Part 1
Monthly Supplement of
THE PENNY MAGAZINE
OF THE
Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.
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37.] September 29 to October 31, 1832
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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF SIR WALTER SCOTT.
[Illustration: Sir Walter Scott. From Mr. Chantrey’s Bust.]
[We have considered it proper to deviate, in some degree, from the plan of our Supplement, by devoting the present number entirely to a Memoir of Sir Walter Scott. The works, especially the Novels and Romances, of this illustrious man have been so universally read, and his name is so completely a “household word” in every mouth, that we cannot doubt that the subject will be of interest to the great majority of our readers. The following Biographical Sketch has been drawn up by a gentleman who had the advantage of a long personal acquaintance with Sir Walter Scott. We have to regret that the limited space which we could assign to the subject has necessarily prevented him from fully employing his original materials.]
Sir Walter Scott was born at Edinburgh on the 15th of August, 1771. His father, Mr. Walter Scott, was a respectable Writer to the Signet, a branch of the law profession in Scotland, corresponding to that of attorney or solicitor in the English Courts. The house occupied by the family, at the period of the poet’s birth and for some time afterwards, stood at the head of the College Wynd, a narrow alley leading from the Cowgate to the northern gate of the College, and now considered one of the meanest lanes of the Old Town. At that time, however, the College Wynd was inhabited by several families of respectability; and, among others, by that of Mr. Keith, grandfather to the present Sir Alexander Keith, likewise a Writer to the Signet, who (agreeably to the ancient Edinburgh fashion) occupied the two lower flats of the same house of which the upper stories, accessible by another entrance, belonged to the family of the poet. This mansion was eventually pulled down to make way for the new college.
The father of Sir Walter Scott was not a man of shining talents, but was much esteemed as a steady and expert man of business, and as a person of great benevolence and integrity. He held for many years the honourable office of elder in the parish church of Old Grayfriars, of which Dr. Robertson the historian, and Dr. Erskine, an eminent presbyterian divine, then had the collegiate pastoral charge. His professional career was prosperous, and he seems to have early attained ease if not affluence of worldly circumstances.
The wife of this worthy man, and mother of the poet, appears from all accounts to have been a more remarkable person. She was a daughter of Dr. John Rutherford, professor of the practice of Physic in the University of Edinburgh, and sister of Dr. Daniel Rutherford, Professor of Botany in the same institution, both men of considerable scientific reputation, and living in habits of familiar intercourse with the first literary society which Scotland in their day produced. Besides the advantage of such connexions, and of an excellent education, Mrs. Scott possessed superior natural talents, had a good taste for poetry, and great conversational powers. She is said to have been well acquainted in her youth with Allan Ramsay, Beattie, Blacklock, and other Scottish authors of the last century; and independently of the influence which her own talents and acquirements may have given her in training the opening mind of her distinguished son, it is obvious that he must have been greatly indebted to her for his introduction, in early life, into the select literary and intellectual society of which she and her near relations were ornaments.
Sir Walter was connected, both by the father and mother’s side, with several Scottish families of ancient lineage and renown. His maternal grandmother was a daughter of Swinton of Swinton, a border family whose chivalric ancestor he has celebrated in his drama of ‘Halidon Hill;’ and through his father he was descended, though more remotely, from the Scotts of Harden, in which race the chieftainship of that doughty border clan is understood to reside. It is, however, a curious fact that his more immediate ancestor in this warlike line was a _Quaker_. This worthy schismatic, to whom his illustrious descendant has humorously referred in some of his fictitious works, was Walter Scott of Raeburn, third son of Sir William Scott of Harden. He lived at the time of the Restoration, and having embraced the tenets of Quakerism (which about that period gained several disciples among the Scottish gentry), he was on this account most iniquitously persecuted by the Government of the day. He was imprisoned first in the tolbooth of Edinburgh, and afterwards in the jail of Jedburgh, where even his own family were denied access to him. What was still more cruelly oppressive, his three children were, by an edict of the Scotch Privy Council, removed altogether out of his control, and placed for their education, at his expense, under the tuition of other relatives, with a view to embue them with principles altogether alien to those their parent had conscientiously adopted. And this most arbitrary purpose, it appears, was fully attained; for the Quaker Walter’s three children became such staunch Jacobites, that the second son, who was great grandfather to the poet, in testimony of his devotion to the unhappy house of Stuart, bound himself at the Revolution, by a vow, which he kept till his dying day, never to shave his beard till the exiled race were restored to the British throne; and from this circumstance he acquired among his compatriots on the Border the name of _Beardie_. Strong Jacobite predilections thus became hereditary in the family, and descended to the infant poet mingled with all the endearing and exciting associations of family pride and feudal tradition. These circumstances have been briefly noticed, because they tend to throw light on the mental education of the great Scottish novelist. We come now to what more directly relates to himself.
