In 1799 he was so fortunate as to receive the appointment of Sheriff of Selkirkshire, with a salary of L300 per annum.  His duties were not onerous:  he had ample time to scour the country, ostensibly in search of game, and really in seeking for the songs and traditions of Scotland, border ballads, and tales, and in storing his fancy with those picturesque views which he was afterwards to describe so well in verse and prose.  In 1802 he was thus enabled to present to the world his first considerable work, The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, containing many new ballads which he had collected, with very valuable local and historical notes.  This was followed, in 1804, by the metrical romance of Sir Tristrem, the original of which was by Thomas of Ercildoune, of the thirteenth century, known as Thomas the Rhymer:  it was he who dreamed on Huntley bank that he met the Queen of Elfland,

    And, till seven years were gone and past,
    True Thomas on earth was never seen.

The reputation acquired by these productions led the world to expect something distinctly original and brilliant from his pen; a hope which was at once realized.

THE LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL.—­In 1805 appeared his first great poem, The Lay of the Last Minstrel, which immediately established his fame:  it was a charming presentation of the olden time to the new.  It originated in a request of the Countess of Dalkeith that he would write a ballad on the legend of Gilpin Horner.  The picture of the last minstrel, “infirm and old,” fired by remembrance as he begins to tell an old-time story of Scottish valor, is vividly drawn.  The bard is supposed to be the last of his fraternity, and to have lived down to 1690.  The tale, mixed of truth and fable, is exceedingly interesting.  The octo-syllabic measure, with an occasional line of three feet, to break the monotony, is purely minstrelic, and reproduces the effect of the troubadours and trouveres.  The wizard agency of Gilpin Horner’s brood, and the miracle at the tomb of Michael Scott, are by no means out of keeping with the minstrel and the age of which he sings.  The dramatic effects are good, and the descriptions very vivid.  The poem was received with great enthusiasm, and rapidly passed through several editions.  One element of its success is modestly and justly stated by the author in his introduction to a later edition:  “The attempt to return to a more simple and natural style of poetry was likely to be welcomed at a time when the public had become tired of heroic hexameters, with all the buckram and binding that belong to them in modern days.”

With an annual income of L1000, and an honorable ambition, Scott worked his new literary mine with great vigor.  He saw not only fame but wealth within his reach.  He entered into a silent partnership with the publisher, James Ballantyne, which was for a long time lucrative, by reason of the unprecedented sums he received for his works.  In 1806 he was appointed to the reversion—­on the death of the incumbent—­of the clerkship of the Court of Sessions, a place worth L1300 per annum.