This work, although not original, may be said to be the superstructure
of Sir Walter Scott's fame. It consists, as we have already hinted, of
the ballad poetry of the Border district; but to obtain this
vernacular literature was not the work of mere compilation. The
editor's task was not performed in the closet, but in a sort of
literary pilgrimage through a land of song, story, and romance. The
farmers and peasantry from whose recitation the ballads were to be set
down, were a primitive race; and the country among which oral
traditions, anecdotes, and legends were to be collected for notes
illustrative of the ballads, was of the most romantic character. Sir
Walter found the most fertile field in the pastoral vale of
Liddesdale, whither he travelled in an old gig with Mr. Shortreed, an
intelligent observer of the manners of the people. In these
researches, Sir Walter evinced a most retentive memory: he is stated
to have used neither pencil nor pen, but to have made his own
memoranda by cutting notches on twigs, or small sticks.[6] The
_Minstrelsy_ was published in 1802, in two volumes; it was reprinted
in the following year with a third volume, of imitations, by Scott and
others, of the ancient ballad; but Sir Walter refers to the second
edition as rather a heavy concern.
[6] Many anecdotes are related in illustration of Sir Walter
Scott's excellent memory. The Ettrick Shepherd tells of
his attempting to sing his ballad of _Gilmanscleuch_,
which had never been printed or penned, but which the
Shepherd had sung once over to Sir Walter three years
previously. On the second attempt to sing it, says the
Shepherd, "in the eighth or ninth verse, I stuck in it,
and could not get on with another line; on which he (Sir
Walter) began it a second time, and recited it every word
from beginning to the end of the eighty-eighth stanza:"
and, on the Shepherd expressing his astonishment, Sir
Walter related that he had recited that ballad and one of
Southey's, but which ballads he had only heard once from
their respective authors, and he believed he had recited
them both without missing a word. Sir Walter also used to
relate that his friend, Mr. Thomas Campbell, called upon
him one evening to show him the manuscript of a poem he
had written--_The Pleasures of Hope_. Sir Walter happened
to have some fine old whisky in his house, and his friend
sat down and had a tumbler or two of punch. Mr. Campbell
left him, but Sir Walter thought he would dip into the
manuscript before going to bed. He opened it, read, and
read again--charmed with the classical grace, purity, and
stateliness of that finest of all our modern didactic
poems. Next morning Mr. Campbell again called, when to his
inexpressible surprise, his friend on returning the
manuscript to its owner, said he should guard well against
piracy, for that he himself could repeat the poem from
beginning to end! The poet dared him to the task, when Sir
Walter Scott began and actually repeated the whole,
consisting of more than two thousand lines, with the
omission of only a few couplets.--_Inverness Courier_.