Chapter I: Part 1

LIFE

OF

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

LIFE OF
SIR WALTER SCOTT

BY
ROBERT CHAMBERS. LL.D.
WITH
ABBOTSFORD NOTANDA
BY
ROBERT CARRUTHERS, LL.D.

EDITED BY W. CHAMBERS.

W. & R. CHAMBERS,
EDINBURGH AND LONDON.
1871.

LIFE

OF

SIR WALTER SCOTT

BY ROBERT CHAMBERS, LL.D.

WITH

ABBOTSFORD NOTANDA

BY ROBERT CARRUTHERS, LL.D.

EDITED BY W. CHAMBERS

W. & R. CHAMBERS
LONDON AND EDINBURGH
1871

Edinburgh:
Printed by W. and R. Chambers.

PREFATORY NOTE.

The present Memoir of Sir Walter Scott was written by my brother, the late Dr R. Chambers, immediately after the decease of the great novelist, and having been issued at a small price for popular reading, had what was then considered a large circulation--180,000 copies. It was subsequently republished, with some improvements. The Memoir is now reproduced in somewhat better style, as a small but fitting contribution in homage of the great man, the centenary of whose birth, 15th August 1871, is about to be very generally celebrated. I have taken the liberty of adding only a few paragraphs, distinguishable by being enclosed within brackets. The principal of these insertions refers to the manner in which my brother had the honour to become acquainted with, and acquired the esteem of, Sir Walter Scott.

To the Memoir are now appropriately appended certain ‘Abbotsford Notanda,’ descriptive of the friendly intercourse which long subsisted between Sir Walter and his factor and amanuensis, William Laidlaw, prepared by one well qualified to write on the subject, Dr R. Carruthers, Inverness.

W. C.

EDINBURGH, _June 1871_.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

PARENTAGE 1

BIRTH--BIRTHPLACE--EARLY SCENES 8

THE LAND OF SCOTT 10

SCHOOL-BOY DAYS 16

UNIVERSITY 25

PROFESSION 28

POLITICAL OPINIONS--SOLDIERING 33

VISIT TO PEEBLESSHIRE 35

MARRIAGE 37

POEMS 42

WAVERLEY NOVELS 51

SIR WALTER AND MR R. CHAMBERS 64

LATER NOVELS, AND LIFE OF NAPOLEON 67

PECUNIARY MISFORTUNES 70

LATER EXERTIONS 82

CONCLUDING YEARS--DECEASE 87

PERSONAL APPEARANCE 97

CHARACTER 99

CONCLUSION 105

ABBOTSFORD NOTANDA 109

LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT.

PARENTAGE.

Sir Walter Scott was one of the sons of Walter Scott, Esq., Writer to the Signet, by Anne, daughter of Dr John Rutherford, Professor of the Practice of Medicine in the University of Edinburgh.

His paternal grandfather, Mr Robert Scott, farmer at Sandyknow, in the vicinity of Smailholm Tower, in Roxburghshire, was the son of Mr Walter Scott, a younger son of Walter Scott of Raeburn, who in his turn was third son of Sir William Scott of Harden, in which family the chieftainship of the race of Scott is now understood to reside. Sir Walter’s grandfather, Mr Robert Scott, farmer at Sandyknow, as we learn from the _Border Antiquities_, ‘though both descended from and allied to several respectable Border families, was chiefly distinguished for the excellent good sense and independent spirit which enabled him to lead the way in agricultural improvement--then a pursuit abandoned to persons of a very inferior description. His memory was long preserved in Teviotdale, and still survives, as that of an active and intelligent farmer, and the father of a family all of whom were distinguished by talents, probity, and remarkable success in the pursuits which they adopted.’

Walter, the third son of Sir William Scott of Harden, lived at the time of the Restoration, and embraced the tenets of Quakerism, which at that period made their way into Scotland. For this he endured a degree of persecution for which it is now difficult to assign a reason. The Scottish Privy-council, by an edict dated June 20, 1665, directed his brother, the existing representative of the Harden family, to take away his three children, and educate them separately, so that they might not become infected with the same heresy; and, for doing so, he was to be entitled to sue his brother for the maintenance of the children. By a second edict, dated July 5, 1666, the Council directed two thousand pounds Scots money to be paid by the Laird of Raeburn for this purpose; and, as he was now confined in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh, where he was liable to be further tainted by converse with others of the same sect there also imprisoned, the Council further ordered him to be transported to the jail of Jedburgh, where no one was to have access to him but such as might be expected, to convert him from his present principles.

Walter, the second son of this gentleman, and father to the novelist’s grandfather, received a good education at Glasgow College, under the protection of his uncle. He was a zealous Jacobite--a friend and correspondent of Dr Pitcairn--and made a vow never to shave his beard till the exiled House of Stuart should be restored; whence he acquired the name of _Beardie_.

