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

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      BORGO PRESS BOOKS BY S. FOWLER WRIGHT

      Arresting Delia: An Inspector 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

      Cortéz: 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 Lord’s Right in Languedoc: An Historical Novel

      Marguerite de Valois: An Historical Novel

      Megiddo’s 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 Baratá: 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 Lockhart’s 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 them—and 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 Scott’s 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 Swinton’s 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 Scott’s mother also—Barbara Haliburton, of whom we know