Scott's early love of reading is described to have been of
enthusiastic character, and to have been fostered by an accident at
this period of his life. He had just given over the amusements of
boyhood, and began to prepare himself for the serious business of
life, or the study of the law, when, to use his own words, "a long
illness threw him back on the kingdom of fiction, as it were by a
species of fatality." His autobiography of this period is extremely
interesting:--"My indisposition arose in part at least, from my having
broken a blood-vessel; and motion and speech were for a long time
pronounced positively dangerous. For several weeks I was confined
strictly to my bed, during which time I was not allowed to speak above
a whisper, to eat more than a spoonful or two of boiled rice, or to
have more covering than one thin counterpane. When the reader is
informed that I was at this time a growing youth, with the spirits,
appetite, and impatience of fifteen, and suffered, of course, greatly
under this severe regimen, which the repeated return of my disorder
rendered indispensable, he will not be surprised that I was abandoned
to my own discretion, so far as reading (my almost sole amusement) was
concerned, and still less so, that I abused the indulgence which left
my time so much at my own disposal.

"There was at this time a circulating library at Edinburgh, founded, I
believe, by the celebrated Allan Ramsay, which, besides containing a
most respectable collection of books of every description, was, as
might have been expected, peculiarly rich in works of fiction. I was
plunged into this great ocean of reading without compass or pilot; and
unless when some one had the charity to play at chess with me, I was
allowed to do nothing save read, from morning to night. As my taste
and appetite were gratified in nothing else, I indemnified myself by