Dr John Rutherford, maternal grandfather to the subject of this memoir, was one of four Scottish pupils of Boerhaave, who, in the early part of the last century, contributed to establish the high character of the Edinburgh University as a school of medicine. He was the first Professor of the Practice of Physic in the university, to which office he was elected in 1727, and which he resigned in 1766, in favour of the celebrated Dr John Gregory. He was also the first person who delivered lectures on Clinical Medicine in the Infirmary. His son, Dr Daniel Rutherford, maternal uncle to the novelist, was afterwards, for a long period, Professor of Botany in the Edinburgh University, and further distinguished by his great proficiency in chemistry. Dr D. Rutherford was one of the cleverest scientific men of his day; and, but for certain unimportant circumstances, would have been preferred to the high honour of succeeding Black in the chair of Chemistry. When he took his degree in 1772, Pneumatic Chemistry was in its infancy. Upon this occasion he published a thesis, in which the doctrines respecting gaseous bodies are laid down with great perspicuity, as far as they were then known, and an account also given of a series of experiments made by himself, which discover much ingenuity and address. He was the first European chemist who, if the expression may be used, _discovered_ nitrogen. Had he proceeded a single step farther, he would have anticipated the discoveries of Priestley, Scheele, and Lavoisier, respecting oxygen, which have rendered their names immortal. As it was, the experiments and discoveries of Dr Rutherford made his name respected all over Europe.

The wife of Dr John Rutherford, and maternal grandmother of Sir Walter Scott, was Jean Swinton, daughter of Swinton of Swinton, in Berwickshire, one of the oldest families in Scotland, and at one period very powerful. Sir Walter has introduced a chivalric representative of this race into his drama of _Halidon Hill_. The grandfather of Jean Swinton was Sir John Swinton, the twentieth baron in lineal descent, and the son of the celebrated Judge Swinton, to whom, along with Sir William Lockhart of Lee, Cromwell intrusted the chief management of civil affairs in Scotland during his usurpation. Lord Swinton, as he was called, in virtue of his judicial character, was seized, after the Restoration, and brought down to Scotland for trial, in the same vessel with the Marquis of Argyll. It was generally expected that one who had played so conspicuous a part in the late usurpation, would not elude the vengeance of the new government. He escaped, however, by suddenly adopting the tenets of the society to which Walter Scott of Raeburn afterwards attached himself. On being brought before the parliament for trial, he rejected all means of legal defence; and his simply penitent appearance and venerable aspect wrought so far with his judges, that he was acquitted, while less obnoxious men were condemned. It was from this extraordinary person, and while confined along with him in Edinburgh Castle, that Colonel David Barclay, father of Robert Barclay, the eminent author of the _Apology for the Quakers_, contracted those sentiments which afterwards shone forth with such remarkable lustre in his son.

While the ancestry of Sir Walter Scott is thus shewn to have been somewhat more than respectable, it must be also stated, that, in his character as a man, a citizen, or a professional agent, there could not be a more worthy member of society than his immediate parent. Mr Walter Scott, born in 1729, and admitted as a Writer to the Signet in 1755, was by no means a man of shining abilities. He was, however, a steady, expert man of business, insomuch as to prosper considerably in life; and nothing could exceed the gentleness, sincerity, and benevolence of his character. For many years, he held the honourable office of an elder in the parish church of Old Greyfriars, while Dr Robertson, the historian of _America_ and _Charles V._, acted as one of the ministers. The other clergyman was Dr John Erskine, much more distinguished as a divine, and of whom Sir Walter has given an animated picture in his novel of _Guy Mannering_. The latter person led the more zealous party of the Church of Scotland, in opposition to his colleague, Dr Robertson, who swayed the moderate and predominating party; and it is believed that, although a Jacobite, and employed mostly by that party, the religious impressions of Mr Scott were more akin to the doctrines maintained by Erskine, than those professed by Robertson.

Mrs Scott, while she boasted a less prepossessing exterior than her husband, was enabled, partly by the more literary character of her connections and education, and more perhaps by native powers of intellect, to make a greater impression in conversation. It has thus become a conceded point, that Sir Walter derived his abilities almost exclusively from this parent. Without pretending to judge in a matter of such delicacy, it may at least be allowed that the young poet was at first greatly indebted to his mother for an introduction to the literary society of which her father and brother were such distinguished ornaments. It has somewhere been alleged that Mrs Scott, who was an intimate friend of Allan Ramsay, Blacklock, and other poetical wits of the last century, wrote verses, like them, in the vernacular language of Scotland. But this can be denied, upon the testimony of her own son. The mistake has probably arisen in consequence of a Mrs Scott of Wauchope, whose maiden name was likewise Rutherford, having published poetry of her own composition. Mrs Walter Scott, who was altogether a woman of the highest order of intellect and character, was, at an early age, deemed worthy by her father to be intrusted with the charge of his house, during his temporary widowhood; and thus she possessed opportunities enjoyed by few young ladies of her own age, and of the period when she lived, of mixing in literary society. It is unquestionable that this circumstance was likely to have some effect in later life upon her son, with the training of whose mind she must, in virtue of her maternal character, have had more to do than her husband. It may be further mentioned that Mrs Scott had been principally educated by a reduced gentlewoman, a Mrs Euphemia Sinclair (grand-daughter of Sir Robert Sinclair of Longformacus), who kept a school for young ladies in the now wretched precincts of Blackfriars’ Wynd, in Edinburgh, and who had the honour of educating many of the female nobility and gentry of Scotland, some of whom were her own relations. Sir Walter’s own words respecting this person are given in the work entitled _Traditions of Edinburgh_: ‘To judge by the proficiency of her scholars, although much of what is called accomplishment might then be left untaught, she must have been possessed of uncommon talents for education; for all the ladies above mentioned’ [the list includes Mrs Scott] ‘had well-cultivated minds, were fond of reading, wrote and spelled admirably, were well acquainted with history and with the belles-lettres, without neglecting the more homely duties of the needle and accompt-book; and, while two of them’ [meaning, as there is reason to believe, Mrs Scott, and Mrs Murray Keith, the Mrs Bethune Baliol of the _Chronicles of the Canongate_] ‘were women of extraordinary talents, all of them were perfectly well bred in society.’ Sir Walter further communicated that his mother, and many others of Mrs Sinclair’s pupils, were sent, according to a fashion then prevalent in good society, to be _finished off_ by the Honourable Mrs Ogilvie, lady of the Honourable Patrick Ogilvie of Longmay, whose brother, the Earl of Seafield, was so instrumental, as Chancellor of Scotland, in carrying through the union with England. Mrs Ogilvie trained her young friends to a style of manners which would now be considered intolerably stiff; for instance, no young lady, in sitting, was permitted ever to touch the back of her chair. Such was the effect of this early training upon the mind of Mrs Scott, that even when she approached her eightieth year, she took as much care to avoid touching her chair with her back as if she had still been under the stern eye of Mrs Ogilvie.

