S. Fowler Wright - The Life of Sir Walter Scott: A Biography

BORGO PRESS BOOKS BY S. FOWLER WRIGHT

Arresting Delia: An Inspec tor Cleveland Classic Crime Novel

The Attic Murder: An Inspector Combridge & Mr. Jellipot Classic Crime Novel

The Bell Street Murders: An Inspector Combridge & Mr. Jellipot Classic Crime Novel

Beyond the Rim: A Lost Race Fantasy

Black Widow: A Classic Crime Novel

The Blue Room: A Novel of an Alternate Future

The British Colonies: No Surrender to Nazi Germany!

The Capone Caper: Mr. Jellipot vs. the King of Crime: A Classic Crime Novel

Cortz: For God and Spain: An Historical Novel

Crime & Co.: An Inspector Cleveland Classic Crime Novel

David the King: An Historical Novel

Dawn: A Novel of Global Warming

Dead by Saturday: An Inspector Cleveland Classic Crime Novel

Deluge: A Novel of Global Warming

Dream; or, The Simian Maid: A Fantasy of Prehistory (Marguerite Cranleigh #1)

Elfwin: An Historical Novel of Anglo-Saxon Times

The End of the Mildew Gang: An Inspector Cauldron Classic Crime Novel (Mildew #3)

Four Callers in Razor Street: An Inspector Combridge & Mr. Jellipot Classic Crime Novel

Four Days War: The Alternate World War II, Book Two

The Hanging of Constance Hillier: An Inspector Cleveland Classic Crime Novel

The Hidden Tribe: A Lost Race Fantasy

Inquisitive Angel: A Novel of Fantasy

The Island of Captain Sparrow: A Lost Race Fantasy

The Jordans Murder: An Inspector Combridge & Mr. Jellipot Classic Crime Novel

The King Against Anne Bickerton: A Classic Crime Novel

The Last Days of Pompeii: An Historical Novel

The Life of Sir Walter Scott: A Biography

The Lords Right in Languedoc: An Historical Novel

Marguerite de Valois: An Historical Novel

Megiddos Ridge: The Alternate World War II, Book Three

The Mildew Gang: An Inspector Cauldron Classic Crime Novel (Mildew #1)

Murder in Bethnal Square: An Inspector Combridge & Mr. Jellipot Classic Crime Novel

The Ordeal of Barat: A Political Fantasy

The Police and the Public: Some Thoughts on the British System of Justice

Post-Mortem Evidence: An Inspector Combridge & Mr. Jellipot Classic Crime Novel

Power: A Political Fantasy

Prelude in Prague: The Alternate World War II, Book One

Red Ike: A Novel of Cumberland (with J. M. Denwood)

The Return of the Mildew Gang: An Inspector Cauldron Classic Crime Novel (Mildew #2)

The Rissole Mystery: An Inspector Combridge & Mr. Jellipot Classic Crime Novel

The Screaming Lake: A Lost Race Fantasy

The Secret of the Screen: An Inspector Combridge & Mr. Jellipot Classic Crime Novel

Seven Thousand in Israel: A Novel

The Siege of Malta: An Historical Novel

The Song of Songs and Other Poems

Spiders War: A Novel of the Far Future (Marguerite Cranleigh #3)

Three Witnesses: A Classic Crime Novel

Too Much for Mr. Jellipot: An Inspector Combridge & Mr. Jellipot Classic Crime Novel

The Vengeance of Gwa: A Fantasy of Prehistory (Marguerite Cranleigh #2)

Was Murder Done? A Classic Crime Novel

Who Murdered Reynard? A Classic Crime Novel

The Wills of Jane Kanwhistle: An Inspector Combridge & Mr. Jellipot Classic Crime Novel

With Cause Enough?: An Inspector Combridge & Mr. Jellipot Classic Crime Novel

The World Below: A Novel of the Far Future

Wyndham Smith: His Adventures in the 45th Century

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

BORGO BIOVIEWS

ISSN 0743-0628

Number Eleven

Copyright 1932 by S. Fowler Wright

Copyright 2012 by the Estate of S. Fowler Wright

Published by Wildside Press LLC

www.wildsidebooks.com

FOREWORD

I shall proffer you large proffers, said Sir Lancelot, that is to say I shall unarm my head, and the last quarter of my body, all that may be unarmed, and I shall let bind my left hand behind me, so that it shall not help me, and right so I shall do battle with you.

