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BART SIR WALTER SCOTT

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Originally appearing in Volume V24, Page 475 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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BART See also:SIR See also:WALTER See also:SCOTT  . (1771-1832), Scottish poet and novelist, was See also:born at See also:Edinburgh on the 15th of See also:August 1771 . His See also:pedigree, in which he took a See also:pride that strongly influenced the course of his See also:life, may be given in the words of his own fragment of autobiography . " My See also:birth was neither distinguished nor sordid . According to the prejudices of my See also:country it was esteemed See also:gentle, as I was connected, though remotely, with See also:ancient families both by my See also:father's and See also:mother's See also:side . My father's grandfather was See also:Walter See also:Scott, well known by the name of Beardie . He was the second son of Walter Scott, first See also:laird of See also:Raeburn, who was third son of See also:Sir See also:William Scott, and the See also:grandson of Walter Scott, commonly called in tradition Auld See also:Watt of Harden . I am therefore lineally descended from that ancient chieftain, whose name I have made to See also:ring in many a ditty, and from his See also:fair See also:dame, the See also:Flower of See also:Yarrow—no See also:bad See also:genealogy for a Border See also:minstrel." In a See also:notice of See also:John See also:Home, Scott speaks of pride of See also:family as " natural to a See also:man of See also:imagination," remarking that, " in this See also:motley See also:world,, the family pride of the See also:north country has its effects of See also:good and of evil." Whether the good or the evil preponderated in Scott's own See also:case would not be easy to deter-mine . It tempted him into courses that ended in commercial ruin; but throughout his life it was a See also:constant See also:spur to exertion, and in his last years it proved itself as a working principle capable of inspiring and maintaining a most chivalrous conception of See also:duty . If the ancient chieftain Auld Watt was, according to the See also:anecdote told by his illustrious descendant,once reduced in the See also:matter of live stock to a single cow, and recovered his dignity by stealing the cows of his See also:English neighbours, Scott's Border ancestry were See also:sheep-farmers, who varied their occupation by " lifting " sheep and See also:cattle, and whatever else was " neither too heavy nor too hot." The Border lairds were really a See also:race of shepherds in so far as they were not a race of robbers . Scott may have derived from this See also:pastoral ancestry an hereditary See also:bias towards the observation of nature and the enjoyment of open-See also:air life . He certainly inherited from them the robust strength of constitution that carried him successfully through so many exhausting labours .

And it was his pride in their real or supposed feudal dignity and their rough marauding exploits that first directed him to the study of Border See also:

history and See also:poetry, the basis of his fame as a poet and romancer . His father, . Walter Scott, a writer to the signet (or See also:attorney) in Edinburgh—the See also:original of the See also:elder Fairford in Redgauntletwas the first of the family to adopt a See also:town life or a learned profession . His mother was the daughter of Dr John See also:Rutherford, a medical See also:professor in the university of Edinburgh, who also traced descent from the chiefs of famous Border clans . The ceilings of See also:Abbotsford display the arms of about a dozen Border families with which Scott claimed kindred through one side or the other . His father was conspicuous for methodical and thorough See also:industry; his mother was a woman of imagination and culture . The son seems to have inherited the best qualities of the one and acquired the best qualities of the other . The details of his See also:early See also:education are given with See also:great precision in his autobiography . John See also:Stuart See also:Mill was not more See also:minute in recording the various circumstances that shaped his habits of mind and See also:work . We learn from himself the See also:secret —as much at least as could be ascribed to definite extraneous See also:accident—of the " extempore See also:speed " in romantic See also:composition against which See also:Carlyle protested in his famous See also:review of See also:Lock-See also:hart's Life of Scott . The indignant critic assumed that Scott wrote " without preparation "; Scott himself, as if he had foreseen this cavil, is at pains to show that the preparation began with his boyhood, almost with his See also:infancy . The current See also:legend when Carlyle wrote his See also:essay was that as a boy Scott had been a See also:dunce and an idler .

With a characteristically conscientious See also:

desire not to set a bad example, the autobiographer solemnly declares that he was neither a dunce nor an idler, and explains how the misunderstanding arose . His See also:health in boyhood was uncertain;' he was consequently irregular in his attendance 1 Dr See also:Charles See also:Creighton contributes the following medical See also:note on Scott's early illness:—" Scott's lameness was owing to an See also:arrest of growth in the right See also:leg in infancy . When he was eighteen months old he had a feverish attack lasting three days, at the end of which See also:time it was found that he ' had lost the See also:power of his right leg '—i.e. the See also:child instinctively declined to move the ailing member . The malady was a swelling at the See also:ankle, and either consisted in or gave rise to arrest of the See also:bone-forming See also:function along the growing See also:line of See also:cartilage which connects the See also:lower epiphysis of each of the two leg-bones with its See also:shaft . In his See also:fourth See also:year, when he had otherwise recovered, the leg remained ' much shrunk and contracted.' The See also:limb would have been blighted very much more if the arrest of growth had taken See also:place at the upper epiphysis of the See also:tibia or the lower epiphysis of the femur . The narrowness and See also:peculiar See also:depth of Scott's See also:head point to some more See also:general congenital See also:error of bone-making allied to See also:rickets but certainly not the same as that malady . The vault of the See also:skull is the typical ' scaphoid ' or See also:boat-shaped formation, due to premature See also:union of the two parietal bones along the sagittal suture . When the bones of the cranium are universally affected with that arrest of growth along their formative edges, the sutures become prematurely fixed and effaced, so that the See also:brain-case cannot expand in any direction to accommodate the growing brain . This universal synostosis of the See also:cranial bones is what occurs in the case of microcephalous idiots . It happened to me to show to an eminent See also:French anthropologist a specimen of a See also:miniature or microcephalic skull preserved in the See also:Cambridge museum of See also:anatomy; the French savant, holding up the skull and pointing to the ' scaphoid ' vault of the See also:crown and the effaced sagittal suture, exclaimed ' Voila Walter Scott ! ' Scott had fortunately escaped the early See also:closure or arrest of growth at other cranial sutures than the sagittal, so that the growing brain could make See also:room for itself by forcing up the vault of the skull bodily . When his head was opened after See also:death, it was observed that ' the brain was not large, and the cranium thinner than it is usually found to be.' In favour of the theory of congenital liability it has to be said that he was the ninth of a family of whom the first six died in ' very early youth.' " at school, never became exact in his knowledge of Latin syntax, I and was so belated in beginning See also:Greek that out of bravado he resolved not to learn it at all .

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Left very much to. himself throughout his boyhood in the matter of See also:reading, so See also:quick, lively, excitable and uncertain in health that it was considered dangerous to See also:press him and prudent rather to keep him back, Scott began at a very early See also:age to accumulate the romantic See also:lore of which he afterwards made such splendid use . As a child he seems to have been an eager and interested listener and a great favourite with his elders, apparently having even then the same engaging See also:charm that made him so much beloved as a man . See also:Chance threw him in the way of many who were willing to indulge his delight in stories and See also:ballads . Not only his own relatives—the old See also:women at his grandfather's See also:farm at Sandyknowe, his aunt, under 'whose See also:charge he was sent to See also:Bath for a year, his mother—took an See also:interest in the precocious boy's questions, told him tales of See also:Jacobites and Border worthies of his own and other clans, but casual See also:friends of the family—such as the military See also:veteran at I'restonpans, old Dr See also:Blacklock the See also:blind poet, Home the author of See also:Douglas, See also:Adam See also:Ferguson the See also:martial historian of the See also:Roman See also:republic—helped forward his education in the direction in which the See also:bent of his See also:genius See also:lay . At the age of six he was able to define himself as "a virtuoso," "one who wishes to and will know everything." At ten his collection of See also:chap-books and ballads had reached several volumes, and he was a connoisseur in various readings . Thus he took to the High School, Edinburgh, when he was strong enough to be put in See also:regular attendance, an unusual See also:store of See also:miscellaneous knowledge and an unusually quickened intelligence, so that his See also:master " pronounced that, though many of his schoolfellows understood the Latin better, Gualterus Scott was behind few in following and enjoying the author's meaning." Throughout his school days and afterwards when he was apprenticed to his father, attended university classes, read for the See also:bar, took See also:part in academical and professional debating See also:societies, Scott steadily and ardently pursued his own favourite studies . His reading in See also:romance and history was really study, and not merely the See also:indulgence of an See also:ordinary schoolboy's promiscuous appetite for exciting literature . In fact, even as a schoolboy he specialized . He followed the line of overpowering inclination; and even then, as he frankly tells us, " fame was the spur." He acquired a reputation among his schoolfellows for out-of-the-way knowledge, and also for See also:story-telling, and he worked hard to maintain this See also:character, which compensated to his ambitious spirit his indifferent distinction in ordinary school-work . The youthful " virtuoso," though he read ten times the usual See also:allowance of novels from the circulating library, was carried by his See also:enthusiasm into See also:fields much less generally attractive . He was still a schoolboy when he mastered French sufficiently well to read through collections of old French romances, and not more than fifteen when, attracted by See also:translations to See also:Italian romantic literature, he learnt the See also:language in See also:order to read See also:Dante and See also:Ariosto in the original . This willingness to See also:face dry work in the pursuit of romantic reading affords a measure of the strength of Scott's See also:passion .