BIRTH--BIRTHPLACE--EARLY SCENES.

Sir Walter Scott was born at Edinburgh on the 15th of August 1771, being the birthday of the great European hero [Napoleon] whose deeds he was afterwards to record. He was the third of a family consisting of six sons and one daughter. The eldest son, John, attained to a captaincy in an infantry regiment, but was early obliged to retire from service on account of the delicate state of his health. Another elder brother, Daniel, was a sailor, but died in early life. Of him Sir Walter has often been heard to assert, that he was by far the cleverest and most interesting of the whole. Thomas, the next brother to Sir Walter, followed the father’s profession, and was for some years factor to the Marquis of Abercorn, but eventually died in Canada in 1822, in the capacity of paymaster to the 70th Regiment. Sir Walter himself entertained a fondly high opinion of the talents of this brother; but it is not borne out by the sense of his other friends. He possessed, however, some burlesque humour, and an acquaintance with Scottish manners and character--qualities which were apt to impose a little, and even induced some individuals to believe, for some time, that he, rather than his more gifted brother, was the author of ‘The Novels.’

Existence opened upon the author of _Waverley_ in one of the duskiest parts of the ancient capital, which he has been pleased to apostrophise in _Marmion_ as his ‘own romantic town.’ At the time of his birth, and for some time after, his father lived at the head of the College Wynd, a narrow alley leading from the Cowgate to the gate of the college. The two lower flats of the house were occupied by Mr Keith, W.S., grandfather of the Knight Marischal of Scotland, and Mr Walter Scott lodged on the third floor, his part of the mansion being accessible by a stair behind.

It was a house of what would now be considered humble aspect, but at that time neither humble from its individual appearance nor from its vicinage. As it stood on the line necessary for the opening of a street along the north skirt of the new university buildings, it was destroyed on that occasion, and never rebuilt. Speaking of this house in a series of notes communicated to a local antiquary in 1825, Sir Walter said: ‘It consisted of two flats above Mr Keith’s, and belonged to my father, Mr Walter Scott, Writer to the Signet; there I had the chance to be born, 15th August 1771. My father, soon after my birth, removed to George’s Square, and let the house in the College Wynd, first to Mr Dundas of Philipstoun, and afterwards to Mr William Keith, father of Sir Alexander Keith. It was purchased by the public, together with Mr Keith’s’ [the inferior floors], ‘and pulled down to make way for the new college.’

It appears, however, that, before Sir Walter could receive any impressions from the romantic scenery of the Old Town of Edinburgh, he was removed, on account of the delicacy of his health, to the country, and lived for a considerable period under the charge of his paternal grandfather at Sandyknow. This farm is situated upon high ground, near the bottom of Leader Water, and overlooks a large part of the vale of Tweed. In the immediate neighbourhood of the farm-house, upon a rocky foundation, stood the Border fortlet called Smailholm Tower, which possessed many features to attract the attention of the young poet. It was his early residence at this romantic spot that imparted an intense affection for the southern part of Scotland, to which he finally adjourned. Some account of the district which he so dearly loved may here properly be given.

THE LAND OF SCOTT.

The district which this mighty genius has appropriated as his own, may be described as restricted in a great measure to the counties of Roxburgh and Selkirk, the former of which is the central part of the frontier or Border of Scotland, noted of old for the warlike character of its inhabitants, and even, till a comparatively late period, for certain predatory habits, unlike anything that obtained at the same time, at least in the southern portion of Scotland. Though born in Edinburgh, Walter Scott was descended from Roxburghshire families, and was familiar in his early years with both the scenery and the inhabitants, and the history and traditions, of that romantic land. He was indeed fed with the legendary lore of the Borders as with a mother’s milk; and it was this, no doubt, which gave his mind so remarkable a taste for the manners of the middle ages, to the exclusion of all sympathy for either the ideas of the ancient classics, or the literature of modern manners. There was something additionally engaging to a mind like his in the poetical associations which have so long rendered this region the very Arcadia of Scotland. The Tweed, flowing majestically from one end of it to the other; the Teviot, a scarcely less noble tributary; with all the lesser streams connected with these two--the Jed, the Gala, the Ettrick, the Yarrow, and the Quair--had, from the revival of Scottish poetry, been sung by unnumbered bards, many of whose names have perished, like flowers, from the face of the earth which they adorned. From all these associations mingled together, did the mind of this transcendent genius draw its first and its happiest inspiration.

