hills, and chasing the otter with Dandie Dinmont and his dogs, crooning over the fire in the quiet glen at midnight with Meg Merriles, or following the fortunes of Di Vernon and Rob Roy, and many another favorite child of his pen, until at the last, and after more of triumph and of defeat than falls to the lot of even the world's greatest favorites, he left a name which will live forever in the memory and affection of his fellow-men.— The Canadian Law Review.