Sir Walter was the third child of a family of six sons and one daughter, all of whom he survived. From an early period of his infancy until the age of sixteen, he was afflicted with frequent ill health; and either from the effects of a sickly constitution, or as some accounts say, from an accident occasioned by the carelessness of a nurse, his right foot was injured and rendered lame for life. The delicacy of his health induced his parents to consent to his residence, during a considerable part of his early boyhood, at Sandy Know, the house of his paternal grandfather, a respectable farmer in Roxburghshire. This farm-house occupies an elevated situation near the old border fortlet, called Smailholm Tower, and overlooks a large portion of the vale of the Tweed and the adjacent country, the Arcadia of Scotland, and the very cradle of Scottish romance and song. Southward, on the Northumbrian marches, rise dark and massive the Cheviot mountains, with the field of Flodden on their eastern skirts; while on the west, within a few miles’ distance, appears the legendary three-peaked Eildon, looking down on the monastic ruins of Melrose and Dryburgh, on the “Rhymer’s Tower,” and “Huntly Bank,” and “Leader Haughs,” and “Cowdenknows,”--and on the storied streams of Teviot and Ettrick, and Yarrow and Gala-water, issuing to the Tweed from their pastoral glens. “The whole land,” to use the poetical language of Allan Cunningham, “is alive with song and story: almost every stone that stands above the ground is the record of some skirmish or single combat; and every stream, although its waters be so inconsiderable as scarcely to moisten the pasture through which they run, is renowned in song and in ballad. ‘I can stand,’ said Sir Walter, one day, ‘on the Eildon Hill, and point out forty-three places, famous in war and verse[1].’”
Such was the country that opened, from the thatched farm-house at Smailholm Tower, to the eyes and the imagination of the future minstrel; and the impressions that were then indelibly stamped on his infant mind by the pastoral scenery and legendary lore of the “land of his sires,” are beautifully described in the introduction to the third canto of ‘Marmion.’
His residence, with his venerable relatives, at this secluded spot, which after early boyhood was, we believe, occasionally renewed during the summer vacations of the High School and College, was undoubtedly fraught with many advantages, physical and mental. It was here that his feeble constitution was, by the aid of free air and exercise, gradually strengthened into robustness; and though he never got rid of his lameness, it was so far overcome as to be in after-life rather a deformity than an inconvenience. It was here that his love of ballad lore and border story was fostered into a passion; and it was here, doubtless, and at the house of one of his uncles (Mr. Thomas Scott, of Woolee, also a Roxburghshire farmer), that he early acquired that intimate acquaintance with the manners, character, and language of the Scottish peasantry, which he afterwards turned to such admirable account in his novels. That such was the fact, indeed, the writer of this sketch is fully persuaded from circumstances that have come within his own knowledge, as well as from many incidents mentioned to him in conversation by Sir Walter himself.
While his _poetical education_ (if we may so term it) was thus prosperously though unconsciously proceeding, his progress in school instruction is understood to have been considerably delayed or interrupted by his absence in the country and his irregular health. Mr. Cunningham mentions that he was taught the rudiments of knowledge by his mother. Mr. Chambers states that he received some part of his early education at a school kept by a Mr. Leeshman in Bristo Street, Edinburgh[2]; other accounts say that he attended a school at Musselburgh; and the present writer happens to know that he resided some time at Kelso, in his early days, in the house of a relative, but whether or not he attended any school there he cannot say. These minute details, though all highly interesting in reference to a man so distinguished, must necessarily be left to be accurately sifted out by more competent biographers. It is sufficient for our present purpose, to mention that he entered the class of Mr. Luke Frazer in the High School of Edinburgh in October 1779, when he had completed his eighth year; and two years subsequently he was transferred to the class of the Rector, Dr. Adam,--an amiable man and an excellent teacher, whose memory Sir Walter ever held in high regard.
