SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART.

SIR WALTER SCOTT was the son of Walter Scott, Esq. writer to the signet, Edinburgh: his mother was the daughter of Dr. John Rutherford, professor of the practice of medicine at the University of that town; and the poet was born on the 15th August, (the birth-day of Napoleon,) 1771. He was the third child, but second son,* of a family consisting of six sons and one daughter, all distinguished by peculiar brightness of fancy and strength of mind. Thomas, the next brother to Sir Walter, possessed such a fund of anecdote, knowledge of Scotch character and customs, that for some time he was supposed to have been the author of the Waverley Novels. It has often been remarked, and gallantry is auxiliary in obtaining the concession, that talent, when apparently hereditary, is derived from the female line.† Of this, Sir Walter and his family afford an illustration; his father, an industrious professional gentleman, possessing gentleness, and benevolence of character, was in no way distinguished by natural abilities, while Mrs. S. was endowed with mental powers of a very high order, had early shown a devotion to literature, and possessed the most fascinating conversational powers. No matter which way this point shall be decided, with the actual gift of great natural genius, and a soul for poetry and romance, the magician of the North was born in "his own romantic town," on the third flat of a house, at the head of the College Wynd; from thence his father removed to George's square, and the old house was pulled down some years after to make way for the New College. At an early age, owing to infirmity of constitution, Walter was removed to the country, and placed under the protection of his paternal grandfather, at Sandyknow, close by the banks of the Tweed, and in the vicinity of Smailholm Tower, a deserted border fortlet. It was here he first indulged in that love of legend, which influenced the bright current of his future thoughts; and, around the well-trimmed hearth of Sandyknow, at evening time, each one

"Skill'd in legendary lore,

The lingering hour beguiled."

The scenery of this vicinity is introduced in one of his first ballads, "The Eve of St. John," and the inspiration of early recollections burst forth in his Marmion with inconceivable beauty—

"Thus while I ope the measure wild,

Of tales which charmed me when a child;
Rude though they be, still with the chime
Return the thoughts of early time:

And feelings roused in life's first day,

Glow in the line, and prompt the lay;—

Then rise those crags, that mountain tower,

Which charm'd my Fancy's wakening hour."-(Introd. to Canto III.)

• Of second sons Horace Walpole observes-" William Pitt, Lord Chatham, was a second son, and became prime minister of England. His rival and antagonist was Henry Fox, Lord Holland, a second son likewise. Lord Holland's second son, Charles Fox, and Lord Chatham's second son, William Pitt, were also rivals and antagonists." Napoleon, R. Brinsley Sheridan, &c. support the justly popular view of this delicate inquiry-

"And if I sought

Think'st thou no other could be brought."

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Our poet's first introduction to systematic literature was at the school of Mr. Luckman; his name appears in the registry of the High School, in 1779, when he, with his elder brother, attended the class of Frazer, a sound scholar and disciplinarian, but with less advantage to the pupil than might have been hoped from the possession of such talents. Dr. Adam, his next instructor, delivered his eloquent and learned lectures to young Walter with more effect, and the benefit of his instruction was always warmly acknowledged by his amiable pupil. Here, again, the legendary propensity of the future romancer developed itself, and, in his Autobiography, he says,

"Were I to point out my first achievements as a tale-teller-but, I believe, some of my old school-fellows can still bear witness that I had a distinguished character for that talent, at a time when the applause of my companions was my recompense for the disgraces and punishments which the future romance writer incurred for being idle himself, and keeping others idle, during hours that should have been employed on our tasks. The chief enjoyment of my holydays was to escape with a chosen friend, who had the same taste with myself, and alternately to recite to each other such wild adventures as we were able to devise. We told, each in turn, interminable tales of knight-errantry, and battles, and enchantments, which were continued from one day to another, as opportunity offered, without even thinking of bringing them to a conclusion. As we observed a strict secrecy on the subject of this intercourse, it acquired all the character of a concealed pleasure, and we used to select for the scenes of our indulgence long walks through the solitary and romantic environs of Arthur's Seat, Salisbury Craigs, Maid Hills, and similar places in the vicinity of Edinburgh, and the recollection of those holydays still forms an oasis in the pilgrimage which I have to look back upon."

