SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. SIR WALTER SCOTT was born on the 15th of dismissed, and young Walter consigned to the care of a healthy peasant, who survived, to see him famous, and to boast of her "laddie" being what she called a "grand gentleman." Owing to a fever in his eighteenth month, he lost the use of his right leg, which never afterwards recovered its natural strength or symmetry; and thus Scott, like his illustrious contemporary, Byron, was troubled with-life long lameness. Like Byron, also, though in an inferior degree, he endured no small amount of torture from the abortive attempts made to rectify his unfortunate deformity by artificial contrivances. Sir Walter had a second providential escape from premature death, through the wickedness, or, rather, madness, of another nurse. The following is his own account of this incident in his childish history:-His grandfather, Dr. Ruther ford, had prescribed country air for the health of the child, and he was, accordingly, sent to the farm-house of Sandy-Knowe. An odd incident," he writes, "is worth recording. It seems my mother had sent a maid to take charge of me, that I might be no inconvenience to the family. But the damsel sent on that important mission had left her heart behind her, in the keeping of some wild fellow, it is likely, who had done and said more to her than he was like to make good She became extremely desirous to return to Edinburgh; and as my mother made a point of her remaining where she was, she contracted a sort of hatred to poor me, as the cause of her being detained at Sandy-Knowe. This grew, I suppose, to a sort of delirious affection: for she confessed to old Alison Wilson, the housekeeper, that she had carried me to the Craigs, to cut my throat with the scissors, and bury me in the moss. Alison instantly took possession of my person, and took care that her confidant should not be subject to any further temptation, so far as I was concerned. She was dismissed, of course; and, I have heard, became afterwards a lunatic." We thus see how very near the world was being deprived of the "Lay of the Last Minstrel," "Marmion," the "Lady of the Lake," and the "Waverley Novels." The poet's father was nearly thirty years of age when he married: and six children born to him, between 1759 and 1766, all perished in infancy. The last of these children, who died in childhood, was also called Walter, which was the prevalent family name. A suspicion that the close situation of the College Wynd had been in some measure connected with the striking mortality in his family, induced Sir Walter's father to remove to the house which he ever after-meaning, under a strong temptation of the devil, wards occupied in George's Square. This removal took place shortly after the poet's birth, and the children born subsequently were generally healthy. Of a family of twelve, of whom six lived to maturity, not one of them left descendants, except Sir Walter himself, and his next, and, to him, dearest, brother, Thomas Scott. The subject of our memoir was an uncommonly healthy child; but he had nearly died, in consequence of his first wet-nurse, being afflicted with consumption-a circumstance which she chose to conceal; though, to do so, was murder both to herself and her infant charge. She, however, went privately to consult Dr. Black, the celebrated professor of chemistry; and he put the child's father upon his guard. The woman was It was at Sandy-Knowe, the residence of his paternal grandfather, that the first consciousness of existence dawned upon him. "I recollect distinctly," he says, "that my situation and appearance were a little whimsical. Among the odd remedies resorted to, to aid my lameness, some one had recommended that so often as a sheep was killed, I should be stripped and swathed up in the skin, warm as it was flayed from the carcass of the animal. In this Tartar-like habiliment, I well remember lying upon the floor of the little parlour in the farmhouse, while my grandfather, a venerable old man with white hair, used every excitement to make me try to crawl. I also distinctly remember the late Sir George MacDougal joining in this kindly attempt. He was, God knows how, a relation of ours; and I still recollect him in his old-fashioned military habit (he had been colonel of the Grays), with a small cocked-hat, deeply laced, and embroidered-scarlet waistcoat, and a light-coloured coat, with milk-white locks, tied in military fashion, kneeling on the ground before me, and dragging his watch along the carpet, to induce me to follow it. The benevolent old soldier, and the infant, wrapped in his sheepskin, would have afforded an odd group to uninterested spectators. This must have happened in my third year, for Sir George MacDougal and my grandfather both died after that period." never wanted subjects of dispute; but our disputes were always amicable.' After being three years under the public school tuition of Luke Fraser, he was "turned over" to Dr. Adam, the rector. He afterwards attended the Grammar School, Kelso, where he first became acquainted with James and John Ballantyne, who afterwards became his partners