means of supporting my family. I got but 600_l._ for
_The Lay of the Last Minstrel_, and--it was a price that made men's
hair stand on end--1000_l._ for _Marmion_. I have been far from
suffering by James Ballantyne. I owe it to him to say, that his
difficulties, as well as his advantages, are owing to me."

This, though a true, was probably a very imperfect account of Scott's
motives. He ceased practising at the bar, I do not doubt, in great
degree from a kind of hurt pride at his ill-success, at a time when he
felt during every month more and more confidence in his own powers. He
believed, with some justice, that he understood some of the secrets of
popularity in literature, but he had always, till towards the end of
his life, the greatest horror of resting on literature alone as his
main resource; and he was not a man, nor was Lady Scott a woman, to
pinch and live narrowly. Were it only for his lavish generosity, that
kind of life would have been intolerable to him. Hence, he reflected,
that if he could but use his literary instinct to feed some commercial
undertaking, managed by a man he could trust, he might gain a
considerable percentage on his little capital, without so embarking in
commerce as to oblige him either to give up his status as a sheriff,
or his official duties as a clerk of session, or his literary
undertakings. In his old schoolfellow, James Ballantyne, he believed
he had found just such an agent as he wanted, the requisite link
between literary genius like his own, and the world which reads and
buys books; and he thought that, by feeling his way a little, he might
secure, through this partnership, besides the then very bare rewards
of authorship, at least a share in those more liberal rewards which
commercial men managed to squeeze for themselves out of successful
authors. And, further, he felt--and this was probably the greatest
unconscious attraction for him in this scheme--that with James
Ballantyne for his partner he should be the real leader and chief, and
rather in the position of a patron and benefactor of his colleague,
than of one in any degree dependent on the generosity or approval of
others. "If I have a very strong passion in the world," he once wrote
of himself--and the whole story of his life seems to confirm it--"it
is pride."[30] In James Ballantyne he had a faithful, but almost humble
friend, with whom he could deal much as he chose, and fear no wound to
his pride. He had himself h