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