nd bank-notes." His professional occupation was
still very slender; but he took a lively interest in the proceedings
of the criminal court, and more especially in those arising out of the
troubled state of the public feeling as to politics.

In the spring of 1794 I find him writing to his friends in
Roxburghshire with great exultation about the "good spirit"
manifesting itself among the upper classes of the citizens of
Edinburgh, and, above all, the organization of a {p.203} regiment of
volunteers, in which his brother Thomas, now a fine active young man,
equally handsome and high-spirited, was enrolled as a grenadier,
while, as he remarks, his own "unfortunate infirmity" condemned him to
be "a mere spectator of the drills." In the course of the same year,
the plan of a corps of volunteer light horse was started; and, if the
recollection of Mr. Skene be accurate, the suggestion originally
proceeded from Scott himself, who certainly had a principal share in
its subsequent success. He writes to his uncle at Rosebank, requesting
him to be on the lookout for a "strong gelding, such as would suit a
stalwart dragoon;" and intimating his intention to part with his
collection of Scottish coins, rather than not be mounted to his mind.
The corps, however, was not organized for some time; and in the mean
while he had an opportunity of displaying his zeal in a manner which
Captain Scott by no means considered as so respectable.

A party of Irish medical students began, towards the end of April, to
make themselves remarkable in the Edinburgh Theatre, where they
mustered in a particular corner of the pit, and lost no opportunity of
insulting the Loyalists of the boxes, by calling for revolutionary
tunes, applauding every speech that could bear a seditious meaning,
and drowning the national anthem in howls and hootings. The young
Tories of the Parliament House resented this license warmly, and after
a succession of minor disturbances, the quarrel was, put to the issue
of a regular trial by combat. Scott was conspicuous among the juvenile
advocates and solicitors who on this grand night assembled in front of
the pit, armed with stout cudgels, and determined to have God save the
King not only played without interruption, but sung in full chorus by
both company and audience. The Irishmen were ready at the first note
of the anthem. They rose, clapped on their hats, and brandished their
shillelahs; a stern battle ensued, and after many a