260 MENTAL AND PHYSICAL EXERCISE. 



generation should possess proper conceptions with re- 

 spect to the arduous duties of the clerical office, and al- 

 so that our young men, who are destined to follow the 

 pursuits of science, or literature, should at the com- 

 mencement, know the importance of habitually using so 

 much corporeal exercise, as to prevent their falling into 

 that nervous and debilitated condition, under which but 

 too many of their brethren are now laboring. 



Sir Walter Scott. Sir Walter Scott, who produced, 

 in the course of little more than twenty-five years, seven- 

 ty-four volumes of original romances, besides histories, 

 poems, biographies, critiques and dissertations so numer- 

 ous, that so far as we know, their number has not been 

 computed, and who at the same period employed many 

 hours every day in other mental labors, still found time 

 to take a great deal of amusing muscular exercise. Be- 

 sides his dogs and gun, of which, being a capital shot, he 

 was exceedingly fond, and with which he exercised him- 

 self with all the keenness and ardor of a first rate 

 sportsman, he also, nearly every day in the season, did 

 something in the practice of cultivation, never taking a 

 walk about his grounds without a weeding, or pruning 

 hook in his hand, thus always, even when most at leis- 

 ure, placing before himself some object of amusement, 

 or motive of action. 



It is well known, that for a long time there was a mys- 

 tery with respect to the author of the Waverly Novels, 

 and it now appears that the apparently constant occu- 

 pation of Scott, as clerk of the Sessions, and in other 

 employments, was considered as a sufficient reason, 

 why it was not possible that he could have been the au- 

 thor. " In order to thicken this mystification" says one 

 of his biographers," Scott, instead of being always at his 

 writing desk, as might have have been expected in so vo- 

 luminous an author, seemed through the whole day and 

 evening, to have his time perfectly at command, for the 

 routine either of business or amusement." "Three 

 hours per diem' 9 as he often observed, " are quite enough 

 for literary labor, if only one's attention is kept so long 

 undistracted ; and the best time for this, is in the morn- 

 ing when other people are asleep." 