It would appear from all accounts that have yet reached the public, that his progress in the classics was at this period by no means extraordinary. It is even affirmed that he was remarkable for incorrectness in his exercises; and it appears, at least, pretty well ascertained that he left no distinct impression of superior talent or acuteness, either on his teachers or his fellow-pupils. He is better remembered for having been “a remarkably active and dauntless boy, full of all manner of fun, and ready for all manner of mischief;” and so far from being timid or quiet on account of his lameness, that very defect (as he has himself remarked to be usually the case in similar circumstances with boys of enterprising disposition) prompted him to take the lead among all the stirring boys in the street where he lived, or the school which he attended. He left the High School in 1783, ranking only _eleventh_ in the Rector’s class.
However idle or backward, however, the schoolboy Scott might be in regard to classical attainments, he had, it seems, even then acquired a high character as a _romancer_. Of this curious fact he gives the following account in the general introduction to the new edition of the Waverley Novels:--
“I must refer to a very early period of my life, 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 holidays 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 our ever thinking of bringing them to a conclusion. As we observed a strict secresy 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, Braid Hills, and similar places in the vicinity of Edinburgh; and the recollection of those holidays still forms an _oasis_ in the pilgrimage which I have to look back upon.”
He entered the University of Edinburgh in October, 1783, at the age of twelve years; but he appears (as far as can be ascertained from the matriculation records) to have attended only the Greek and Humanity (or Latin) classes for two seasons, and that of Logic one season. If he entered any other classes, it seems probable that his irregular health had interrupted his attendance. The consequence was that he had little opportunity, even if he had had the ambition, to distinguish himself at college; and he thus entered the world with a very desultory, and, as far as regards the classics, apparently a rather defective education. Nor was his course of private reading (it could scarcely be called _study_) much calculated to remedy that disadvantage. He thus describes, in the auto-biographical chapter already referred to, the intellectual dissipation to which he was at that period devoted.
“When boyhood, advancing into youth, required more serious studies and graver cares, a long illness threw me back on the kingdom of fiction, as if it were by a species of fatality. My indisposition arose, in part at least, from my having broken a blood-vessel; and motion and speech were for a long time pronounced positively dangerous. For several weeks I was confined strictly to my bed, during which time I was not allowed to speak above a whisper, to eat more than a spoonful or two of boiled rice, or to have more covering than one thin counterpane. When the reader is informed that I was at this time a growing youth, with the spirits, appetite, and impatience of fifteen, and suffered, of course greatly under this severe regimen, which the repeated return of my disorder rendered indispensable, he will not be surprised that I was abandoned to my own discretion, so far as reading (my almost sole amusement) was concerned, and still less so, that I abused the indulgence which left my time so much at my own disposal.
“There was at this time a circulating library at Edinburgh, 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, and 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; and unless when some one had the charity to play at chess with me, I was allowed to do nothing, save read, from morning to night. I was, in kindness and pity, which was perhaps erroneous, however natural, permitted to select my subjects of study at my own pleasure, upon the same principles that the humours of children are indulged to keep them out of mischief. As my taste and appetite were gratified in nothing else, I indemnified myself by becoming a glutton of books. Accordingly, I believe I read almost all the old romances, old plays, and epic poetry, in that formidable collection, and no doubt was unconsciously amassing materials for the task in which it has been my lot to be so much employed.
“At the same time, I did not in all respects abuse the license permitted me. Familiar acquaintance with the specious miracles of fiction brought with it some degree of satiety, and I began by degrees to seek in histories, memoirs, voyages and travels, and the like, events nearly as wonderful as those which were the work of the imagination, with the additional advantage that they were, at least, in a great measure true. The lapse of nearly two years, during which I was left to the service of my own free will, was followed by a temporary residence in the country, where I was again very lonely, but for the amusement which I derived from a good, though old-fashioned library. The vague and wild use which I made of this advantage I cannot describe better than by referring my reader to the desultory studies of Waverley in a similar situation; the passages concerning whose reading were imitated from recollections of my own.”
Such a course of _study_ would probably have gone far to ruin a less masculine intellect than that which Scott was gifted with by nature; and even as it was, it may remain a doubtful point whether the chief faults of his style of writing, both in poetry and prose, may not be in a great measure attributable to this “gluttony and literary indigestion of his juvenile years.” There is no doubt, however, that this dangerous habit was, in the case of Scott, afterwards cured by a course of vigorous voluntary application, in the acquisition of a vast fund of antiquarian and other curious learning.