Leaving the High School with the rank of eleventh only in the rector's class, he passed (1783) to the University, and matriculated for some of the classes. Perhaps the first poetic effort of his genius was made while at school, it was a little stanza on a Thunder Storm, and with which his mother was delighted: maternal countenance and approbation seem always to have been anxiously sought; and as the giant acquired fresh strength from contact with his parent earth, so did our poet gather additional enthusiasm in the presence of his affectionate parent. She one day complained to him of the continued drizzle that damped the ardour of a pleasure party in the mountains; to which he answered, "Mother, it is only Nature weeping for the barrenness of the soil." "Time rolled his ceaseless course," and

"When boyhood, advancing into youth, required more serious studies and graver cares, a long illness, (arising from the bursting of a blood-vessel,) threw me back (says the poet) on the kingdom of fiction, as if it were by a species of fatality. There was at this time a circulating library, (Sibbald's,) founded, I believe, by the celebrated Allan Ramsay, which, besides containing a most respectable collection of books of every description, was, as might have been expected, peculiarly rich in works of fiction. It exhibited specimens of every kind, from the romances of Chivalry to the ponderous folios of Cyrus and Cassandra, down to the most approved works of later times. I was plunged into this great ocean of reading without compass or pilot, accordingly, I believe, I read almost all the old romances, old plays, epic poetry, in that formidable collection, and, no doubt, was now seriously amassing materials for the task in which it has been my lot to be so much employed."

Here "increase of appetite did grow by what it fed on, and the mind did grow to large increase." After his fourteenth or fifteenth year, his health became "extremely robust," and, in defiance of his lameness, he frequently walked thirty miles in a day. Having in some degree conquered, by the aid of Providence, those incapaciting circumstances for an active life, he passed Advocate, and was admitted to the Scottish bar on the 10th of July, 1792.

Being left by his father in affluent circumstances, he was enabled to sustain a becoming professional rank, and reside in a fashionable part of the town; but his mind was too elastic to be confined to the forms of pleading, and too liberal, possibly, to be occupied merely by the pursuits of law; besides, to

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borrow his own explanation, "The goddess Themis is of a peculiarly jealous disposition; she will not readily consent to share her authority, and sternly demands from her votaries not only that real duty be carefully attended to and discharged, but a certain air of business in the midst of total idleness." For these, amongst other reasons, Sir Walter did not succeed in obtaining a sufficient share of general business to obliterate the recollection of Fancy's early smiles and promises.

Our poet next appears in the characters of soldier and politician; in the former, as QuarterMaster of the Edinburgh Light Dragoons, few of his own imaginative knights could have exceeded him in graceful and manly deportment. His social qualities, his unfailing good-humour, endeared him to his military friends, and he evinced his gratitude by composing a war-song for the corps; of its merits these heroes never became sensible, until their judgments found a correction, on its publication in the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. Many an interesting event of his life must here give place to the strongest leading facts and most marked features of his biography. Having abandoned an union in which he had no happiness, he threw himself into the arms of the first object of his affection and earliest ambition, and turned once and for ever to literature. He first plunged into the deep mines of German romance, and brought up new treasures to the day. In this pursuit he was encouraged by Monk Lewis, (a frequent visitor to Scotland, and to whom he was introduced by Lady Charlotte Campbell,) who had drunk deeply at some unearthly fountain; and, resigning Percy's reliques, one of his youthful associates, sought a companionship with Lewis on his unusual path to fame. It was at this crisis of our author's life that he had the pleasure to hear Bürger's "Lenore" (Taylor's translation) read by Mrs. Barbauld at the house of Dugald Stewart, (1794); and when she repeated the well-known stanza describing the ghostly knight bearing away his mistress with whirlwind speed,

"Tramp, tramp, along the land they rode,

Splash, splash, along the sea;

Hurra! the dead can ride apace,

Dost fear to ride with me."

ne could no longer endure the want of an original copy, which he soon obtained, and completed a translation of his own.

