enshrined in his admirable ballad, _The Eve of St. John_. The romantic
influence of the scenery of the whole district is told with much
vigour and sweetness in the introduction to the third canto of
_Marmion_.


EDUCATION.


Little is known of the schooldom of Scott, that denotes anything like
precocious talent. It is, however better ascertained that his early
rambles amidst the Tweed scenery retarded his educational pursuits. He
received the rudiments of knowledge under the home tuition of his
mother; next attended an ordinary school at Edinburgh, and was then
placed at the High School, his name first appearing in the school
register in the year 1779. His masters, Mr. Luke Fraser, and Dr. Adam,
were erudite and pains-taking teachers; but, to borrow a phrase from
Montaigne, they could neither lodge it with him, nor make him espouse
it, and Chambers illustratively relates, "apparently, neither the care
of the master, nor the inborn genius of the pupil, availed much in
this case; for it is said that the twenty-fifth place was no uncommon
situation in the class for the future Author of the Waverley Novels."
Perhaps the only anecdote of any early indication of talent that can
be relied on is that related by Mr. Cunningham, of Burns:--"The poet,
while at Professor Ferguson's one day, was struck by some lines
attached to a print of a Soldier dying in the snow, and inquired who
was the author: none of the old or the learned spoke, when the future
author of _Marmion_ answered, 'They are by Langhorne.' Burns, fixing
his large, bright eyes on the boy, and, striding up to him, said, it
is no common course of reading which has taught you this--'this lad,'