that Homer might have envied--the creation of the ancient harper, starts to life. By such steps did the 'Lay of the Last Minstrel' grow out of the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border.' "A word more of its felicitous machinery. It was at Bowhill that the Countess of Dalkeith requested a ballad on Gilpin Horner. The ruined castle of Newark closely adjoins that seat, and is now indeed included within its _pleasance_. Newark had been the chosen residence of the first Duchess of Buccleuch, and he accordingly shadows out his own beautiful friend in the person of her lord's ancestress, the last of the original stock of that great house; himself the favored inmate of Bowhill, introduced certainly to the familiarity of its circle in consequence of his devotion to the poetry of a by-past age, in that of an aged minstrel, 'the last of all the race,' seeking shelter at the gate of Newark, in days when many an adherent of the fallen cause of Stewart--his own bearded ancestor, _who had fought at Killiekrankie_, among the rest--owed their safety to her who 'In pride of power, in beauty's bloom, Had wept o'er Monmouth's bloody tomb.'" The profits, to Scott, from the several editions of this poem were £769. The sales are given as follows: "The first edition of the Lay was a magnificent quarto, 750 copies; but this was soon exhausted, and there followed an octavo impression of 1500; in 1806, two more, one of 2000 copies, another of 2550; in 1807, a fifth edition of 2000, and a sixth of 3000; in 1803, 3550; in 1809, 3000--a small edition in quarto (the ballads and lyrical pieces being then annexed to it,) and another octavo edition of 3250; in 1811, 3000; in 1812, 3000; in 1816, 3000; in 1823, 1000. A fourteenth impression of 2000 foolscap appeared in 1825; and besides all this, before the end of 1836, 11,000 copies had gone forth in the collected editions of his poetical works. Thus, nearly forty-four thousand copies had been disposed of in this country, and by the legitimate trade alone, before he superintended the edition of 1830, to which his biographical introductions were prefixed. In the history of British Poetry, nothing had ever equalled the demand for the Lay of the Last Minstrel." Subsequently to a very interesting account of Scott's partnership with Ballantine, and of his entering actively upon numerous literary projects--including his editions of the British poets, Ancient English Chronicles, Dryden, commencement of Waverley, etc.,--we find the following account of his personal habits of industry: