thought and imagination. Among those who may be said to have created, early in the present century, a revival of letters in England, Scott was in the van, and became the most renowned. His poems obtained a great popularity, and produced a host of imitators, among whom Lord Byron may be included; and, when he found his attraction and his poetical powers diminishing, his mind took another direction, and won higher triumphs than before, by producing the historical romance. The man was so identified with the author, that the story of his life and of his writings is one and the same. In the present volume, I shall relate that story, avoiding diffuseness, rejecting all but well-ascertained facts, and stating many particulars within my own knowledge and recollection.

CHAPTER II.

Ancestry.-Scotts and Rutherfords. - The Flower of Yarrow.-Scott's Father. A Lamester.-Infancy at Sandy-Knowe.-Smallholme Tower.— At Bath.-Poets as Readers.-Early Studies.-Jacobite Traditions.— Monkbarns and Ensign Dalgetty. - Power of Memory.

WA

1771-1778.

ALTER SCOTT, who was born in the old town of Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, on the 15th of August, 1771, and died at Abbotsford, in the county of Roxburgh, at the age of sixty-one, was third son of Mr. Walter Scott, W.S. (These initials indicate the second grade in the legal profession in Scotland; the others being advocate or barrister, and attorney or solicitor, as at the English and Irish bar.) In a fragment of autobiography, composed in 1808, discovered in an old cabinet at Abbotsford, and coming down to the year 1792, at which time he was called to the bar, Scott gives a rather extended account of his family, prefaced with the statement: "Every Scottishman has a pedigree. It is a national prerogative, as unalienable as his pride and his poverty. My birth was neither distinguished nor sordid. According to the prejudices of my country, it was esteemed gentle, as I was connected, though remotely, with ancient families, both by my father's and mother's side." His grandfather, a cadet of the family of Scott, very numerous in the southern or border counties of Scotland, was descended from that Scott of Harden whose fair wife long has borne

the title, in song and story, of the "Flower of Yarrow." After an unsuccessful attempt to obtain a humble living as a merchant-seaman, this grandsire became a tenant-farmer upon the lands of SandyKnowe, belonging to Mr. Scott of Harden. His eldest son, Sir Walter's father, the first of his family who was bred to a town-life, duly served his time as apprentice to a writer to the signet, was taken in as a partner, and, on the death of his principal, succeeded to the business, in which his great simplicity of character was counterbalanced by severe probity, great shrewdness, and untiring zeal for the interests of his clients. Careful and prudent, he did not marry until he was in his thirtieth year, taking as "helpmeet" to himself, Anne, eldest daughter of Dr. John Rutherford, professor of medicine in the University of Edinburgh. She was maternally descended from the Swintons of Swinton. The achievements of one of this family, highly commended in the vivid and graphic pages of Froissart, supplied materials for the dramatic sketch of "Halidon Hill," the time being in the early part of the fifteenth century. Through his mother, Sir Walter Scott also claimed affinity with William, Earl of Sterling, the poet, who called Drummond of Hawthornden and Ben Jonson his friends.

Scott is the family name of the ducal house of Buccleugh; but, like a true clansman, Sir Walter acknowledged Scott of Harden (his own kinsman, who established his claim to the ancient barony of Polwarth in 1835) as chieftain of all the Scotts in North Britain. Wat of Harden, who figures in "The Lay of the Last Minstrel," was husband of the bonny Flower of Yarrow, of whom it is related, that, when the last bullock which he had provided from the English pastures was consumed, she placed upon her table a dish, which, when the cover was

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lifted, was found to contain only a pair of clean spurs, as a hint to the hungry company-moss-troopers of Harden, and followers of the chief- that they must bestir themselves for their next dinner. For the most part, the Scotts were warm adherents of the Stuart dynasty after the accession of James to the throne of the Tudors. The grandson of the fair and strong-minded Flower of Yarrow bore the name of "Beardie," from the then unusual practice which he adopted, after the manner of Samson, of leaving his hair untouched by razor or scissors, in token of his regret for the banished house. Many of the Scotts had been "out," as it was called, against the Hanoverian ruler in 1715 and 1745; and thus Walter Scott, mixing freely with his kin in childhood, youth, and early manhood, became familiar with their adventures as partisans of the prince "over the water," and involuntarily became, even at an early age, a Jacobite in sentiment. In maturer years, he exhibited in his own person the somewhat curious anomaly of being a warm adherent of the dethroned Stuarts and a very loyal subject of the reigning dynasty. It was doubtful whether his regard for "bonny Prince Charlie," long since in his foreign grave, was as great as his devotion to George the Fourth, who treated him with distinguished and even familiar kindness.

no

The autobiography already referred to says, "My father and mother had a very numerous family, fewer, I believe, than twelve children, of whom many were highly promising; though only five survived very early youth." The father, eldest son of a Scott of Sandy-Knowe, chose wisely in selecting the particular department of the law intrusted to writers of the signet, who at that time, and even largely to this hour, flourished by their administration of the property of the numerous class known as squires in England and lairds in Scotland. Owing to the great

number of his kindred scattered through the counties of Selkirk and Roxburgh, the W. S. who was confidential business-man to most of them obtained a handsome income. His character is confessedly sketched in that of Mr. Fairford the lawyer, in "Redgauntlet." He was so fortunate as to have a wife who had received, as became the daughter of an eminently learned physician, the best education then bestowed upon young gentlewomen in Scotland.

Four sons and two daughters, born to this" comfortable couple" between 1759 and 1766, perished in infancy. Some years later, six other children came to supply the void. These were five sons and one daughter. Walter was the third of this family aftermath; but the race could not have been very vigorous, he alone reaching the limits of old age. His father died in April, 1799, aged seventy, broken down in mind and body by a series of paralytic attacks. His mother survived her husband more than twenty years. Having thus stated, as concisely as was consistent with clearness, some leading facts relating to Sir Walter Scott's ancestors and immediate family, I now proceed to tell the story of his youth.

Walter Scott was born on Aug. 15, 1771. He says, "I was an uncommonly healthy child, but had nearly died in consequence of my first nurse being ill of a consumption, a circumstance which she chose to conceal, though to do so was murder to both herself and me. She went privately to consult Dr. Black, the celebrated professor of chemistry, who put my father on his guard. The woman was dismissed, and I was consigned to a healthy peasant, who [1808] is still alive to boast of her laddie being what she calls a grand gentleman. I showed every sign of health and strength until I was about eighteen months old. One night, I have been often told, I showed great reluctance to be caught and put to bed, and,