CHAPTER IV.

WALTER SCOTT.

In the brief attempt at autobiography which the author of "Waverley" gave the world, and which is generally known as the Ashestiel Fragment, he says, with much good humour and good taste, "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."

In point of descent Scott had some right to boast, if, indeed, the accident of lineage can give such right, for he was descended from more than one distinguished house, having in his veins the blood of the Rutherfords and the Swintons of Swinton, and his own male ancestors, of the family of Harden, branched off from the great Buceleuchs, in the middle of the fourteenth century. But Sir Walter's immediate ancestors were sufficiently humble, his father being only a respectable attorney in Edinburgh, and his grandfather being a farmer and cattle-jobber, who began life with the small capital of £30, which he borrowed from an old shepherd named Hogg.

Lockhart, though well acquainted with the particulars of Scott's family, states with amusing pomposity that none of Scott's progenitors "had ever sunk below the situation and character of a gentleman." Now, we see no reason why a man may not be a true gentleman, and wear the livery of a running footman, as many a "gentle" did in the feudal times; but we must contend that if the term "situation of a gentleman" means anything, it cannot be applied to the

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position of an agricultural dealer commencing trade with a borrowed capital of £30.

Walter Scott was born on the 15th August, 1771, in Edinburgh, in his father's house, at the head of the College Wynd. Mr. Scott (the father) had no less than twelve children, but of them the six eldest died in infancy, and of them all, none but Sir Walter and his favourite brother, Thomas Scott, left issue.

Walter's childhood was passed in sickness. When only eighteen months old, he was attacked with a fever, which deprived him of power over his right leg. For the sake of his health, the delicate child was sent out of Edinburgh to enjoy the pure air of Sandy-Knowe, the residence of his paternal grandfather, who had done well in trade on that £30; and after a prolonged residence there, he was taken by an aunt to Bath, where he resided for about a year. While at Sandy-Knowe, at this early period of sickness, he was subjected to a medical treatment which Larrey, in Napoleon's campaigns, found very useful in certain cases of suspended animation. As often as a sheep was killed for the use of the family, the little urchin was stripped, and was wrapped up in the warm skin, just as it had been taken from the animal. Like most sickly children, he was very precocious, learning with rapidity and thinking much, and at six years of age he astonished those who conversed with him with his searching remarks, and his queer store of information.

It is the usual fate of such children to sink into death, but little Walter was destined to be a sturdy boy, and as hearty and athletic a young man as his family had ever produced. Neither at the High, School, nor at the University of his ancient city, where he was educated, did he impress his academical superiors as being possessed of great talents. He was a high-spirited, courageous boy, always ready for mischief, always forward in a row, and popular with his

schoolfellows, but a lazy scholar. At the University he was annoyed at finding himself so much behind his old mates of the High School, but his vexation did not spur him to exertion—on the contrary, he tried to salve his wounded vanity by expressing an unmitigated contempt for Greek, and stubbornly refusing to learn that language. And so doggedly did he stick to this noble resolution, that he never acquired any acquaintance with the first of classic tongues. In 1830, having need to take from an authority of reference the words doidos and Toiŋrýs, for his "Introduction to Popular Poetry," he positively dared not trust himself to insert the mysterious characters in his manuscript, but requested his son-inlaw Lockhart to do it for him. He lived bitterly to repent his folly in neglecting to avail himself of those early educational advantages fortune had thrown in his way, and with affecting gravity he remarked in the Ashestiel Fragment, “If, however, it should ever fall to the lot of youth to peruse these pages, let such a reader remember that it is with the deepest regret I recollect in my manhood the opportunities of learning which I neglected in my youth; that through every part of my literary career I have felt pinched and hampered by my own ignorance; and that 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 sound foundation of learning and science."

On the 31st of March, 1786, Walter Scott was apprenticed to his father, to learn the business of a writer to the signet. The old man intended his son for the bar, but wished him first to learn the habits and minutiae of legal business in the humbler walk of the profession. Walter in after life never lamented this step, for the accurate acquaintance he so gained of legal practice was a valuable possession to him. He was an industrious and painstaking articled clerk, and spurred by the prospect of getting threepence a page for pocket-money, he accomplished many a

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good feat at copying. On one occasion he wrote out one hundred and twenty pages, without stopping for refreshment or rest, and pocketed the reward of his toil, thirty shillings, with much satisfaction. During the course of his apprenticeship he attended his lectures at the University, and, a twelvemonth or more after its close, having passed the requisite examinations, he was advanced to the gown duties and dignity of barrister on the 11th of June, 1792.

A fine hearty specimen of a lad the youngster was in his student days and early manhood. With the exception of the lameness of that unfortunate leg which had suffered in childhood, he was comely and well-grown; had an honest, generous expression of face, that is far more precious than beauty; and had a frank gallant bearing, which made him handsomer in the eyes of women than many a man with better figure and features. Before he fell in love he was careless of his personal appearance, and wore corduroy inexpressibles, of so shabby and antiquated an aspect, that his friends cried fie upon him. But Walter answered they were good enough to drink in, and off went he and his noisy mates to "a house," where the whiskey and company were alike good. Without a doubt, he was at this time rather too much addicted to tavern revels. But he pulled up ere he materially hurt his constitution; and, though he never became an ascetic, he lived to say frequently and with impressive earnestness-"Depend upon it, of all vices drinking is the most incompatible with greatness." In his manner of taking all his amusements there was discernible that extravagant power of enjoyment, which is a desirable feature in youth. The frolic which attended his trips into the provinces, his long pedestrian excursions, the frantic delight he displayed on getting possession of some old border relic-a ballad or a horn-the boldness with which he mounted and subdued the most break-neck horses, all evidenced the energy of his constitution. His grave,

methodical old father admired him, but had a painful presentiment that he was not methodical enough, was too fond of pleasure, was too prone to vagabondizing. Once when Walter returned to his father's residence in George's Square, after a prolonged pedestrian excursion, the old man. asked him how he had managed to live during his absence. "Pretty much like the young ravens," replied the son cheerily. "I only wished I had been as good a player on the flute as poor George Primrose in the "Vicar of Wakefield." If I had his art, I should like nothing better than to tramp like him, from cottage to cottage over the world." "I doubt," responded the sire, "I greatly doubt, sir, you were born for nae better than a gangrel scrape-gut."

The

Scott had an early attachment of a somewhat romantic order to a young lady in a rank of life above him, which was terminated as first loves often are by the young lady marrying a more recent, if not a more worthy suitor. first step young Scott took in the way of consoling himself under his disappointment, was to publish his translations of "Lenore," and the "Wild Huntsman," from Bürger in the October of 1796; the second step in the same direction was a much wiser and more effectual one-he fell in love again. On the rising of the court of session in July (1797), Scott made a trip to the English lakes, accompanied by his brother John, and Adam Fergusson. After visiting Carlisle, Penrith, Ulswater, and Windermere, the trio fixed their head quarters at Gilstand, at which place he met at a ball (he had met her once before, when out riding), a young lady who had "a complexion of the clearest and lightest olive; eyes large, deep-set, and dazzling, of the finest Italian brown, and a profusion of silken tresses, black as the raven's wing." This young lady, the orphan daughter of Jean Charpentier, of Lyons, a devoted loyalist, by his wife Charlotte Volere, and a ward of the Marquis of Downshire, became Walter Scott's wife on the 24th of