retching down from the "stormy Ruberslaw." He received the
rudiments of knowledge from his paternal grandmother; and discovering a
remarkable aptitude for learning, his father determined to afford him
the advantages of a liberal education. He was sent to the parish school
of Kirkton, and afterwards placed under the tutorship of a Cameronian
clergyman, in Denholm, reputed as a classical scholar. In 1790, he
entered the University of Edinburgh, where he soon acquired distinction
for his classical attainments and devotedness to general learning. His
last session of college attendance was spent at St Andrews, where he
became a tutor. By the Presbytery of St Andrews, in May 1798, he was
licensed as a probationer of the Scottish Church. On obtaining his
licence, he returned to the capital, where his reputation as a scholar
had secured him many friends. He now accepted the editorship of the
_Scots Magazine_, to which he had formerly been a contributor, and
otherwise employed himself in literary pursuits. In 1799, he published,
in a duodecimo volume, "An Historical and Philosophical Sketch of the
Discoveries and Settlements of the Europeans in Northern and Central
Africa, at the Close of the Eighteenth Century." "The Complaynt of
Scotland," a curious political treatise of the sixteenth century, next
appeared under his editorial care, with an ingenious introduction, and
notes. In 1801, he contributed the ballad of "The Elf-king," to Lewis'
"Tales of Wonder;" and, about the same period, wrote several ballads for
the "Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border." The dissertation on "Fairy
Superstition," in the second volume of the latter work, slightly altered
by Scott, proceeded from his pen. In 1802, he edited a small volume,
entitled, "Scottish Descriptive Poems," consisting of a new edition of
Wilson's "Clyde," and a reprint of "Albania,"--a curious poem, in blank
verse, by an anonymous writer of the beginning of the eighteenth
century.

A wide circle of influential friends were earnestly desirous of his
promotion. In 1800, the opposition of the aged incumbent prevented his
appointment as assistant and successor in the ministerial charge of his
native parish. A proposal to appoint him Professor of Rhetoric in the
University of Edinburgh also failed. He now resolved to proceed to
Africa, to explore the interior, under the auspices of the African
Association; but some of his friends meanwhile procured him an
appointment as a surgeon in t