A life of Walter Scott requires no apology. He is by far the greatest figure in Scottish literature, and has only one rival in the English tongue.

Without making any claim to finality, this volume is intended to represent that life in clearer outline than Lockharts voluminous records succeed in doing, and with greater accuracy than they attempted to reach.

In particular, it endeavours to give an equitable and intelligible account of business transactions which were often much simpler in themselves than are the interpretations which have been loaded upon themand to be equitable, not only to Scott himself, but to others who by the accident of association with him were drawn into the light of the same publicity.

In the presentation of the closing years it has been possible, through the courtesy of Messrs. Douglas & Foulis of Edinburgh, to quote from Sir Walter Scotts Journal as it was edited by Mr. David Douglas, and is published by them.

S. FOWLER WRIGHT

CHAPTER I

In the early April days of 1758, a young Edinburgh lawyer, Walter Scott, married Anne Rutherford, the eldest daughter of Dr. John Rutherford, Professor of Medicine at the University, and they set up house-keeping together at the end of the narrow sunless alley of the College Wynd, as the residential deficiencies of the Scottish capital, and their slender income permitted.

Walter Scott had not been born in Edinburgh. He was the eldest son of a Roxburgh farmer, Robert Scott of Sandy-Knowe, one of the Harden branch of that once-turbulent Border family, and he had come to the metropolis to make his way in the only form of civil warfare which survived the pacification of the Lowlands, and the English Union.

Anne Rutherford, though we meet her as the daughter of a city doctor, was of a kindred breed. Her father, like Walter Scott, had come to Edinburgh from an ancient moorland home, half fort, half farm, where the Rutherfords had held their own (and sometimes a few trifles to which the word was not originally applicable) through the bickering of centuries, while the law lay more lightly upon the land than the weight of a Border sword.

Her mother (dead now, and her father married again) was Sir John Swintons daughter, bringing in another ancestry conspicuous for some previous centuries in Lowland politics, and civil and national warfare.

Perhaps, as we look backward, we should not omit a glance at Walter Scotts mother alsoBarbara Haliburton, of whom we know little beyond the fact that Robert and she were the parents of a large family whose after-records speak well for their upbringing in the rather primitive and strenuous life of the bleak moorland farm. The Haliburtons were a Berwickshire family of good repute, but somewhat quieter character than Scotts or Rutherfords or Swintons were ever likely to be. Still, like the Rutherfords, they had held their own, which had become a considerable area around Dryburgh and elsewhere, and it was an operation difficult to sustain without a good wit, and some toughness of fibre, through the disorders of the two previous centuries.

Such were the ancestries of the Edinburgh lawyer and the girl he brought to the narrow house at the corner of College Wynd. Our tale is not of these two, entering the romance of marriage under a shadow that they could not foresee, and would find difficult to understand, but they are necessary to know, and worth knowing.

Walter had been apprenticed by his father to George Chalmers, a Writer to the Signet, which is a professional description equivalent to that of an English solicitor, the Scottish legal fraternity having split into two branches, similar to those which have become so profitable to themselves and so oppressive to litigants in the Southern country. At this period, Writers to the Signet commonly took from one to several apprentices, of whom a minority only could establish themselves in the profession which they, or their parents, had chosen. But Walter Scott had shown character and ability which had caused him to be retained in George Chalmerss office when his apprenticeship ended, and to appear as a partner not very long afterwards.