After the process of translation had discovered to him his verse-making faculty, he naturally passed on to the writing of original poems, and circumstances of a half accidental sort determined that the Scottish ballads which he had always loved should absorb his attention for the next two or three years.
The publication of a book of ballads was first suggested by Scott as an opportunity for his friend Ballantyne to exhibit his skill as a printer and so increase his business.

"I have been for years collecting old Border ballads," Scott remarked, "and I think I could with little trouble put together such a selection from them as might make a neat little volume to sell for four or five shillings."[33] From this casual proposition resulted _The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border_, published in three volumes in 1802-3 and often revised and reissued during the editor's lifetime.
This book and the prefaces to his own novels are likely to be thought of first when Scott is spoken of as a critic.

The connection between the _Minstrelsy_ and the novels has often been pointed out, ever since the day of the contemporary who, on reading the ballads with their introductions, exclaimed that in that book were the elements of a hundred historical romances.[34] The interest of the earlier work is undoubtedly multiplied by the associations in the light of which we read it--associations connected with the editor's whole experience as an author, from the _Lay of the Last Minstrel_ to _Castle Dangerous_.
Important as the _Minstrelsy_ is from the point of view of literary criticism, the material of its introductions is chiefly historical.

The introduction in the original edition gives an account of life on the Border in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, with the outlines of many of the events that stimulated ballad-making, and an analysis of the temper of the Marchmen among whom this kind of poetry flourished; then by special introductions and notes to the poems an attempt is made to explain both the incidents on which they seem to have been founded, and parallel cases that appear in tradition or record.

Some enthusiastic comment is included, of the kind that was so natural to Scott, on the effect of ballad poetry upon a spirited and warlike people.