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No. XVI.

SIR WALTER SCOTT, BARONET.

Or the various great names which it has been our painful duty to inscribe in these pages from the commencement of "The Annual Biography and Obituary," the greatest is unquestionably that which we have just written. In genius alone, Sir Walter Scott may, in a single instance during that period, have been equalled, some may think surpassed; but in that rarest and most precious union - the union of genius with the highest moral worth he stands in our volumes without a rival. Truly and finely has it been said of him by the author of "Eugene Aram," "His career was one splendid refutation of the popular fallacy, that genius has of necessity vices that its light must be meteoric - and its courses wayward and uncontrolled. He has given mankind two great lessons, we scarcely know which is the more valuable: he has taught us how much delight one human being can confer upon the world; he has taught us also that the imagination may aspire to the wildest flights without wandering into error. Of whom else among our great list of names the heir-looms of our nation can we say that he has left us every thing to admire, and nothing to forgive?” The biography of this illustrious man the public have the consolation to know has been undertaken by one whose ability and attachment render him pre-eminently qualified for the task, and whose materials are said to be of the most rich and extensive description. Few volumes have ever excited, or were ever calculated to gratify, so powerful although melancholy an interest, as those which Mr. Lockhart is at present preparing for the press.

In the execution of our own humble task (restrained as we

are by our limits, even on such a subject,) we have been relieved from all difficulty by the admirable biographical notice which, soon after Sir Walter Scott's death, appeared in that cheap but excellent publication, "Chambers' Edinburgh Journal." It is written by Mr. Robert Chambers, author of "Traditions of Edinburgh," "History of the Scottish Rebellions," "Picture of Scotland," "Scottish Biographical Dictionary," "History of Scotland," &c., whose locality and acquaintance with Sir Walter (who took a great interest in his literary and antiquarian pursuits) gave him ample opportunities of collecting information; and who states that he had been employed during the last ten years in verifying and arranging his facts. The result of this attention and care has been universally acknowledged to be one of the most intelligent, comprehensive, unaffected, and satisfactory compositions of the kind that was ever produced. We are sure that Mr. Chambers will pardon us for availing ourselves of his valuable labours; with a few slight alterations, omissions, and additions.

Sir Walter Scott was one of the sons of Walter Scott, Esq., writer to the signet, by Anne, daughter of Dr. John Rutherford, Professor of the Practice of Medicine in the University of Edinburgh.

His paternal grandfather, Mr. Robert Scott, farmer at Sandy know, in the vicinity of Smailholm Tower, Roxburghshire*, was the son of Mr. Walter Scott, a younger son of Walter Scott of Raeburn, who in his turn was third son of Sir William Scott of Harden, in which family the chieftainship of the race of Scott is now understood to reside.

"The Poet's grandfather, Mr. Robert Scott, of Sandyknow, though both descended from and allied to several respectable Border families, was chiefly distinguished for the excellent good sense and independent spirit which enabled him to lead the way in agricultural improvement, then a pursuit abandoned to persons of a very inferior description. His memory was long preserved in Teviotdale, and still survives, as that of an active and intelligent farmer, and the father of a family, all of whom were distinguished by talents, probity, and remarkable success in the pursuits which they adopted."— Border Antiquities, by WALTER SCOTT, Esq. 2 vols, 4to. London, 1814.

Walter, the third son of Sir William Scott of Harden, lived at the time of the Restoration, and embraced the tenets of Quakerism, which at that period made their way into Scotland. For this he endured a degree of persecution for which it is now difficult to assign a reason. The Scottish Privy Council, by an edict dated June 20. 1665, directed his brother, the existing representative of the Harden family, to take away his three children, and educate them separately, so that they might not become infected with the same heresy; and, for doing so, he was to be entitled to sue his brother for the maintenance of the children. By a second edict, dated July 5. 1666, the Council directed two thousand pounds Scots money to be paid by the Laird of Raeburn for this purpose; and, as he was now confined in the tolbooth of Edinburgh, where he was liable to be farther tainted by converse with others of the same sect there also imprisoned, the Council farther ordered him to be transported to the gaol of Jedburgh, where no one was to have access to him but such as might be expected to convert him from his present principles.

