In his early years, he had formed a taste for ballad literature, which
very significantly influenced, if it did not wholly determine, the
character of his writings. The historical incidents upon which the
ballads were founded, their traditional legends, affected him
profoundly, and he wished to become at once a poet of chivalry, a writer
of romance. His father, however, had other plans for his son, and the
lad was made a lawyer's apprentice in the father's office. Continuing,
as recreation, his reading, he gave six years to the study of law, being
admitted to the bar when only twenty-one. For years, he cultivated
literature as a relaxation from business.
At the age of twenty-six he married, and about this time accepted the
office of deputy sheriff of Selkirkshire, largely moved to do so by his
unwillingness to rely upon his pen for support. Nine years later, 1806,
through family influence he was appointed, at a good salary, to one of
the chief clerkships in the Scottish court of sessions. The fulfillment
of his long-cherished desire of abandoning his labors as an advocate, in
order to devote himself to literature, was now at hand. He had already
delighted the public by various early literary efforts, the most
important being the "Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border," parts of which
had occupied him since childhood.
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