James Ballantyne was the son of a merchant in the Border town of Kelso, and was born in 1772. He was educated at the grammar-school of that town, then kept by Lancelot Whale, an admirable scholar and teacher, who is said to have resembled Dominie Sampson in “Guy Mannering.” For a short time in 1783 James had as schoolfellow and companion the youthful Walter Scott, who was staying at Rosebank for the benefit of his health. The two became associated, perhaps to the neglect of their tasks during school hours, through the story-telling propensities of Scott.[1] After school they would wander along the banks of the Tweed, and these rambles had many pleasant associations—the one happy in drinking in the romantic stories and legendary lore which the other was equally happy in pouring out. This school friendship was never broken off, as Scott paid frequent visits to the Border town for some years afterwards; and when James Ballantyne went to Edinburgh to complete his legal training, after finishing his apprenticeship in Kelso, it is more than probable that he would meet Walter Scott, who was then attending the law-classes of the University. The intercourse would be renewed in the class-rooms and also in the monthly symposiums of the Teviotdale Club, to which they both belonged. On the conclusion of his legal studies, James Ballantyne commenced business as a lawyer in Edinburgh, but success proving slow he returned in 1795 to his native town; and here, whatever legal or other work he may have carried on, he seems, according to an advertisement in No. 1 of the _Kelso Mail_, to have acted as agent for the Sun Fire Insurance Co. Being a young man of literary ability as well, he soon attracted the attention of the county people, who prevailed upon him, in 1796, to become the editor and manager of a new weekly newspaper, the _Kelso Mail_, which they were promoting in opposition to the _Kelso Chronicle_, a paper of advanced democratic principles, circulating in Roxburgh and the other Border counties. In this way he established his first practical connection with printing. [Illustration: REDUCED FACSIMILE OF THE FIRST PAGE OF THE FIRST NUMBER OF THE “KELSO MAIL”]