In 1802, on Scott's
suggestion, Ballantyne moved to Edinburgh; and to help him to move,
Scott, who was already meditating some investment of his little
capital in business other than literary, lent him 500l. Between this
and 1805, when Scott first became a partner of Ballantyne's in the
printing business, he used every exertion to get legal and literary
printing offered to James Ballantyne, and, according to Mr. Lockhart,
the concern "grew and prospered." At Whitsuntide, 1805, when _The Lay_
had been published, but before Scott had the least idea of the
prospects of gain which mere literature would open to him, he
formally, though secretly, joined Ballantyne as a partner in the
printing business. He explains his motives for this step, so far at
least as he then recalled them, in a letter written after his
misfortunes, in 1826. "It is easy," he said, "no doubt for any friend
to blame me for entering into connexion with commercial matters at
all. But I wish to know what I could have done better--excluded from
the bar, and then from all profits for six years, by my colleague's
prolonged life.
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