Walter, the second son of this gentleman, and father to the novelist's grandfather, received a good education at Glasgow College, under the protection of his uncle. He was a zealous Jacobite, a friend and correspondent of Dr. Pitcairne, — and made a vow, never to shave his beard till the exiled house of Stuart should be restored; whence he acquired the name of Beardie.

Dr. John Rutherford, maternal grandfather to the subject of this memoir, was one of four Scottish pupils of Boerhaave, who, in the early part of the last century, contributed to establish the high character of the Edinburgh University as a school of medicine. He was the first professor of the Practice of Physic in the University, to which office he was elected in 1727, and which he resigned in 1766, in favour of the celebrated Dr. John Gregory. He was also the first person who delivered lectures on Clinical Medicine in the Infirmary. His son, Dr. Daniel Rutherford, maternal uncle to the novelist, was afterwards, for a long period, Professor of Botany in the

Edinburgh University, and farther distinguished by his great proficiency in chemistry. Dr. D. Rutherford was one of the cleverest scientific men of his day; and, but for certain unimportant circumstances, would have been preferred to the high honour of succeeding Black in the chair of chemistry. When he took his degree in 1772, Pneumatic Chemistry was in its infancy. Upon this occasion he published a thesis, in which the doctrines respecting gaseous bodies are laid down with great perspicuity, as far as they were then known, and an account is also given of a series of experiments made by himself, which discover much ingenuity and address. He was the first European chemist who, if the expression may be used,, discovered nitrogen. Had he proceeded a single step farther, he would have anticipated the discoveries of Priestley, Scheele, and Lavoisier, respecting oxygen, which have rendered their names immortal. As it was, the experiments and discoveries of Dr. Rutherford made his name respected all over Europe.

The wife of Dr. John Rutherford, and maternal grandmother of Sir Walter Scott, was Jean Swinton, daughter of Swinton of Swinton, in Berwickshire, one of the oldest families in Scotland, and at one period very powerful. Sir Walter has introduced a chivalric representative of this race into his drama of "Halidon Hill." The grandfather of Jean Swinton was Sir John Swinton, the twentieth baron in lineal descent, and the son of the celebrated Judge Swinton, to whom, along with Sir William Lockhart of Lee, Cromwell intrusted the chief management of civil affairs in Scotland, during his usurpation. Lord Swinton, as he was called, in virtue of his judicial character, was seized, after the Restoration, and brought down to Scotland for trial, in the same vessel with the Marquis of Argyle. It was generally expected. that one who had played so conspicuous a part in the late usurpation would not elude the vengeance of the new government. He escaped, however, by suddenly adopting the tenets of the society to which Walter Scott of Raeburn afterwards attached himself. On being brought before the Parliament for trial, he rejected all means of legal defence; and

his simply penitent appearance and venerable aspect wrought so far with his judges, that he was acquitted, while less obnoxious men were condemned. It was from this extraordinary person, and while confined along with him in Edinburgh Castle, that Colonel David Barclay, father of Robert Barclay, the eminent author of the "Apology for the Quakers," contracted those sentiments which afterwards shone forth with such remarkable lustre in his son.

While the ancestry of Sir Walter Scott is thus shown to have been somewhat more than respectable, it must be also stated, that, in his character as a man, a citizen, or a professional agent, there could not be a more worthy member of society than his own father. Mr. Walter Scott, born in 1729, and admitted as a writer to the signet in 1755, was by no means possessed of shining abilities. He was, however, a steady, expert man of business, insomuch as to prosper considerably in life; and nothing could exceed the gentleness, sincerity, and benevolence of his character. For many years he held the honourable office of an elder in the parish church of Old Greyfriars; while Dr. Robertson, the historian of America and Charles V., acted as one of the ministers. The other clergyman was Dr. John Erskine, much more distinguished as a divine, and of whom Sir Walter has given an animated picture in his novel of " Guy Mannering." The latter person led the more zealous party of the Church of Scotland, in opposition to his colleague, Dr. Robertson, who swayed the moderate and predominating party; and it is believed that, although a Jacobite, and employed mostly by that party, the religious impressions of Mr. Scott were more akin to the doctrines maintained by Erskine, than those professed by Robertson.

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Mrs. Scott, while she boasted a less prepossessing exterior than her husband, was enabled, partly by the more literary character of her connections and education, and more perhaps by native powers of intellect, to make a greater impression in conversation. It has thus become a conceded point, that Sir Walter derived his abilities, almost exclusively, from this