The general character of this district of Scotland is pastoral. Here and there, along the banks of the streams, there are alluvial strips called _haughs_, all of which are finely cultivated; and the plough, in many places, has ascended the hill to a considerable height; but the land in general is a succession of pastoral eminences, which are either green to the top, or swathed in dusky heath, unless where a patch of young and green wood seeks to soften the climate and the soil. Much of the land still belongs to the Duke of Buccleuch, and other descendants of noted Border chiefs, and it annually supplies much of what both clothes and feeds the British population. Being little intruded upon by manufactures, or any other thing calculated to introduce new ideas, its population exhibit, in general, those primitive features of character which are so invariably found to characterise a pastoral people. Even where, in such cases as Hawick and Galashiels, manufactures have established an isolated seat, the people are hardly distinguishable, in simplicity and homely virtues, from the tenants of the hills.

Starting at Kelso upon an excursion over this country, the traveller would soon reach Roxburgh, where the Teviot and the Tweed are joined--a place noted in early Scottish history for the importance of its town and castle, now alike swept away. Pursuing upwards the course of the Teviot, he would first be tempted aside into the sylvan valley of the Jed, on the banks of which stands the ancient and picturesque town of Jedburgh, and whose beauties have been rapturously described by Thomson, who spent many of his youngest and happiest years amidst its beautiful _braes_. Farther up, the Teviot is joined by the Aill, and, farther up still, by the Rule, a rivulet whose banks were once occupied almost exclusively by the warlike clans of Turnbull and Rutherford. Next is the Slitrig, and next the Borthwick; after which, the accessories of this mountain stream cease to be distinguished. Every stream has its valley; every valley has its particular class of inhabitants--its own tales, songs, and traditions; and when the traveller contrasts its noble hills and clear trotting _burnies_ with the tame landscapes of ‘merry England,’ he is at no loss to see how the natives of a mountainous region come to distinguish their own country so much in poetical recollection, and behold it with such exclusive love. When the Englishman is absent from his home, he sees a scene not greatly different from what he is accustomed to, and regards his absence with very little feeling. But when a native of these secluded vales visits another district, he finds an alien peculiarity in every object; the hills are of a different height and vesture; the streams are different in size, or run in a different direction. Everything tells him that he is not at home. And, when returning to his own glen, how every distant hill-top comes out to his sight as a familiar and companionable object! How every less prominent feature reminds him of that place which, of all the earth, he calls _his own_! Even when he crosses what is termed the height of the country, and but sees the waters running _towards_ that cherished place, his heart is distended with a sense of home and kindred, and he throws his very soul upon the stream, that it may be carried before him to the spot where he has garnered up all his most valued affections.

There is one part of Roxburghshire which does not belong to the great vale of the Tweed, and yet is as essentially as any a part of the Land of Scott. This is Liddesdale, or the vale of the Liddel, a stream which seeks the Solway, and forms part of the more westerly border. Nothing out of Spain could be more wild or lonely than this pastoral vale, which once harboured the predatory clans of Elliot and Armstrong, but is now occupied by a race of more than usually primitive sheep-farmers. It is absolutely overrun with song and legend, of which Sir Walter Scott reaped an ample harvest for his _Border Minstrelsy_, including the fine old ballads of _Dick o’ the Cow_ and _Jock o’ the Syde_.

It may be said, indeed, that, of all places in the south of Scotland, the attention of the great novelist was first fixed upon Liddesdale. In his second literary effort--the _Lay of the Last Minstrel_--he confined himself in a great measure to Teviotdale, in the upper part of which, about three miles above Hawick, stands Branxholm Castle, the chief scene of the poem. The old house has been much altered since the supposed era of the _Lay_; but it has nevertheless more of an ancient than a modern appearance, and does not much disappoint a modern beholder. For a long time, the Buccleuch family have left it to the occupancy of the individuals who act as their agents or chamberlains on this part of their extensive property; and it is at present kept in the best order, and surrounded by some fine woods of ancient and modern growth. Seated on a lofty bank, it still overlooks that stream, and is overtopped by those hills, to which, it will be recollected, ‘the lady’ successively addressed her witching incantations.