A literary life now entered on, he published his translations of Lenore and of "Der Wilde Jäger," The Wild Huntsman; a speculation which proved a dead loss, as the greater part of the edition was condemned to the service of the trunkmaker. Failing in this class of composition, he resolved to attempt ballad poetry next, and produced Glenfinlas, and the Eve of St. John; the scenery of the latter was that of his boyish years, and the ballad was composed at the request of Mr. Scott of Harden, who promised, in return, to preserve from intrusion the remains of Smailholm Tower. The happier fortune of his ballads obtained for him the friendship of John, Duke of Roxburgh, and also an unrestricted access to that celebrated collection of volumes from which the Roxburgh Club derived its name.

At this period (1797) Mr. Scott was united in marriage to Miss Carpenter, daughter of J. Carpenter, of the city of Lyons, Esq., a lady of much beauty, highly accomplished, and possessing an annuity of £400 per annum. Upon this worldly change he withdrew to Lasswade Cottage, on the Esk, five miles from Edinburgh, where he received the visits of his friend Mr. (afterwards Sir John) Stoddart, who has touched with so much delicacy and feeling upon the domestic happiness and economy of his friend's "cottage home."

In December, 1799, he was appointed sheriff of Selkirkshire, to which a salary of £300 per annum was attached; and, being now passing rich, removed to Ashiesteil, on the banks of the Tweed, which continued to be his residence until exchanged for his last retired home, Abbotsford. "My profession and I," adds the poet, "came to stand nearly upon the same footing on which honest Slender consoled himself with being established with Mrs. Anne Page, 'There was no great love between us at the beginning, and it pleased Heaven to decrease it on further acquaintance.' Having buckled himself resolutely to the toil by day, the lamp by night, and producing with little. effort the greater part of "The Lay of the Last Minstrel," he submitted his poem to the judgment of two literary friends: how he interpreted their silent commentary, may be concluded by his committing the MS. to the flames. He was, however, induced to re-write the whole, and obtained for his labours (in 1805) the sum of £600, besides the nobler reward of the universal approbation of his countrymen. It was probably consequent upon the literary reputation acquired by this popular poem, that he obtained the clerkship of the session, worth about £1200 per annum. From this period his imagination teemed, and his pen flowed with works of fiction-ballads, Lyrics, Marmion, Lady of the Lake, Rokeby, Lord of the Isles, and editions of the works of the most celebrated English poets and essayists.

Having done so much for poetry, he felt he still owed an allegiance to her humbler sister; and, whether his faithful Mentor prompted that the hour was come, or the popularity of Miss Edgeworth's Irish Tales induced, or Byron's rising star dazzled, he dropped the plectrum, and took up the style. Waverley, his first-best prose-work, had long before been subjected to the too cold criticism of a friend, and actually thrown aside and lost, and only recovered accidentally by its author while searching an old desk for some fishing-tackle for a friend.

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"I happened to want some fishing tackle for the use of a guest, when it occurred to me to search the old writingdesk already mentioned, in which I used to keep articles of that nature. I got access to it with some difficulty; and in looking for lines and flies the long-lost manuscript presented itself. I immediately set to work to complete it according to my original purpose. It has been said that the copyright (of Waverley) was, during the book's progress through the press, offered for sale to various booksellers in London, at a very inconsiderable price. This was not the Messrs. Constable and Cadell, who published the work, were the only persons acquainted with the contents of the publication, and they offered a large sum for it while in the course of printing, which, however, was declined, the author not choosing to part with the copyright.”—(Autobiography.)

case.

Perhaps no novel was ever as popular, and this without the recommendation of a name; in a very short period 12,000 copies were disposed of. To this lasting monument of his genius succeeded Guy Mannering, The Antiquary, Tales of My Landlord (1st series), Rob Roy, Tales of My Landlord (2d and 3d series), The Monastery, Abbot, Kenilworth, Pirate, Fortunes of Nigel, Peveril of the Peak, Quentin Durward, St. Ronan's Well, Red Gauntlet, Woodstock, Chronicles of the Canongate (two series), Anne of Gierstein, Fourth Series of Tales of My Landlord; amounting to the enormous total of seventy-four volumes of fictious prose works.

