For her

The bride was, previous to her nuptials, admitted a member of the society of Quakers. father he ever preserved the highest respect, and he seems to have written his eleventh ode, with a view to relieve the mind of that worthy man from the apprehension of being neglected by him. The connection he had formed in his family, however, was not of long duration. His wife died in childbed in 1768, and the same year he lost his father, and his infant child. For some time he was inconsolable, and removed from Amwell, where so many objects excited the bitter remembrance of all he held dear, to the house of a friend at Upton. Here, when time and reflection had mellowed his grief, he honoured the memory of his wife by an elegy, in which tenderness and love are expressed in the genuine language of nature. As he did not

wish to make a parade of his private feelings, a few copies only of this elegy were given to his friends, nor would he ever suffer it to be published for sale. It procured him the praise of Dr. Hawkesworth, and the friendship of Dr. Langhorne, who had been visited by a similar calamity.

In November, 1770, he married his second wife, Mary de Horne, "a lady whose amiable qualities promised him many years of uninterrupted happiness." During his visits in London, he increased his literary circle of friends by an introduction to Mrs. Montague's parties. Among those who principally noticed him with respect, were Lord Lyttelton, Sir William Jones, Mr. Potter, Mr. Mickle, and Dr. Beattie, who paid him a cordial visit at Amwell in 1773, and again in 1781, and became one of his correspondents.

Although we have hitherto contemplated Scott as a student and occasional poet, he rendered himself more conspicuous as one of those observers of public affairs who employ much of their time in endeavouring to be useful. He appears to have VOL. XXXII.

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acquired the spirit and patriotism of the country gentleman whose abilities enable him to do good, and whose fortune adds the influence which is often necessary to render that good effectual and permanent. Among other subjects, his attention had often been called to that glaring defect in human polity, the state of the poor, and having revolved it in his mind, with the assistance of many personal inquiries, he published, in 1773, Observations on the present state of the parochial and vagrant Poor. Some of his propositions were incorporated in Mr. Gilbert's Bill, in the year 1782, but the whole was lost for want of parliamentary support.

In 1776, he published his Amwell, a descriptive poem, which he had long been preparing, and in which he fondly hoped to immortalize his favourite village.

At such intervals as he could spare, he wrote several anonymous pamphlets and essays on miscellaneous subjects, and is said to have appeared among the enemies of the measures of government who answered Dr. Johnson's Patriot, False Alarm, and Taxation no Tyranny. On the commencement of the Rowleian controversy, he took the part of Chatterton, but was among the first who questioned the authenticity of the poems ascribed to Rowley. This he discussed in some letters inserted in the Gentleman's Magazine. Of course he was led to admire the wonderful powers of the young poet, and in his twenty-first ode, pays a poetical tribute to his memory.

These, however, were his amusements; the more valuable part of his life was devoted to such public business as is ever best conducted by men of his pure and independent character. He gave regular attendance at turnpike meetings, navigation trusts, and commissions of land tax, and proposed and carried various schemes of local improvement. Among his neighbours he frequently,

by a judicious interference or arbitration, checked the spirit of litigation which destroys the felicity of a country life. In 1778, he published a work of great labour and utility, entitled, A Digest of the Highway and General Turnpike Laws. In this compilation, Mr. Hoole informs us, all the acts of parliament in force were collected together, and placed in one point of view; their contents arranged under distinct heads, with the addition of many notes, and an appendix on the construction and preservation of public roads, probably the only scientific treatise, when it appeared, on the subject.

In the spring of 1782, he published what he had long projected, a volume of poetry, including his Elegies, Amwell, and a great variety of hitherto unpublished pieces. On this volume it is evident he had bestowed great pains. He added the decoration of some beautiful engravings. A very favourable account was given of the whole of its contents in the Monthly Review; but the Critical having taken some personal liberties with the author, hinting that the ornaments were not quite suitable to the plainness and simplicity of a quaker, Mr. Scott thought proper to publish a letter addressed to the authors of that journal, in which he expostulated with them on their conduct, and defended his poetry.

After this contest, he began to prepare a work of the critical kind. He had been dissatisfied with some of Dr. Johnson's Lives of the Poets, and had amassed, in the course of his own reading and reflection, a number of observations on Denham, Milton, Pope, Dyer, Goldsmith, and Thomson, which he sent to the press under the title of Critical Essays, but did not live to see it published. On the 25th of October, 1783, he accompanied Mrs. Scott to London, for the benefit of medical advice for a

complaint under which she laboured at that time. On the 1st of December, while at his house at Ratcliff, he was attacked by a putrid fever, which proved fatal on the 12th of that month, and he was interred on the 18th, in the Quaker's burying ground at Ratcliff. He had reached his fifty-fourth year, and he left behind him a widow, and a daughter, their only child, then about six years old. His death was the more lamented, as he was in the vigour of life, and had the prospect of many years of usefulness. "In his person he was tall and slender, but his limbs were remarkably strong and muscular: he was very active, and delighted much in the exercise of walking: his countenance was cheerful and animated."

His Critical Essays were published in 1785, by Mr. Hoole, who prefixed to them a Life, written with much affection, yet with impartiality. He loved the man, and he freely criticizes the poet. Of his peculiar habits we have only one anecdote :"He preferred, for poetical composition, the time when all the rest of the family were in bed; and it was frequently his custom to sit in a dark room, and when he had composed a number of lines, he would go into another room, where a candle was burning, in order to commit them to paper. Though in general very regular in his hour of retiring to rest, he would sometimes be up greater part of the night, when he was engaged in any literary work."

As a poet, he may be allowed to rank among those who possess genius in a moderate degree; who please by short efforts and limited inspirations; but whose talents are better displayed in moral reflection and pathetic sentiment, than in flights of fancy. His Elegies, as they were the first, are among the best of his performances. Simplicity appears to have been his general aim, and he was of opinion that it was too little studied by modern

writers. In the Mexican Prophecy, however, and in Serim, there is a fire and spirit worthy of the highest school. His Amwell will ever deserve a distinguished place among descriptive poems; although it is liable to all the objections attached to descriptive poetry. But he cannot be denied the merit of being original in many passages, and he appears to have viewed Nature with the eye of a genuine poet. He has himself pointed out some coincidences with former poets, which were accidental; and perhaps others may be discovered, without detracting from the independence of his Muse.

Upon the whole, the vein of pious and moral reflection, and the benevolence and philanthropy which pervade all his poems, will continue to make them acceptable to those who read to be improved, and are of opinion that pleasure is not the sole end of poetry. Several of his odes have considerable energy, both of thought and versification. He is generally harmonious and correct, and never fatigues the reader.