The small vale of Borthwick Water, which starts off from the strath of the Teviot a little above Hawick, contains a scene which cannot well be overlooked--namely, Harden Castle, the original though now deserted seat of the family of Scott of Harden, from which, through the Raeburn branch, Sir Walter Scott was descended. This, though neglected alike by its proprietor and by tourists, is one of the most remarkable pieces of scenery which we, who have travelled over nearly the whole of Scotland, have yet seen within its shores. Conceive, first, the lonely pastoral beauty of the vale of Borthwick; next, a minor vale receding from its northern side, full of old and emaciated, but still beautiful wood: penetrating this recess for a little way, the traveller sees, perched upon a lofty height in front, and beaming perhaps in the sun, a house which, though not picturesque in its outline, derives that quality in a high degree from its situation and accompaniments. This is Harden House or Castle; but, though apparently near it, the wayfarer has yet to walk a long way around the height before he can wind his way into its immediate presence. When arrived at the platform whereon the house stands, he finds it degraded into a farm-house; its court forming perhaps a temporary cattle-yard; every ornament disgraced; every memorial of former grandeur seen through a slough of plebeian utility and homeliness, or broken into ruin. A pavement of black and white diced marble is found in the vestibule, every square of which is bruised to pieces, and the whole strewed with the details of a dairy. The dining-room, a large apartment with a richly ornamented stucco roof, is now used as the farmer’s kitchen. Other parts of the house, still bearing the arms and initials of Walter Scott, Earl of Tarras, great-grandfather of the late Mr Scott of Harden, and of his second wife, Helen Hepburn, are sunk in a scarcely less proportion. This nobleman was at first married to Mary, Countess of Buccleuch, who died, however, without issue, leaving the succession open to her sister Anne, who became the wife of the unfortunate Duke of Monmouth, eldest natural son of Charles II. Through this family connection, the Earl of Tarras was induced to join in the conspiracy which usually bears the name of the Rye-house Plot, for which he was attainted, only saving his life by giving evidence against his more steadfast companion, Baillie of Jerviswood, the great-grandfather of another Scottish proprietor, who happened to be an immediate neighbour of Harden. It may be asked why Mr Scott did not inherit the title of his ancestor: the answer is, that it was only thought necessary to invest the husband of the Countess of Buccleuch with a title for his own life--which proves that the hereditary character of the peerage has not always been observed in our constitution. While all of this scene that springs from art is degraded and wretched, it is striking to see that its natural grandeur suffers no defalcation. The wide-sweeping hills stretch off grandly on all hands, and the celebrated _den_, from which the place has taken its name, still retains the features which have rendered it so remarkable a natural curiosity. This is a large abyss in the earth, as it may be called, immediately under the walls of the house, and altogether unpervaded by running water--the banks clothed with trees of all kinds, and one side opening to the vale, though the bottom is much beneath the level of the surrounding ground. Old Wat of Harden--such is the popular name of an aged marauder celebrated in the _Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border_--used to keep the large herds which he had draughted out of the northern counties of England in this strange hollow; and it seems to have been admirably adapted for the purpose. It was this Border hero of whom the story is told somewhere by his illustrious descendant, that, coming once homeward with a goodly prey of cattle, and seeing a large haystack standing in a farm-yard by the way, he could not help saying, with some bitterness: ‘By my saul, an ye had four feet, ye should gang too!’

SCHOOL-BOY DAYS.

It is understood that, at the ‘evening fire’ of Sandyknow, Sir Walter learned much of that Border lore which he afterwards wrought up in his fictions. To what extent his residence there retarded his progress in school instruction, is not discovered. After being at Sandyknow, he was, for the sake of the mineral waters, sent, in his fourth year, to Bath, where he attended a dame’s school, and received his first lessons in reading. Returning to Edinburgh, he made some advances in the rudiments of learning at a private school kept by a Mr Leechman in Hamilton’s Entry, Bristo Street [now a small, decayed building, with a tiled roof, occupied by a working blacksmith]. This was his first school in Edinburgh. It is almost certain that his attendance at school was rendered irregular by his delicate health. He entered Fraser’s class at the High School in the _third year_--that is to say, when that master had carried his class through one half of the ordinary curriculum of the school; wherefore it is clear that any earlier instruction he could have received must have been in some inferior institution, and very probably communicated in a hurried and imperfect manner. It is at the commencement of the school year in October 1779 that his name first appears in the school register: he must have then been eight years of age, which, it may be remarked, is an unusually early period for a boy to enter the third year of his classical course. What is further remarkable, his elder brother attended the same class. It is therefore to be suspected that his educational interests were sacrificed, in some measure, to the circumstances of the school, which were at that period in such an unhappy arrangement as to teachers, that parents often precipitated their children into a class for which they were unfitted, in order to escape a teacher whom they deemed unqualified for his duties, and secure the instructions of one who bore a superior character.

Although Mr Luke Fraser was one of the severest flagellators even of the _old school_, he enjoyed the reputation of being a sound scholar, so far as scholarship was required for his duties, and also that of a most conscientious and painstaking teacher. He first caused his scholars to get by heart Ruddiman’s _Rudiments_, and as soon as they were thoroughly grounded in the declensions, the Vocabulary of the same great grammarian was put into their hands, and a small number of words prescribed to be repeated every morning. They then read in succession the _Colloquies_ of Corderius, four or five lives of Cornelius Nepos, and the first four books of Cæsar’s _Commentaries_. Ere this course was perfected, the greater part of Ruddiman’s _Grammatica Minora_, in Latin, was got by heart. Select passages from Ovid’s _Metamorphoses_, the _Bucolics_ and the first _Æneid_ of Virgil, concluded the fourth year; after which the boys were turned over to the rector, by whom they were instructed for two years more; making the course in all six years. It must also be understood, that every one of the three masters besides Mr Fraser pursued the same system, bringing forward a class from the first elements to the state in which it was fitted for the attention of the rector; after which he returned once more to take up a new set of boys in the first class--and so forth for one lustrum after another, so long as he was connected with the school. If any teacher could have brought a boy over such a difficulty as that which attended the commencement of Sir Walter’s career at the High School, it would have been Mr Fraser; for few of his profession at that time were more anxious to explain away every obstruction in the path of his pupils, or took so much pains to ascertain that they were carrying the understandings of the boys along with them through all the successive stages. Apparently, however, neither the care of the master nor the inborn genius of the pupil availed much in this case, for it is said that the twenty-fifth place was no uncommon situation in the class for the future author of the Waverley Novels.