and publishers of some of his most celebrated works. He returned to Edinburgh, and entered the College, in November, 1783. Scott's university career was not a brilliant one. His progress in the Latin language was slow and halting; and as for Greek, he contracted an invincible repugnance to that noble tongue. Among his class-fellows, he was known as the "Greek Blockhead;" and this circumstance coming to his knowledge, embittered him still further against the study of the languages of the greatest poets and sages of antiquity. "All hopes of my progess," he writes, "in the Greek were now over: insomuch that, when we were required to write essays on the authors we had studied, I had the audacity to produce a composition in which I weighed Homer against Ariosto, and pronounced him wanting in the balance. I supported this heresy by a profusion of bad reading and flimsy argument. The wrath of the professor was extreme, while, at the same time, he could not suppress his surprise at the quantity of out-of the-way knowledge which I displayed. He pronounced upon me the severe sentence that 'dunce I was, and dunce was to remain."" This verdict, however, the worthy Professor Dalzell lived to laugh at, and recall, when after years had shown that the boy, who is a very bad Greek scholar, may, as a man, attain to very eminent distinction as a writer in his own mother tongue. His distaste for Greek became so confirmed, that in a short time he forgot the very letters of the Greek alphabet; but he managed to keep up a tolerable familiarity with Latin-not by the study of the school classics, but by the perusal of George Buchannan's "History of Scotland," Mathew Paris, and other Monkish chroniclers. His progress in The poet's father, though an exceedingly af- mathematics, moral philosphy, and metaphysics fectionate parent, was a strict disciplinarian in was much more satisfactory, and the celebrated the management of his household; but Sir Wal-Dugald Stewart was led to entertain a very high ter, owing to his infirmity, was an exceptionally opinion of his pupil. indulged child. In the earlist efforts at his cducation, he was, to a great extent, allowed to follow the bent of his own inclinations. He mildly complains of the austere observance of the Scottish Sabbath in his father's house; but he adds, "My week-day tasks were very agreeable. My lameness and my solitary habits had made me a tolerable reader; and my hours of leisure were usually spent in reading aloud to my mother Pope's translation of Homer, which, excepting a few traditionary ballads, and the songs in Allan Ramsay's Evergreen,' was the first poetry which I perused." In his fourth year, he was taken to Bath, that he might partake of the beneficial effects of the medicinal waters of that place, then the most fashionable of English watering-places. It does not appear that his leg was improved by the waters; and after a year's residence in Bath, he was taken back to Edinburgh, between which city and the farm of Sandy-Knowe, he "whiled away, till about his eighth year, when he was sent to Preston-pans, for the benefit of seabathings. Here he remained for some weeks, under the care of an aunt; and here he became acquainted with an old soldier of fortune, named Dalgetty, who had served in the German wars, and whose name, character, and exploits he afterwards reproduced in the inimitable Major Dugald Dalgetty of 'The Legend of Montrose.' From Preston-pans, he was led back to his father's house, in George Square, which continned to be his established residence until his marriage, in 1797. In 1778, he was sent to the second class of the Grammar, or High School, of Edinburgh, then taught by Mr. Luke Fraser-"a good Latin scholar, and a very worthy man." But Scott made no great figure at the High School. All his exertions were desultory, and little to be depended on; and in all the branches of juvenile instruction, he was surpassed by hundreds of boys of whom the world has never heard. But his education was not solely entrusted to High-School lessons. He had a tutor at home-a fanatical, but otherwise amiable, young man, who condescended to dispute with his youthful charge on divinity, church history, the Covenanters, and so forth."I," writes the poet, "with a head on fire for chivalry, was a Cavaller; my friend (the tutor) was a Roundhead. I was a Tory, and he was a Whig; I hated Presbyterians, and admired Montrose, with his victorious Highlanders: he liked the Presbyterian Ulysses-the dark and politic Argyle; so that we In 1785, he entered into indentures with his father, and for a time attempted to make himself at home upon the dry and barren wilderness of forms and conveyances. It was in the discharge of his duties as a writer's (solicitor) apprentice that he first penetrated to the Highlands, and formed those friendships, among the surviving of 1745, which laid the foundation for one great class of his works. At this time he became a ravenous devourer of works of romantic fiction. He says: "The whole Jemmy and Jenny Jessamy tribe I abhorred; but all that was adventurous and romantic, I devoured without much discrimination; and I really believe I have read as much nonsense of this class as any man now living." It was resolved that Scott should qualify himself for the highest branch of the law; and accordingly, having gone through the prescribed preparations, he was admitted a member of the Society of Advocates-"that is, called to the bar" -on the 11th of July, 1792. Convivial habits were then greatly indulged among the young men of Edinburgh, whether candidates for the bar, solicitors, or barristers, medical students, or divinity students; and Scott partook profusely in the juvenile bacchanalia of the day, and continued to take a plentiful share in such jollities down to the time of his marriage. Drinking habits were, at that time, far more prevalent among all classes, both in England and in Scotland, than is the case in our days; and Scott, throughout his subsequent career, was devoutly thankful to the Providence that had saved him from becoming the victim of intemperance, like too many of his contemporaries. In after years, he frequently said to young friends and acquaintances, "Depend upon it, of all vices, drinking is the most imcompatible with greatness." But the remembrance of his own narrow escape made him indulgent to those who had been less fortunate. There was nothing of the proud, selfcomplacent Pharisee, or intolerant ascetic, in Scott. The weakness of others he always regarded with a kindly and pitying eye. Thus, in the fulness of his fame, we find him defending John Wilson ("Christopher North"), who was then (1820) a candidate for the chair of moral philosophy, in the University of Edinburgh, from the charge of unfitness, brought against him on account of Wilson's well-known convivial habits. "The only point of exception," writes Scott to Wilson, "is that, with the fire of genius, he has possessed some of its eccentricities; but did he ever approach to those of Henry Brougham, who is the god of Whiggish idolatry?" Scott was called to the bar in 1792. He did not set to work to procure himself much practice in his profession. For some time after his admission into the society of Advocates," he applied with great earnestness to the study of German. In 1797, he first met Miss Carpenter, who was destined to become Lady Scott. The place of first meeting was near Gilsland, in Cumberland, where Scott was sojourning for a few weeks. moon was over, they went to reside in a lodging in George Street, Edinburgh. His parents were not at first favourable to the match; but, after the first fortnight, they were satisfied that she had the sterling qualities of a good wife, though her manners and ideas, owing to her French education, were not of a kind to amalgamate well with those of her husband's parents. Miss Carpenter was not his first love. When in his nineteenth year, he fell deeply in love with a young lady, the daughter of a friend of his family. The lady reciprocated his passion; but old Walter Scott, the poet's father, interposed, by warning her parent of what was going on between the young folk, and the result was that they were separated. Through several long years he nourished the dream of an ultimate union with this lady; but his hopes terminated on her being married to a gentleman of the highest character, to whom several very affectionate allusions occur in one of the greatest of his works. Scott's literary efforts began at a very early age. But it is probable that the first of his poetical effusions that ever appeared in print was his spirited translation from the German, of Burger, of the ballad of "Lenore" and the "Wild Huntsman." These translations were published in 1796, and were admired by competent judges, on account of their felicitous blending of true poetic fire with fidelity to the original. From this year, until the date of his death, in 1832, it may be said that Scott's muse never rested. His was the most indefatigable and prolific pen in Europe. Metrical romance, ballad, song, historical, or romantic novel, essay, history, brities, dramas, flowed with almost unbroken regularity from his teeming brain. Charlotte Margaret Carpenter was the daughter of Jean Charpentier, of Lyons, a devoted French Royalist, who held office under the Government, and who had been driven from France in consequence of the overthrow of the monarchy of the Bourbons. Miss Carpenter, when Scott first saw her, "had the features of a regular beauty, and was rich in personal at-political pamphlet, biographies of departed celetractions." She had a form that was light as a fairy's; 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. Her address hovered between the reserve of a young Englishwoman who had not mingled largely in general society, and a certain natural archness and gaiety that suited well with the accompaniment of a French accent. A lovelier vision could hardly be imagined; and from that hour, the fate of the young poet was fixed. Sir Walter's own appearance at this time was described as highly prepossessing. A lady of high rank. who well remembered him, said "young Walter Scott was a comely creature." He had a fresh, brilliant complexion; his eyes were clear, open, and well-set, with a changeful radiance, to which teeth of the most perfect regularity and whiteness lent their assistance; while the noble expanse and elevation of his brow gave to the whole aspect a dignity far above the charm of mere features. His smile was delightful, and expressed a peculiar intermixture of tenderness and gravity, with playful innocence, hilarity, and humour. His figure, excepting the blemish in one limb, was eminently handsome; in height, he was much above the average standard, and his form was cast in the very form of a young Hercules. His head was set on with singular grace; the throat and chest were after the truest model of the antique; the hands were delicately finished, and the whole outline was that of extraordinary vigour, without a touch of clumsiness. Speaking of this period of his life, in after years, he said, "It was a proud night with me when I first found that a pretty young woman could think it worth her while to sit and talk with me, hour after hour, in a corner of the ball-room, while all the world were capering in our view." On the 24th of December, 1797, Walter Scott and Charlotte Margaret Carpenter were married in St. Mary's Church, Carlisle. When the honey Shortly after his translations from the German were published, his "War Song of the Edinburgh Light Dragoons," a version of Goethe's tragedy of "Goets von Berlichingen of the Iron Hand," and a drama, which he called the "House of Aspen." His first original ballads were "Glenfinlas," the "Eve of St. John," "The Gray Brother," the "Fire-King," "Bothwell Castle," "The Shepherd's Tale," "Fragments," &c. ;-all these were published in the years 1797, 1798. He now began the preparations for his first important work-"The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border;" the first two volumes of which appeared in 1802 The third volume was published in the course of the following year. In 1804, the metrical romance of "Sir Tristrem" was published. At this time, Scott's income, arising from a small patrimony, his office as sheriff. his literary profits, was nearly, if not quite, £1,000 a year. In 1805, "The Lay of the Last Minstrel' was published. This work compelled the public to recognise Scott as one of the greatest poets of the day. The "Lay' is an unequal performance: it contains many passages which, for mingled fire, fancy, and brilliancy, are unsurpassed by anything that he subsequently produced. In the same year he entered into partnership with Mr James Ballantyne; undertook to edit an edition of the British poets; Dryden's life and works, and the novel of "Waverley," which, however, was not published for several years afterwards In 1808," Marmion," in the opinion of many, his greatest poem, was published. In 1810, the "Lady of the Lake," unquestionably the most popular of his poetical efforts, was given to the world. Then followed, in quick succession, "Don Roderick' (1811), Rokeby (1812), the "Bridal of Friermain" (1813), &c. &c. At this time his income from various sources was about £2,100 a-year. At the same time he was offered the Poet-Laureatship by the Prince-Regent. Scott, who was keenly sensitive to the ridicule, | declined the place-partly because he knew that he should be well quizzed "if he accepted such an office, and partly on the ground that he would be engrossing a "petty emolument which might do real service to a poorer brother of the Muse." The Laureatship, which Scott refused, was at once offered to, and accepted by, Robert Southey. In this brief memoir, we can do little more than give the dates of the rest of his most important works. In 1814, "Waverley," begun nine years previously, and twice laid aside, was published. It took the whole novel-reading world by delightful surprise, so original was its style, so fresh and natural its characters, and so deliciously different the entire spirit and composition of the work from the stereotyped insipidity of the vast majority of the novels in vogue prior to the appearance of Scott as a competitor in the ample field of prose fiction. Next year, 1815, saw the publication of the "Lord of the Isles,' a magnificent narrative poem, having for its theme the dangers and achievements of the heroic Robert Bruce, in the struggle for Scottish independence against the formidable Edward the First of England. The same year, "Guy Mannering," one of the most popular and delightful of all his prose fictions, was published. Scott had now found out that his strength lay in this style of composition; and henceforward his mental energies were mainly exerted in the construction of novels illustrative of national manners and customs, or romances, in which memorable and important historical events and personages were described with a vigour and picturesqueness altogether new in English literature. About this time, the more fiery and dazzling poetical genius of Byron had risen above the literary horizon. Scott was among the very first to percive and acknowledge the superior splendour of the younger Bard; and it is a striking proof of the strong good sense and magnanimous spirit which were prominent characteristies of his nature, that, without one apparent pang of envy or regret, he should have gently withdrawn