CHAPTER III.

Illustrations of the Autobiography continued-High School of Edinburgh-Residence at Kelso.

1778-1783.

THE report of Walter's progress in horsemanship probably reminded his father that it was time he should be learning other things beyond the department either of aunt Jenny or uncle Thomas, and after a few months he was recalled to Edinburgh. But extraordinary as was the progress he had by this time made in that self-education which alone is of primary consequence to spirits of his order, he was found too deficient in lesser matters to be at once entered in the High School. Probably his mother dreaded, and deferred as long as she could, the day when he should be exposed to the rude collision of a crowd of boys. At all events he was placed first in a little private school kept by one Leechman in Bristo-Port; and

then, that experiment not answering expectation, under the domestic tutorage of Mr James French, afterwards minister of East Kilbride in Lanarkshire. This respectable man considered him fit to join Luke Fraser's class in October 1778.

His own account of his progress at this excellent seminary is, on the whole, very similar to what I have received from some of his surviving school-fellows. His quick apprehension and powerful memory enabled him, at little cost of labour, to perform the usual routine of tasks, in such a manner as to keep him generally" in a decent place" (so he once expressed it to Mr Skene)" about the middle of the class; with which," he continued, "I was the better contented, that it chanced to be near the fire."* Mr Fraser was, I believe, more zealous in enforcing attention to the technicalities of grammar, than to excite curiosity about historical facts, or imagination to strain after the flights of a poet. There is no evidence that Scott, though he speaks of him as his "kind master," in remembrance probably of sympathy for his physical infirmities, ever attracted his special notice with reference to scholarship; but Adam, the

According to Mr Irving's recollections, Scott's place, after the first winter, was usually between the 7th and the 15th from the top of the class. He adds, "Dr James Buchan was always the dur; David Douglas (Lord Reston) second; and the present Lord Melville third.

Rector, into whose class he passed in October 1782, was, as his situation demanded, a teacher of a more liberal caste; and though never, even under his guidance, did Walter fix and concentrate his ambition so as to maintain an eminent place, still the vivacity of his talents was observed, and the readiness of his memory in particular was so often displayed, that (as Mr Irving, his chosen friend of that day, informs me) the Doctor" would constantly refer to him for dates, the particulars of battles, and other remarkable events alluded to in Horace, or whatever author the boys were reading, and used to call him the historian of the class." No one who has read, as few have not, Dr Adam's interesting work on Roman Antiquities, will doubt the author's capacity for stimulating such a mind as young Scott's.

He speaks of himself as occasionally "glancing like a meteor from the bottom to the top of the form." His school-fellow, Mr Claud Russell, remembers that he once made a great leap in consequence of the stupidity of some laggard on what is called the dult's (dolt's) bench, who being asked, on boggling at cum, "what part of speech is with?" answered, 66 a substantive." The Rector, after a moment's pause, thought it worth while to ask his dux

"Is with ever a substantive ?" but all were silent until the query reached Scott, then near the bottom of the class, who instantly responded by quoting a

verse of the book of Judges: "And Samson said unto Delilah, If they bind me with seven green withs that were never dried, then shall I be weak, and as another man." * Another upward movement, accomplished in a less laudable manner, but still one strikingly illustrative of his ingenious resources, I am enabled to preserve through the kindness of a brother poet and esteemed friend, to whom Sir Walter himself communicated it in the melancholy twilight of his bright day.

Mr Rogers says" Sitting one day alone with him in your house, in the Regent's Park-(it was the day but one before he left it to embark at Portsmouth for Malta)—I led him, among other things, to tell me once again a story of himself, which he had formerly told me, and which I had often wished to recover. When I returned home, I wrote it down, as nearly as I could, in his own words; and here they are. The subject is an achievement worthy of Ulysses himself, and such as many of his schoolfellows could, no doubt, have related of him; but I fear I have done it no justice, though the story is so very characteristic that it should not be lost. inimitable manner in which he told it-the glance of the eye, the turn of the head, and the light that played over his faded features, as, one by one, the

*Chap. xvi. verse 7.

The

circumstances came back to him, accompanied by a thousand boyish feelings, that had slept perhaps for years—there is no language, not even his own, could convey to you; but you can supply them. Would that others could do so, who had not the good fortune to know him! The memorandum (Friday, October 21, 1831) is as follows:

*

"There was a boy in my class at school, who stood always at the top, nor could I with all my efforts supplant him. Day came after day, and still he kept his place, do what I would; till at length I observed that, when a question was asked him, he always fumbled with his fingers at a particular button in the lower part of his waistcoat. To remove it, therefore, became expedient in my eyes; and in an evil moment it was removed with a knife. Great was my anxiety to know the success of my measure; and it succeeded too well. When the boy was again questioned, his fingers sought again for the button, but it was not to be found. In his distress he looked down for it; it was to be seen no more than to be felt. He stood confounded, and I took possession of his place; nor did he ever recover it, or ever, I

* Mr Irving inclines to think that this incident must have occurred during Scott's attendance on Luke Fraser, not after he went to Dr Adam; and he also suspects that the boy referred to sat at the top, not of the class, but of Scott's own bench or division of the class.