After two years of instruction, commenced under these unfavourable circumstances, Sir Walter, in October 1781, entered the rector’s class, then taught by Dr Alexander Adam, the author of many excellent elementary books, and one of the most meritorious and most eminent teachers that Scotland has ever produced. The authors read by Dr Adam’s class at this period, and probably during the whole of his career, were Virgil, Horace, Cicero, Sallust, Livy, and Terence; but it was not in reading and translating alone that an education under this eminent man consisted. Adam, who was an indefatigable student, as the number and excellence of his works testify, was a complete contrast to Mr Fraser. The latter hardly ever introduced a single remark but what was intended to illustrate the _letter_ of the author; whereas Dr Adam commented at great length upon whatever occurred in the course of reading in the class, whether it related to antiquities, customs, and manners, or to history. He was of so communicative a disposition, that whatever knowledge he had acquired in his private studies, he took the first opportunity of imparting to his class, paying little regard whether it was above the comprehension of the greater number of his scholars or not. He abounded in pleasant anecdote; and while he never neglected the proper business of his class, it is certain that he inspired a far higher love of knowledge and of literary history into the minds of his pupils than any other teacher of his day. At the same time, he displayed a benevolence of character which won the hearts of his pupils, and nothing ever gave him so much pleasure as to hear of their success in after-life. To this venerable person, Sir Walter was always ready to acknowledge his obligations, and it is not improbable that much of his literary character was moulded on that of Dr Adam.

As a scholar, nevertheless, the subject of this memoir never became remarkable for proficiency. There is his own authority for saying, that, even in the exercise of metrical translation, he fell far short of some of his companions; although others preserve a somewhat different recollection, and state that this was a department in which he always manifested a superiority. It is, however, unquestionable, that in his exercises he was remarkable, to no inconsiderable extent, for blundering and incorrectness; his mind apparently not possessing that aptitude for mastering small details, in which so much of scholarship, in its earliest stages, consists.

Regarding his school-days, we may introduce an extract from an original letter on the subject. ‘The following lines were written by Walter Scott when he was between ten and eleven years of age, and while he was attending the High School, Edinburgh. His master there had spoken of him as a remarkably stupid boy, and his mother with grief acknowledged that they spoke truly. She saw him one morning, in the midst of a tremendous thunder-storm, standing still in the street, and looking at the sky. She called to him repeatedly, but he remained looking upwards without taking the least notice of her. When he returned into the house, she was very much displeased with him: “Mother,” he said, “I could tell you the reason why I stood still, and why I looked at the sky, if you would only give me a pencil.” She gave him one, and, in less than five minutes, he laid a bit of paper on her lap, with these words written on it:

“Loud o’er my head what awful thunders roll,
What vivid lightnings flash from pole to pole,
It is thy voice, my God, that bids them fly,
Thy voice directs them through the vaulted sky;
Then let the good thy mighty power revere,
Let hardened sinners thy just judgments fear.”

The old lady repeated them to me herself, and the tears were in her eyes: for I really believe, simple as they are, that she values these lines, being the first effusion of her son’s genius, more than any later beauties which have so charmed all the world besides.’

Before quitting the High School, he, along with his brothers, received the advantages of some tutorial training under a Mr Mitchell, who afterwards became a minister connected with the Scotch Church. Previous to entering the university of Edinburgh, young Walter spent some time with his aunt at Kelso. Here, in order that he might be kept up in his classical studies, he attended the grammar-school, at that time under the rectorship of Mr Lancelot Whale, a worthy man and good scholar, who possessed traits of character not unlike some of those which have been depicted in Dominie Sampson. It was while thus residing for a short time at Kelso, about 1783, that Sir Walter made the acquaintance of James Ballantyne, then a schoolboy of his own age, with kindred literary tastes.

Sir Walter’s education being irregular from bad health, he did not distinguish himself as a scholar, yet often surprised his instructors by the miscellaneous knowledge which he possessed, and now and then was acknowledged to display a sense of the beauties of the Latin authors such as is seldom seen in boys. In the rough amusements which went on out of school, his spirit enabled him to take a leading share, notwithstanding his lameness. He would help to man the Cowgate Port in a snow-ball match, and pass the Kittle Nine Steps on the Castle Rock with the best of them. In the winter evenings, when out-of-door exercise was not attractive, he would gather his companions round him at the fireside, and entertain them with stories, real and imaginary, of which he seemed to have an endless store. Unluckily, his classical studies, neglected as they comparatively were, experienced an interruption from bad health, just as he was beginning to acquire some sense of their value.

It would, nevertheless, be difficult to say whether Scott was the worse or the better of the interruptions he experienced in school learning. He lost a certain kind of knowledge, it is true, but he gained another. The vacant time at his disposal he gave to general reading. History, travels, poetry, and prose fiction he devoured without discrimination, unless it were that he preferred imaginative literature to every other; and of all imaginative writers, was fondest of such as Spenser, whose knights and ladies, and dragons and giants, he was never tired of contemplating. Any passage of a favourite poet which pleased him particularly was sure to remain on his memory, and thus he was able to astonish his friends with his poetical recitations. At the same time, he admits that solidly useful matters had a poor chance of being remembered. His sober-minded parents and other friends regarded these acquirements without pride or satisfaction; they marvelled at the thirst for reading and the powers of memory, but thought it all to little good purpose, and only excused it in consideration of the infirm health of the young prodigy. Scott himself lived to lament the indifference he shewed to that regular mental discipline which is to be acquired at school. He says in his autobiography: ‘It is with the deepest regret that I recollect in my manhood the opportunities of study which I neglected in my youth; through every part of my literary career, I have felt pinched and hampered by my own ignorance; and I would at this moment give half the reputation I have had the good-fortune to acquire, if by doing so I could rest the remaining part upon a solid foundation of learning and science.’

