It was the outcome of his wanderings in the
Border country. In it Scott had gathered together many ballads
which he heard from the country folk, but he altered and bettered
them as he thought fit, and among them were new ballads by
himself and some of his friends.
The book was only a moderate success, but in it we may find the
germ of all Scott's later triumphs. For it was the spirit of
these ballads with which his mind was so full which made it
possible for him to write the Metrical Romances that made him
famous.
It is now many chapters since we spoke of Metrical Romances.
They were, you remember, the chief literature from the twelfth to
the fifteenth century, which time was also the time of the early
ballads. And now that people had begun again to see the beauty
of ballads, they were ready also to turn again to the simplicity
of Metrical Romances. These rime stories which Scott now began
to write, burst on our Island with the splendor of something new,
and yet it was simply the old-time spirit in which Scott had
steeped himself, which found a new birth--a Renascence.
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