se performances, being too justly
afraid of involving me in a breach of promise, but was merely desirous
that I should have the chance of instruction within my reach, in case
whim, curiosity, or accident, might induce me to have recourse to it."
I remember the pleasure with which he read, late in life, Rome in the
Nineteenth Century, an ingenious work produced by one of Mrs. Waldie's
granddaughters, and how comically he pictured the alarm with which his
ancient friend would have perused some of its delineations of the high
places of Popery.

I shall be pardoned for adding a marginal note written, apparently
late in Scott's life, on his copy of a little forgotten volume,
entitled Trifles in Verse, by a Young Soldier. "In 1783," he says, "or
about that time, I remember John Marjoribanks, a smart recruiting
officer in the village of Kelso, the Weekly Chronicle of which he
filled with his love verses. His Delia was a Miss Dickson, daughter of
a shopkeeper in the same village--his Gloriana a certain prudish old
maiden lady, benempt Miss Goldie; I think I see her still, with her
thin arms sheathed in scarlet gloves, and crossed like two lobsters in
a fishmonger's stand. Poor Delia was a very beautiful girl, and not
more conceited than a be-rhymed miss ought to be. Many years
afterwards I found the Kelso _belle_, thin and pale, her good looks
gone, and her smart dress neglected, governess to the brats of a
Paisley manufacturer. I ought to say there was not an atom of scandal
in her flirtation with the young military poet. The bard's {p.103}
fate was not much better; after some service in India and elsewhere,
he led a half-pay life about Edinburgh, and died there. There is a
tenuity of thought in what he has written, but his verses are usually
easy, and I like them because they recall my schoolboy days, when I
thought him a Horace, and his Delia a goddess."

CHAPTER IV {p.104}

Illustrations of the Autobiography Continued. -- Anecdotes
of Scott's College Life.

1783-1786.

On returning to Edinburgh, and entering the College, in November,
1783, Scott found himself once more in the fellowship of all his
intimates of the High School; of whom, besides those mentioned in the
autobiographical fragment, he speaks in his diaries with particular
affection of Sir William Rae, Bart., David Monypenny (afterwards Lord
Pitmilly), Thomas Tod, W. S., Sir Archibald Campbell of Succoth,
Bart., all familiar friends of his