It is the tradition of the family--and the fact is countenanced by this propensity to tales of chivalric adventure--that Sir Walter wished at this period of his life to become a soldier. The illness, however, which had beset his early years rendered this wish bootless, even although his parents had been inclined to gratify it. His malady had had the effect of contracting his right leg, so that he could hardly walk erect, even with the toes of that foot upon the ground. It has been related by a member of his family that, on this being represented to him as an insuperable obstacle to his entering the army, he left the room in an agony of mortified feeling, and was found some time afterwards suspended by the wrists from his bedroom window, somewhat after the manner of the unfortunate Knight of the Rueful Countenance, when beguiled by the treacherous Maritornes at the inn. On being asked the cause of this strange proceeding, he said he wished to prove to them that, however unfitted by his limbs for the profession of a soldier, he was at least strong enough in the arms. He had actually remained in that uneasy and trying posture for upwards of an hour.

His parents made many efforts to cure his lameness. Edinburgh at this time boasted of an ingenious mechanist in leather, the first person who extended the use of that commodity beyond ordinary purposes; on which account there is an elaborate memoir of him in Dodsley’s _Annual Register_ for 1793. His name was Gavin Wilson, and, being something of a humorist, he exhibited a sign-board intended to burlesque the vanity of his brother-tradesmen--his profession being thus indicated: ‘Leather leg-maker, _not_ to his Majesty.’ Honest Gavin, on the application of his parents, did all he could for Sir Walter, but in vain.

An attempt was made about the same time to give him instructions in music, which used to be a branch of ordinary education in Scotland. His preceptor was Mr Alexander Campbell, then organist of an Episcopal chapel in Edinburgh, but known in later life as the editor of _Albyn’s Anthology_, and author of various other publications. Mr Campbell’s efforts were entirely in vain: he had to abandon his pupil in a short time, with the declaration, that he was totally deficient in that indispensable requisite to a musical education--an _ear_. It may appear strange, that he who wrote so many musical verses, should have wanted this natural gift; but there are other cases to shew that a perception of metrical quantities does not depend on any such peculiarity. Dr Johnson is a splendid instance. Throughout life, Sir Walter, however capable of enjoying music, was incapable of producing two notes consecutively that were either in tune or in time. He used to be pressed, however, at an annual agricultural dinner, to contribute his proper quota to the cantations of the evening; on which occasions he would break forth with the song of _Tarry Woo_, in a strain of unmusical vehemence, which never failed, on the same principle as Dick Tinto’s ill-painted sign, to put the company into good-humour.

UNIVERSITY.

Sir Walter was placed in the University of Edinburgh, October 1783. The usual course at this famed seminary is, for the first year, to attend the classes of Latin and Greek, to which, during the second, are added Mathematics and Logic; the third and last year of the course of a merely liberal education is spent in attending the lectures on Moral and Natural Philosophy. It would appear that Sir Walter did not proceed regularly through this academical course. He was matriculated, or booked, in 1783, at once for the Humanity or Latin class under Professor Hill, and the Greek class under Professor Dalyell; and for the latter, once more in 1784. But the only other class for which he seems to have matriculated at the college was that of Logic, under Professor Bruce, in 1785. Although he may perhaps have attended other classes without matriculation, there is reason to believe that his irregular health produced a corresponding irregularity in his academical studies. The result, it is to be feared, was, that he entered life much in the condition of his illustrious prototype, the Bard of Avon--that is, ‘with a little Latin and less Greek.’

Between his twelfth and fifteenth year, young Scott had a particularly favourite companion of his own age, John Irvine, the mutual attraction being a love of fictions of a chivalrous description, furnished by an eminent circulating library, which had been founded in Edinburgh by Allan Ramsay, and situated in the High Street, a short way above the Tron Church, and then belonged to Mr James Sibbald, a person of literary tastes, who edited the _Edinburgh Magazine_, and a collection of Scottish poetry. This old-fashioned library, the first of its kind, passed in time into the hands of Mr Alexander Mackay; and was finally sold off in 1831. With a volume from this precious repository, the two youths sometimes adjourned to the picturesque sides of Arthur’s Seat, where, seated together so as to read from the same page, they revelled in the adventures of heroes and heroines of romance.

It will thus be observed that Sir Walter’s acquirements in his early years did not lie nearly so much in ordinary branches of education, as in a large stock of miscellaneous reading, taken up at the dictation of his own taste. His thirst for reading is perhaps not described in sufficiently emphatic terms, even in the above narrative. It amounted to an enthusiasm. He was at that time very much in the house of his uncle, Dr Rutherford, at foot of Hyndford’s Close, near the Netherbow, and there, even at breakfast, he would constantly have a book open by his side, to refer to while sipping his coffee, like his own Oldbuck in the _Antiquary_. His uncle frequently commanded him to lay aside his book while eating, and Sir Walter would only ask permission first to read out the paragraph in which he was engaged. But no sooner was one paragraph ended than another was begun, so that the doctor never could find that his nephew finished a paragraph in his life. It may be mentioned that Shakspeare was at this period frequently in his hands, and that, of all the plays, the _Merchant of Venice_ was his principal favourite.

Another choice companion at this period was young Adam Ferguson--afterwards known as Sir Adam Ferguson--son of Dr Adam Ferguson, author of the _History of the Roman Republic_, and who remained an intimate friend during life. The house of Dr Ferguson was a villa situated on the east side of a southern suburb of Edinburgh, called _The Sciennes_, from its proximity to the remains of an ancient monastery, dedicated to St Catherine of Sienna. Dr Ferguson’s house is remarkable as that in which young Walter Scott had an opportunity of being in the company of Robert Burns. Scott had read Burns’s poetry, and he ardently desired to see the poet. An opportunity was at length furnished, when Burns, on visiting Edinburgh in 1787, came by invitation to the residence of Dr Ferguson. Of the meeting, Scott has communicated an unaffected description to Mr Lockhart. Sir Adam Ferguson favoured me with some particulars of the visit of Burns to his father’s house on this occasion.

