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_.


MARRIAGE--SHERIFFDOM--LEAVES THE BAR.


Reverting to Sir Walter's domestic life, we should mention that in
1797, he married Miss Carpenter, a lady of Jersey, with an annuity of
400_l._; soon after which he established himself during the vacations,
in a delightful retreat at Lasswade, on the banks of the Esse, about
five miles to the south of Edinburgh. In 1799, he obtained the Crown
appointment of sheriff of Selkirkshire, with a salary of 300_l._ a