In one of the See also:

literary parties brought together to lionize See also:Burns, when the See also:peasant poet visited Edinburgh, the boy of fifteen was the only member of the See also:company who could tell the source of some lines affixed to a picture that had attracted the poet's See also:attention—a slight but significant See also:evidence both of the width of his reading and of the tenacity of his memory . The same thoroughness appears in another little circumstance . He took an interest in Scottish family history and genealogy, but, not content with the ordinary See also:sources, he ransacked the See also:MSS. preserved in the See also:Advocates' Library . By the time he was one and twenty he had acquired such a reputation for his skill in deciphering old See also:manuscripts that his assistance was sought by professional antiquaries . This early, assiduous, unintermittent study was the See also:main secret, over and above his natural gifts, of Scott's extempore speed and fertility when at last he found forms into which to pour his vast See also:accumulation of See also:historical and romantic lore . Hewas, as he said himself, " like an ignorant gamester who keeps up a good See also:hand till he knows how to See also:play it." That he had vague thoughts from a much earlier See also:period than is commonly supposed of playing the hand some See also:day is extremely probable, if, as he tells us, the See also:idea of See also:writing romances first occurred to him when he read Cervantes in the original . This was See also:long before he was out of his teens; and, if we add that his leading idea in his first novel was to depict a Jacobitic See also:Don Quixote, we can see that there was probably a long See also:interval between the first conception of Waverley and the ultimate completion . Scott's preparation for See also:painting the life of past times was probably much less unconsciously such than his equally thorough preparation for acting as the painter of Scottish See also:manners and character in all grades of society . With all the extent of his reading as a schoolboy and a See also:young man he was far from being a cloistered student, absorbed in his books . In spite of his lameness and his serious illnesses in youth, his constitution was naturally robust, his disposition genial, his See also:spirits high: he was always well to the front in the fights and frolics of the High School, and a boon See also:companion in the " high jinks " of the junior bar . The future novelist's experience of life was singularly See also:rich and varied . While he liked the life of imagination and scholarship in sympathy with a few choice friends, he was brought into intimate daily contact with many varieties of real life .

At home he had to behave as became a member of a Puritanic, somewhat ascetic, well-ordered Scottish See also:

household, subduing his own inclinations towards a more graceful and comfortable See also:scheme of living into outward conformity with his father's strict See also:rule . Through his mother's family he obtained See also:access- to the literary society of Edinburgh, at that time electrified by the See also:advent of Burns, full of vigour and ambition, rejoicing in the See also:possession of not a few widely known men of letters, philosophers, historians, novelists and critics, from racy and See also:eccentric See also:Monboddo to refined and scholarly See also:Mackenzie . In that society also he may have found the materials for the manners and characters of St Ronan's Well . From any tendency to the pedantry of over-culture he was effectually saved by the rougher and manlier spirit of his professional comrades, who, though they respected belles lettres, would not tolerate anything in the shape of affectation or sentimentalism . The See also:atmosphere of the See also:Parliament See also:House (the See also:law-courts of Edinburgh) had considerable See also:influence on the See also:tone of Scott's novels . His peculiar See also:humour as a story-See also:teller and painter of character was first See also:developed among the young men of his own See also:standing at the bar . They were the first mature See also:audience on which he experimented, and seem often to have been in his mind's See also:eye when he enlarged his public . From their mirthful companionship by the See also:stove, where the briefless congregated to discuss knotty points in law and help one another to enjoy the humours of See also:judges and litigants, " See also:Duns Scotus " often See also:stole away to See also:pore over old books and manuscripts in the library beneath; but as long as he was with them he was first among his peers in the See also:art of providing entertainment . It was to this See also:market that Scott brought the See also:harvest of the vacation rambles which it was his See also:custom to make every autumn for seven years after his See also:call to the bar and before his See also:marriage . He scoured the country in See also:search of ballads and other See also:relics of antiquity; but he found also and treasured many traits of living manners, many a lively See also:sketch and story with which to amuse the See also:brothers of " the See also:mountain " on his return . His staid father did not much like these escapades, and told him bitterly that he seemed See also:fit for nothing but to be a " gangrel scrape-gut." But, as the companion of " his See also:Liddesdale raids " happily put it, " he was makin' himsell a' the time, but he didna See also:ken maybe what he was about till years had passed: at first he thought o' little, I dare say, but the queerness and the fun." His father intended him originally to follow his own business, and he was apprenticed in his sixteenth year; but he preferred the upper walk of the legal profession, and was admitted a member of the See also:faculty of advocates in 1792 . He seems to have read hard at law for four years at 'See also:east, but almost from the first to have limited his , ambition to obtaining some comfortable See also:appointment such as would leave him a good See also:deal of leisure for literary pursuits .