The fame of Sir Walter, if measured by his popularity, was now full; his pecuniary compensation was uniformly liberal, and his king (George IV.) conferred upon him the distinction of Baronet of the

"Appreciation belongs to strangers, and words of praise are ever spoken by strange lips. Our friends are the last to discover and the first to deny our merits: our success takes them by surprise, and that surprise usually cools down into envy: but much of this last, and natural consequence, Sir Walter's frank kindliness averted;" for he was

"Of manners gentle, of affections mild,

In wit a man, simplicity a child."

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United Kingdom, in 1820.

When the same monarch visited Scotland, in 1822, Sir Walter was deputed by the ladies of Caledonia to present his Majesty with a rich jewelled cross of St. Andrew, to be worn by him as an emblem of their country. The welcome ambassador was graciously received on the quarter-deck of his Majesty's yacht, at anchor in Leith roads, having first had the happiness to hear his King exclaim, "Sir Walter Scott! the man in Scotland I most wish to see."

The spring and the summer of Sir Walter's life were now nearly passed, and the evening began to let fall her gloomy canopy. While his Memoirs of Napoleon were in the press, Constable, his publisher, failed, implicating Sir Walter for engagements exceeding £60,000. This must always remain a subject of deep regret; there can be but one feeling or opinion in society respecting the event, and his own commentary is the most beautiful and honourable that it admits of—" It is very hard thus to lose all the labours of a lifetime, and be made a poor man at last, when I ought to have been otherwise: but, if God grant me health and strength for a few years longer, I have no doubt that I shall redeem all." When asked where he could possibly expect to find assets to meet such an onerous demand, pointing significantly to his head, he answered, "here." Now, at the age of fifty, he sat down in a house in David-street, Edinburgh, to write, not for himself, as he said, but "for his country," with the resolution taken and fixed of liquidating a debt of £100,000, and soon produced a Life of Napoleon, for which he obtained £12,000. Circumstances connected with Constable's bankruptcy led necessarily to the disclosure of the secret of" who was the author of Waverley?" and, at the annual public dinner in Edinburgh of the Theatrical Fund Association, Lord Meadowbank, in proposing the health of the chairman (Sir Walter Scott), unmasked the Magician of the North, unveiled the Great Unknown, and proclaimed the Minstrel of his native land. In returning thanks, Sir Walter said, "The wand is now broken, the rod is now buried, and, allow me to say, with Prospero, Your breath has filled my sails.'" In the Chronicles of the Canongate, which appeared soon after, he repeated this confession.*

Many of his minor works, his contributions to periodicals, reviews, and journals, there is no opportunity of noticing here; nor did his political character assume a form so decided as to call for either approval or regret, in so slight a sketch as the present. Devoted mental exertion, the atmosphere of life now clouded by misfortune, weight of years made heavier by sorrow, he withdrew from official duties, but not before he had drunk too deeply the cup of bitterness to relish the evening as he had done the morning of existence. He now had to grapple with disease, to which he had long been a stranger; and the Christian resignation with which he supported bodily suffering, may be gathered from his private correspondence: "I sign with my initials, as enough to express the poor half of me that is left; but I am still much yours, W. S." Again, "Dr. A. threatens me with death if I write so much, and I must, I suppose, if I give it up suddenly; I must assist Lockhart a little, for you are aware of our connexion, and he has always shewed me the duties of a son," &c.+

In the year 1817, at a dinner party, consisting of an eminent tragedian still living, Charles Matthews the comedian, Sir Walter Scott, and a nameless guest, a match of "story-telling" was regularly entered for, in which Sir Walter came off victorious. Matthews told the story of the Builders of the Light-house that were not drowned, and Sir Walter related the awful tale on which the Bride of Lammermoor is founded, adding, that he intended some time or other to make it the subject of a novel.

Lady Scott, whose marriage has been already spoken of, died on the 15th May, 1826, leaving two sons and two daughters. Of the latter, Sophia-Charlotte, the elder, was married (in 1820) to J. G. Lockhart, Esq. advocate, a gentleman who, even in Sir W.'s lifetime, occupied a lofty pedestal in the "Palatine Library," and is now editor of the Quarterly Review. Anne, the younger, was unmarried at the period of her father's decease. Charles, the younger son, is attached to the legation of the King of the Two Sicilies, and the present Sir Walter Scott is a major in the British army.

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