Having thus passed through a somewhat sickly and solitary infancy, which threw him much into the society of his elder relatives, and a somewhat idle boyhood, in which the recurrence of ill health cast him upon the resources of romance reading, and romance dreaming, the constitution of the imaginative youth, about his sixteenth year, experienced a decisive improvement. His lameness indeed remained so far that he was obliged to use a staff to assist his foot in walking; but in other respects he became remarkably robust, and able to endure great fatigue, whether bodily or mental. He now applied himself with vigour to the study of law; and besides attending the usual classes in the university necessary to fit him for the bar, he performed the ordinary duties of an attorney’s apprentice under his father, in order to acquire a more thorough technical knowledge of his profession. He exhibited, however, no ambition to distinguish himself at any of the debating societies at which the academical youth of Edinburgh, and more especially the candidates for forensic honours, are wont to train their unfledged powers of eloquence or argumentation. “He was never heard of,” says a Scottish biographer, “at any of those clubs; and so far as he was known at all, it was only as a rather abstracted young man, very much given to reading, but not the kind of reading with which other persons of his age are conversant.”
On the 10th of July, 1792, about three months before he had completed his 21st year, he passed Advocate at the Scottish bar, after the usual examinations. Mr. Chambers, whose respectable biographical sketch we have already quoted, in reference to this period of his professional career makes the following statement:--
“The young barrister was enabled, by the affluence of his father, to begin life in an elegant house in the most fashionable part of the town; but it was not his lot to acquire either wealth or distinction at the bar. He had perhaps some little employment at the provincial sittings of the criminal court, and occasionally acted in unimportant causes as a junior counsel; but he neither obtained, nor seemed qualified to obtain, a sufficient share of general business to insure an independency. The truth is, his mind was not yet emancipated from that enthusiastic pursuit of knowledge which had distinguished his youth. His necessities, with only himself to provide for, and a sure retreat behind him in the comfortable circumstances of his native home, were not so great as to make an exclusive application to his profession imperative; and he therefore seemed destined to join what a sarcastic barrister has termed, “the ranks of the gentlemen, who are not anxious for business.” Although he could speak readily and fluently at the bar, his intellect was not at all of a forensic cast. He appeared to be too much of the abstract and unworldly scholar to assume readily the habits of an adroit pleader; and even although he had been perfectly competent to the duties, it is a question if his external aspect and general reputation would have permitted the generality of agents to intrust them to his hands.
“Throughout all the earlier years of his life as a barrister, he was constantly studying either one branch of knowledge or another. Unlike most of the young men of his order, he was little tempted from study into composition. With all the diligence which the present writer could exercise, he has not been able to detect any fugitive piece of Sir Walter’s in any of the periodical publications of the day.”
The hereditary politics of his family, at least from the time of the persecuted Quaker, Walter of Raeburn, had been, as we have seen, strongly Jacobitical; and Sir Walter’s own turn of mind, as well as the whole course of his early studies, naturally led him to embrace with ardour the same predilections. On the extinction of the Stuart race the old Jacobites gradually assumed the principles of high Toryism; and Sir Walter’s entrance on public life being contemporary with the stirring events of the French Revolution, he naturally ranged himself under the banners of the ruling Pittite or Anti-Gallican party. After the breaking out of the war with France, and when the apprehensions of foreign invasion led to the enrolment of yeomanry and volunteer militia throughout every part of the country, the young barrister entered into the martial feeling of the times with great enthusiasm. He filled the post of Quarter-Master of the Edinburgh Light Dragoons. Being an excellent horseman, in spite of his lameness, and an exceedingly zealous officer, he distinguished himself in this favourite vocation; being naturally fond of all that relates to warlike exercises, and with such a predilection for the military profession, that but for his early personal infirmity, he would, in all probability, have entered the army. His good humour and powers of social entertainment made him very popular in the regiment; and, what was of more importance to his future fortunes, his regimental zeal and general talents (conjoined no doubt with his political opinions) recommended him to the powerful patronage of Henry Duke of Buccleugh, who had taken great interest in the organization of the yeomanry cavalry of Scotland. Through the friendship of this nobleman, he afterwards obtained, in December 1799, the crown appointment of Sheriff of Selkirkshire, to which was attached a salary of £300 a year. But we must now advert to the first dawn of his literary distinction, which a few years preceded the period just mentioned.