In this he was not disappointed . In 1799 he obtained the See also:

office of See also:sheriff-depute of See also:Selkirkshire, with a See also:salary of £300 and very See also:light duties . In 18o6 he obtained the reversion of the office of clerk of session . It is sometimes supposed, from the immense amount of other work that Scott accomplished, that this office was a See also:sinecure . But the duties, which are fully described by See also:Lockhart, were really serious, and kept him hard at fatiguing work, his biographer estimates, for at least three or four See also:hours daily during six months out of the twelve, while the See also:court was in session . He discharged these duties faithfully for twenty-five years, during the height of his activity as an author . He did not enter on the emoluments of the office till 1812, but from that time he received from the clerkship and the sheriffdom combined an income of £i600 a year, being thus enabled to See also:act in his literary undertakings on his often-quoted See also:maxim that "literature should be a See also:staff and not a crutch." Scott's profession, in addition to supplying him with a competent livelihood, supplied him also with abundance of opportunties for the study of men and manners . It was as a poet that he was first to make a literary reputation . According to his own See also:account, he was led to adopt the See also:medium of See also:verse by a See also:series of accidents . The story is told by himself at length and with his customary frankness and modesty in the Essay on Imitations of the Ancient Ballad, prefixed to the 183o edition of his Border Minstrelsy, and in the r83o introduction to the Lay of the Last Minstrel . The first See also:link in the See also:chain was a lecture by See also:Henry Mackenzie on See also:German literature, delivered in 1788 . This apprized Scott, who was then a legal apprentice and an enthusiastic student of French and Italian romance, that there was a fresh development of romantic literature in German .

As soon as he had the See also:

burden of preparation for the bar off his mind he learnt German, and was profoundly excited to find a new school founded on the serious study of a See also:kind of literature his own devotion to which was regarded by most of his companions with wonder and ridicule . We must remember always that Scott quite as much as See also:Wordsworth created the See also:taste by which he was enjoyed, and that in his early days he was See also:half-ashamed of his romantic studies, and pursued them more or less in secret with a few intimates . While he was in the height of his enthusiasm for the new German romance, Mrs See also:Barbauld visited Edinburgh, and recited an English See also:translation of See also:Burger's Lenore . Scott heard of it from a friend, who was able to repeat two lines " See also:Tramp, tramp, across the See also:land they speed ; Splash, splash, across the See also:sea ! " The two lines were enough to give Scott a new ambition, He could write such poetry himself ! The impulse was strengthened by his reading See also:Lewis's See also:Monk and the ballads in the German manner interspersed through the work . He hastened to procure a copy of Burger, at once executed translations of several of his ballads, published The See also:Chase, and William and See also:Helen, in a thin See also:quarto in 2796 (his ambition being perhaps quickened by the unfortunate issue of a love affair), and was much encouraged by the See also:applause of his friends . Soon after he met Lewis personally, and his ambition was confirmed . " Finding Lewis," he says, " in possession of so much reputation, and conceiving that if I See also:fell behind him in poetical See also:powers, I considerably exceeded him in general See also:information, I suddenly took it into my head to See also:attempt the See also:style of poetry by which he had raised himself to fame." Accordingly, he composed Glenfinlas, The See also:Eve of St John, and the See also:Gray See also:Brother, which were published in Lewis's collection of Tales of Wonder (2 vols., 18or) . But he soon became convinced that "the practice of ballad-writing was out of See also:fashion, and that any attempt to revive it or to found a poetical character on it would certainly fail of success." His study of See also:Goethe's Glitz von See also:Berlichingen, of which he published a translation in 1799, gave him wider ideas . Why should he not do for ancient Border manners what Goethe had done for the ancient See also:feudalism of the See also:Rhine ? He had been busy since his boyhood See also:collecting Scottish Border ballads and studying the minutest details of Border history .

He began to See also:

cast about for a See also:form which should have the ad-• vantage of novelty, and a subject which should secure unity of composition . He was engaged at the time preparing a collection of the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border . The first See also:instalment was published in two volumes in 18o2; it was followed by a third next year, and by an edition and continuation of the old romance of Sir Tristram; and Scott was still hesitating about subject and form for a large original work . Chance at last threw in his way both a suitable subject and a suitable metrical vehicle . He had engaged all his friends in the See also:hunt for Border ballads and legends . Among others, the countess of See also:Dalkeith, wife of the See also:heir-apparent to the dukedom of See also:Buccleuch, interested herself in the work . Happening to hear the legend of a tricksy hobgoblin named See also:Gilpin See also:Horner, she asked Scott to write a ballad about it . He agreed with delight, and, out of compliment to the See also: