rving's near relation, William
Clerk of Eldin, of whose powerful talents and extensive
accomplishments we shall hereafter meet with many enthusiastic
notices. It was in company with this gentleman that he entered the
debating societies described in his Memoir; through him he soon became
linked in the closest intimacy with George Cranstoun (now Lord
Corehouse), George Abercromby (now Lord Abercromby), John James
Edmonstone[66] of Newton (whose mother was sister of Sir Ralph
Abercromby), Patrick Murray of Simprim, Sir Patrick Murray of
Ochtertyre, and a group of other young men, all high in birth and
connection, and all remarkable in early life for the qualities which
afterwards led them to eminent station, {p.130} or adorned it. The
introduction to their several families is alluded to by Scott as
having opened to him abundantly certain advantages, which no one could
have been more qualified to improve, but from which he had hitherto
been in great measure debarred in consequence of the retired habits of
his parents.

[Footnote 66: Mr. Edmonstone died 19th April, 1840.--(1848.)]

Mr. Clerk says that he had been struck from the first day he entered
the Civil Law class-room with something odd and remarkable in Scott's
appearance; what this something was he cannot now recall, but he
remembers telling his companion some time afterwards that he thought
he looked like a _hautboy player_. Scott was amused with this notion,
as he had never touched a musical instrument of any kind; but I fancy
his friend had been watching a certain noticeable but altogether
indescribable play of the upper lip when in an abstracted mood. He
rallied Walter, he says, during one of their first evening walks
together, on the slovenliness of his dress: he wore a pair of corduroy
breeches, much glazed by the rubbing of his staff, which he
immediately flourished--and said, "They be good enough for drinking
in--let us go and have some oysters in the Covenant Close."

Convivial habits were then indulged among the young men of Edinburgh,
whether students of law, solicitors, or barristers, to an extent now
happily unknown; and this anecdote recalls some striking hints on that
subject which occur in Scott's brief Autobiography. That he partook
profusely in the juvenile bacchanalia of that day, and continued to
take a plentiful share in such jollities down to the time of his
marriage, are facts worthy of being distinctly stated; for no man in
mature