hot and impetuous blood
he may not have escaped quite blameless, but I have the concurrent
testimony of all the most intimate among his surviving associates,
that he was remarkably free from such indiscretions; that while his
high sense of honor shielded him from the remotest dream of tampering
with female innocence, he had an instinctive delicacy about him which
made him recoil with utter disgust from low and vulgar debaucheries.
His {p.144} friends, I have heard more than one of them confess,
used often to rally him on the coldness of his nature. By degrees they
discovered that he had, from almost the dawn of the passions,
cherished a secret attachment, which continued, through all the most
perilous stage of life, to act as a romantic charm in safeguard of
virtue. This--(however he may have disguised the story by mixing it up
with the Quixotic adventure of the damsel in the Green Mantle)--this
was the early and innocent affection to which we owe the tenderest
pages, not only of Redgauntlet, but of The Lay of the Last Minstrel,
and of Rokeby. In all of these works the heroine has certain
distinctive features, drawn from one and the same haunting dream of
his manly adolescence.

It was about 1790, according to Mr. William Clerk, that Scott was
observed to lay aside that carelessness, not to say slovenliness, as
to dress, which used to furnish matter for joking at the beginning of
their acquaintance. He now did himself more justice in these little
matters, became fond of mixing in general female society, and, as his
friend expresses it, "began to set up for a squire of dames."

His personal appearance at this time was not unengaging. A lady of
high rank,[76] who well remembers him in the Old Assembly Rooms, says,
"Young Walter Scott was a comely creature." He had outgrown the
sallowness of early ill health, and had a fresh, brilliant complexion.
His eyes were clear, open, and well set, with a changeful radiance, to
which teeth of the most perfect regularity and whiteness lent their
assistance, while the noble expanse and elevation of the brow gave to
the whole aspect a dignity far above the charm of mere features. His
smile was always delightful; and I can easily fancy the peculiar
intermixture of tenderness and gravity, with playful innocent hilarity
and humor in the expression, as being well calculated to fix a fair
lady's eye. His figure, {p.145} excepting the blemish in one limb,
must in those days have been emine