Portobello.] ?THE LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL? I45
afterwards an earthenware manufactory. These
public works, as well as others which followed them,
necessarily made the place a seat of population.
Portobello began to grow a thriving village, from
which it rapidly expanded to the dignity of a town,
but was still so small that, in 1798, we find advertised
to sell ?the old Thatch House of Portobello?
on the great road leading to Musselburgh.
In 1801 it was advertised that the Marquis of
Abercom was prepared to feu in lots the whole of
of drilling, Scott used to delight in walking his
powerful black horse up and down by himself on
Portobello sands, within the beating of the surge;
and now and then you would see him plunge in his
spurs and go off as if at the charge, with the spray
dashing about him. As we rode back to Musselburgh
he often came and placed himself beside me
to repeat the verses he had been composing during
those pauses in our exercise.?
These verses were probably portions of the ? Lay
MARIONVILLG
the land lying on the north side of that road, from
Mr, Rae?s property westward to the Magdalene
Bridge; for about that time the beauty of the beach,
the firmness of its sand, and its general eligibility
as a bathing place, drew the attention of the citizens
towards it, and speedily won for the rising
town a fame that prompted the erection of many
villas and streets, and a growing local prosperity.
With other corps of cavalry, here the Edinburgh
Light Horse in those days were wont to ?drill on
. the noble extent of sandy beach, which has an
average breadth of half a mile, with a slow and
almost insensible gradient.
When Scott was in the corps mentioned, Skene
of Rubislaw tells us that, in 1802, ?? in the intervals
115
of the Last Minstrel,? for we are told that when the
corps was on permanent duty at Musselburgh,
Scott, the quartermaster, during a charge on Portobello
sands, received a kick from a horse, which
confined him for three days to his lodgings, where
Skene always found him busy with his pen ; and
before three days were passed he produced the first
canto of ?The Lay,? very nearly in the state in
which it was ultimately published j and that the
whole poem was sketched and filled in with extraordinary
rapidity there can be no difficulty in
believing, for Scott?s really warlike spirit was warmed
up by the daily blare of the trumpet, the flashing of
steel, and the tramp of hoofs,
From Mr. Jarnieson, to whom a great portion of