from any show of competition with Byron into a department of literature in which he then was, and still is, without any rival by whom his sovereignty as the monarch of prose fictionists is in the least imperilled. But though henceforward his genius was mamly devoted to novels and historical romances, he never wholly abandoned the enchanted region of metrical composition. Thus we find him, in 1815, writing a poem on "The Field of Waterloo," -a signal failure, by the way. Next year, the "Antiquary," probably the most humorous of all his prose works, was published. In 1817, "Harold the Dauntless," a metrical story descriptive of some of the Danish invaders of England, and their ravages. This year also witnessed the publication of "Rob Roy." In 1818, appeared the "Heart of Midlothian," which, even for his works, obtained an extraordinary degree of popularity. Next year, 1819, the Bride of Lammermoor,' the "Legend of Montrose," and in December of the same year, "Ivanhoe," were given to the world. Of all his works, Ivanhoe was the one which was the extensively circulated and most generally admired in England. Of the remaining twelve years of his life, the following are the principal works:-The "Monastery" (1820), the "Abbot" (1820), "Kenilworth " and the Pirate" (1821), the "Fortunes of "Nigel" and "Peverel of the Peak" (1822), Quentin Durward," St. Ronan's Well," "Essays on Romance," "Macduff's Cross" (1823), "Red Gauntlet," and "Tales of the Crusaders (1824). In 1826, he began his "Life of Napoleon Bonaparte,' and completed various reviews, memoirs, &c. In 1826, the novel of "Woodstock," "Chronicles of the Cannongate," "Letters of Malachi Malagrowther,' a political treatise, written in a shrewd, semi-sarcastic strain, in the spirit of an "uncompromising right forward Scott of the old school," and various minor works were published. Next year, 1829, saw the publication of the "Life of Napoleon Bonaparte," "Tales of a Grandfather," "Essays on the Planting of Waste Lands," "Prose Miscellanies," and other miscellaneous books. In 1828, he was busy in preparing a new edition of the poetry, with biographical prefaces, and a uniform reprint of the novels, each to be introduced with an account of the hints on which it had been founded, and illustrated throughout by historical and antiquarian annotations. The same year, the charming novel of "The Fair Maid of Perth" was published. In 1829, "Anne of Gierstein," a "History of Scotland" in Lardner's Encyclopædia, review of "Ancient Scottish History," "Tales of a Grandfather" (third series), were published. The following year (1830), was occupied with a great deal of miscellaneous library work-the principal of which was "Auchindrane, or the Ayrshire Tragedy," "Essays on Ancient Poetry," and "Imitations of the Ancient Ballad," "Letters on Demonology." 1831 witnessed the publication of "Count Robert of Paris " and "Castle Dangerous "--both of them a melancholy falling off from the "Guy Mannering" and "Ivanhoe," which marked the zenith of his intellect. Scott's last attempts at romance-writing were made at Naples, a few months before his death. Here he began and finished a novel, which he called "The Siege of Malta," and a shorter tale, "Bizarro." Of these feeble efforts of a fast-expiring genius, his son-in-law and biographer says, neither of these novels will, I hope, see the light." Scott, though justly and naturally proud of the literary calling, was mainly ambitious of becoming the owner of an immense landed estate-a noble baronial mansion, and the founder of a long line of territorial proprietors. To realize this dream of his life, he toiled as laboriously as any galley-slave; and, thanks to his fine genius and herculean power, he earned an immense sum of money-altogether, not much, if any, less than £200,000. The lion's share of this enormous sum was expended in the purchase and improvement of the Abbotsford estate, and the rebuilding of the mansion, which he fondly hoped would, for many a generation, after he had slept with his fathers, be the principal country residence of a wealthy and powerful family of the name of Scott, and which the Border Minstrel, Walter, would be the founder. The purchase of Abbotsford took place in 1811. Next year he removed from Ashetiel, a neighbouring estate, and took up his abode in his new mansion, on the building and furnishing of which he had expended an immense sum. Here he was inundated with an incessant stream of visitors, many of whom were men and women, illustrious in art, science, literature, or arms, from every other country in Europe and America; but the great majority were utterly obscure persons, whose animating motive was mere vulgar curiosity, and with whose intrusion he would have have gladly dispensed, though they all received a courteous welcome. Scott paid repeated visits to London, where he was always a most welcome guest, and experienced the most cordial hospitality from the most illustrious men of all parties. In the course of his London visits, he frequently dined, supped, and caroused with the King, George IV, who was exceedingly partial to him. Sir Walter's was the first baronetcy bestowed by |