Sir Walter Scott. 455 



and shows the gradual steps, by which that mental character was 

 formed, which made him eventually the wonder and delight of his 

 contemporaries. 



Sir Walter Scott, the happy owner of a pedigree in common with 

 most Scotsmen, was the son of one Walter Scott, a writer to the 

 Signet, and he was born in the College Wynd of Edinburgh on the 

 15th of August, 1771. Of his earliest years the autobiographer 

 " ;ives us many amusing anecdotes. We content ourselves with citing 

 lis own account of his school-boy days ; and we shall subsequently 

 accompany this celebrated man through the various circumstances of 

 his life, endeavouring, as we proceed, to deduce some conclusions that 

 lay aid psychologists in the philosophical analysis of his character. 



Sir Walter Scott thus speaks of his school-boy days : 



" In 1779 I was sent to the second class of the Grammar School, or 

 [igh School of Edinburgh, then taught by Mr. Luke Fraser, a good Latin 

 :holar and a very worthy man. Though I had received, with my brothers, 

 private, lessons of Latin from Mr. James French, now a minister of the 

 [irk of Scotland, I was nevertheless rather behind the class in which I was 

 )laced, both in years and in progress. This was a real disadvantage, and one 

 to which a boy of lively temper and talents ought to be as little exposed as 

 \ one who might be less expected to make up his lee-way, as it is called. The 

 situation has the unfortunate effect of reconciling a boy of the former cha- 

 racter (which in a posthumous work I may claim for my own), to holding a 

 subordinate station among his class-fellows to which he would otherwise 

 affix disgrace. There is also, from the constitution of the High School, a 

 certain danger not sufficiently attended to. The boys take precedence in 

 their places, as they are called, according to their merit, and it requires a 

 long while, in general, before even a clever boy, if he falls behind the class, 

 or is put into one for which he is not quite ready, can force his way to the 

 situation which his abilities really entitle -him to hold. It was probably 

 owing to this circumstance, that, although at a more advanced period of life 

 I have enjoyed considerable facility in acquiring languages, I did not make 

 any great figure at the High School or, at least, any exertions which I 

 made were desultory and little to be depended on. 



" Our class contained some very excellent scholars. The first Dux was 

 James Buchan, who retained his honoured place, almost without a day's 

 interval, all the while we were at the High School. He was afterwards at 

 the head of the medical staff in Egypt, and in exposing himself to the plague 

 infection by attending the hospitals there, displayed the same well-regulated 

 and gentle, yet determined perseverance, which placed him most worthily at 

 the head of his school-fellows, while many lads of livelier parts and disposi- 

 tions held an inferior station. The next best scholars (sed longo intervatlo) 

 were my friend David Douglas, the heir and eleve of the celebrated Adam 

 Smith, and James Hope, now a Writer to the Signet, both since well known 

 and distinguished in their departments of the law. As for myself, I glanced 

 like a meteor from one end of the class to the other, and commonly disgusted 

 my kind master as much by negligence and frivolity, as I occasionally 

 pleased him by flashes of intellect and talent. Among my companions, my 

 good-nature and a flow of ready imagination rendered me very popular. 

 Boys are uncommonly just in their feelings, and at least equally generous. 

 My lameness, aod the efforts which I made to supply that disadvantage, by 

 making up in address what I wanted in activity, engaged the latter principle 

 in my favour; and in the winter play hours, when hard exercise was impos- 

 sible, my tales used to assemble an admiring audience round Luckie Brown's 

 fireside, and happy was he that could sit next to the inexhaustible narrator. 

 So, on the whole, I made a brighter figure in the yards, than in the class." 

 (To be continued.} 