It was the custom of Dr Ferguson to have a conversazione at his house in the Sciennes once a week, for his principal literary friends. Dr Dugald Stewart, on this occasion, offered to bring Burns, a proposal to which Dr Ferguson readily assented. The poet found himself amongst the most brilliant literary society which Edinburgh then afforded. Sir Adam thought that Black, Hutton, and John Home were among those present. He had himself brought his young friend Walter Scott, as yet unnoted by his seniors. Burns seemed at first little inclined to mingle easily in the company; he went about the room, looking at the pictures on the walls. The print described by Scott, from a painting by Bunbury, attracted his attention. It represented a sad picture of the effects of war: a soldier lying stretched dead on the snow, his dog sitting in misery on one side, while on the other sat his widow, nursing a child in her arms. The print was plain, yet touching; beneath were written the following lines, which Burns read aloud:

‘Cold on Canadian hills or Minden’s plain,
Perhaps that parent mourned her soldier slain;
Bent o’er her babe, her eye dissolved in dew,
The big drops mingling with the milk he drew,
Gave the sad presage of his future years,
The child of misery baptised in tears.’

Before getting to the end of the lines, Burns’s voice faltered, and his big black eye filled with tears. A little after, he turned with much interest to the company, pointed to the picture, and, with some eagerness, asked if any one could tell him who had written these affecting lines. The philosophers were silent--no one knew; but, after a decent interval, the pale lame boy near by said in a negligent manner: ‘They’re written by one Langhorne.’ An explanation of the place where they occur (poem of _The Country Justice_) followed, and Burns fixed a look of half-serious interest on the youth, while he said: ‘You’ll be a man yet, sir.’ Scott may be said to have derived literary ordination from Burns. Somewhat oddly, the name Langhorne is quoted at the bottom of the lines, but in so small a character that the poet might well fail to read it.[1]

PROFESSION.

About his sixteenth year, Sir Walter’s health experienced a sudden but most decisive change for the better. Though his lameness remained the same, his body became tall and robust, and he was thus enabled to apply himself with the necessary degree of energy to his studies for the bar. At the same time that he attended the Lectures of Professor Dick on Civil Law in the college, he performed the duties of a writer’s apprentice under his father; that being the most approved method by which a barrister could acquire a technical knowledge of his profession, though it has never been uniformly practised.

Respect for his parents and for the common duties of life, was always a strong feeling in Scott; he therefore applied himself without a murmur to the desk in his father’s office, though he acknowledges that the recess beneath was generally stuffed with his favourite books, from which, at intervals, he would ‘snatch a fearful joy.’ He even made his diligence in copying law-papers a means of gratifying his intellectual passions, often writing an unusual quantity, that with the result he might purchase some book or object of virtù which he wished to possess. It should be mentioned that the little room assigned to him on the kitchen-floor of his father’s house in George Square was already made a kind of museum by his taste for curiosities, especially those of an antiquarian nature. He never was heard to grudge the years he had spent in his father’s painstaking business; on the contrary, he recollected them with pleasure, for it was always a matter of pride with him to be a man of business as well as a man of letters. The discipline of the office gave him a number of little technical habits, which he never afterwards lost. He was, for instance, much of a formalist in the folding and disposal of papers. The writer of this narrative recollects folding a paper in a wrong fashion in his presence, when he instantly undid it, and shewed, with a school-masterlike nicety, but with great good-humour, the proper way to perform this little piece of business.

While advancing to manhood, and during its first few years, Scott, besides keeping up his desultory system of reading, attended the meetings of a literary society composed of such youths as himself. A selection of these and of his early schoolfellows, became his ordinary companions. Amongst them was William Clerk, son of Mr Clerk of Eldin, and afterwards a distinguished member of the Scottish bar. It was the pleasure of this group of young men to take frequent rambles in the country, visiting any ancient castle or other remarkable object within their reach. Scott, notwithstanding his limp, walked as stoutly, and sustained fatigue as well, as any of them. Sometimes they would, according to the general habits of those days, resort to taverns for oysters and punch. Scott entered into such indulgences without losing self-control; but he lived to think this ill-spent time. As to other follies equally besetting to youth, it is admitted by all his early friends that he was in a singular degree pure and blameless. His genial good-humour made him a favourite with his young friends, and they could not deny his possessing much out-of-the-way knowledge; yet it does not appear that they saw in him any intellectual superiority, or reason to expect the brilliant destiny which awaited him. The tendency of all testimony from those who knew him at this time is rather to set him down as one from whom nothing extraordinary was to be looked for in mature manhood.

We can easily see the grounds of this opinion. Scott had not been a good scholar. He shewed none of the peculiarities of the young sonneteer, for poetry was not yet developed in his nature. Any advantage he possessed over others of his own standing lay in a kind of learning which seemed useless. It is not, then, surprising that he ranked only with ordinary youths, or perhaps a little below them. It is asserted, however, by James Ballantyne, that there was a certain firmness of understanding in Scott, which enabled him to acquire an ascendency over some of his companions; giving him the power of allaying their quarrels by a few words, and disposing them to submit to him on many other occasions. Still, this must have looked like a quality of the common world, and especially unconnected with literary genius.