year; the duties of which office he is said to have performed with
kindness and justice. Mr. Cunningham relates that Sir Walter had a
high notion of the dignity which belonged to his post, and sternly
maintained it when any one seemed disposed to treat it with unbecoming
familiarity. On one occasion, it is said, when some foreign prince
passed through Selkirk, the populace, anxious to look on a live
prince, crowded round him so closely, that Scott, in vain attempted to
approach him; the poet's patience failed, and exclaiming "Room for
your sheriff! Room for your sheriff!" he pushed and elbowed the gapers
impatiently aside, and apologised to the prince for their
curiosity.[7]

[7] Memoir in the _Athenaeum_.

By the death of Sir Walter's father, his income was increased, and
this addition, with the salary of his sheriffdom, left him more at
leisure to indulge his literary pursuits. Soon after this period,
about 1803, Sir Walter finding that his attempts in literature had
been unfavourable to his success at the bar, says:--"My profession and
I, therefore, came to stand nearly upon the footing on which honest
Slender consoled himself with having established with Mrs. Anne Page.
'There was no great love between us at the beginning, and it pleased
Heaven to decrease it on farther acquaintance!' I became sensible that
the time was come when I must either buckle myself resolutely to 'the
toil by day, the lamp by night,' renouncing all the Dalilahs of my
imagination, or bid adieu to the profession of the law, and hold
another course.

"I confess my own inclination revolted from the more severe choice,
which might have been deemed by many the wiser alternative. As my