Page:EB1911 - Volume 24.djvu/495

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SCOTT, W. B. —SCOTT, W.
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some of them among the most brilliant of his miscellaneous writings, and prefaces and notes to a collected edition of his novels — if he could have continued at this rate he might soon have freed himself from all his encumbrances. The result of his exertions from January 1826 to January 1828 was nearly £40,000 for his creditors. But the terrific labour proved too much even for his endurance. Ugly symptoms began to alarm his family in 1829, and in February of 1830 he had his first stroke of paralysis. Still he was undaunted, and not all the persuasions of friends and physicians could induce him to take rest. “During 1830,” Lockhart says, “he covered almost as many sheets with his MS. as in 1829,” the new introductions to a collected edition of his poetry and the Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft being amongst the labours of the year. He had a slight touch of apoplexy in November and a distinct stroke of paralysis in the following April; but, in spite of these warnings and of other bodily ailments, he had two more novels, Count Robert of Paris and Castle Dangerous (constituting the fourth series of Tales of My Landlord), ready for the press by the autumn of 1831. He would not yield to the solicitations of his friends and consent to try rest and a change of scene, till fortunately, as his mental powers failed, he became possessed of the idea that all his debts were at last paid and that he was once more a free man. In this belief he happily remained till his death. When it was known that his physicians recommended a sea voyage for his health, a government vessel was put at his disposal, and he cruised about in the Mediterranean and visited places of interest for the greater part of a year before his death. But, when he felt that the end was near, he insisted on being carried across Europe that he might die on his beloved Tweedside at Abbotsford, where he expired on the 21st of September 1832. He was buried at Dryburgh Abbey.

Scott's wife had died in 1826. His eldest son, Walter, succeeded to the baronetcy which had been conferred on his father in 1820, and the title became extinct on his death in 1847; the second son, Charles, died at Teheran in 1841, and the second daughter, Anne, died unmarried in 1833. Scott's elder daughter Charlotte Sophia (d. 1837) was the wife of his biographer, J. G. Lockhart (q.v.); and their daughter Charlotte (d. 1858) married J. R. Hope-Scott (q.v.), and was the mother of Mary Monica, wife of the Hon. J. C. Maxwell, who in 1874 took the additional name of Scott on his marriage with the heiress of Abbotsford. Mrs Maxwell Scott inherited some of the family literary talent, and among other books wrote two volumes about Abbotsford (1893 and 1897).

Two busts of Scott were executed by Sir Francis Chantrey: one in 1820, which was presented to Scott by the sculptor in 1828; a second in 1828, which was sent by Chantrey to Sir Robert Peel about 1837, and is now in the National Portrait Gallery, London. The 1820 bust was duplicated by Chantrey for the duke of Wellington in 1827, and there is a copy in Westminster Abbey, erected in 1897. Henry Raeburn painted Scott's portrait for Archibald Constable in 1808; Scott sat to the same artist in 1809 for the portrait now at Abbotsford, and two or three times subsequently. Other notable portraits were executed by Sir Thomas Lawrence in 1820 for George IV.; by John Graham Gilbert in 1829 for the Royal Society of Edinburgh; by Francis Grant for Lady Ruthven in 1831; and a posthumous portrait of Scott with his dogs in the Rhymer's Glen by Sir Edwin Landseer. The Scott monument in Princes Street, Edinburgh, erected in 1846, was designed by George Kemp, the statue being the work of John Steell.

Bibliography. — The Miscellaneous Prose Works of Sir Walter Scott (6 vols., Edinburgh, 1827) were subsequently printed in 30 vols. (London, 1834-1871) and in 3 vols. (1841-1847). The collected editions of the novels and tales are very numerous. Among them are that known as the “author's favourite edition” (48 vols., Edinburgh, 1829-1833), for which Scott wrote new prefaces and notes; an édition de luxe of the Waverley novels, illustrated by A. Lalauze, E. Riou and others (25 vols., London, 1882-1898); the “Border” edition (48 vols., 1892-1894), with introductory essays and notes by A. Lang; and many modern cheap reprints. His Poetical Works were printed in 12 vols. (Edinburgh, 1820); they were edited by J. G. Lockhart (12 vols., Edinburgh, 1833-1834), with 24 steel engravings from illustrative drawings by Turner; by F. T. Palgrave for the “Globe” edition (1866); by W. Minto (2 vols., Edinburgh, 1888); by J. Logie Robertson (Oxford complete edition, 1904). Many of the novels have been adapted for the stage, the most famous of these dramatizations being the libretto of Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor and the Ivanhoe of Sir Arthur Sullivan and J. R. Sturgis. His Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (3 vols., 1802-1803) was edited (4 vols., 1902) by T. F. Henderson.

The standard life by his son-in-law, J. G. Lockhart, Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott (7 vols., Edinburgh, 1837-1838), left little new material for later biographers. It was supplemented by the publication (2 vols., 1890) of Scott's Journal, covering the years from 1825 to 1832, and of his Familiar Letters (2 vols., 1894), both edited by David Douglas. Some unpublished letters from Scott to the marchioness of Abercorn were sold at Sotheby's in 1909. Shorter lives, chiefly based on Lockhart, are by R. H. Hutton (“English Men of Letters,” London, 1898); by C. D. Yonge (“Great Writers,” London, 1888), with bibliography by J. P. Anderson; by Robert Chambers (Edinburgh, 1871); by K. Elze (2 vols., Dresden, 1864); by G. E. B. Saintsbury (“Famous Scots” Series, 1897); by Andrew Lang (“Literary Lives,” London, 1906), and by G. le Grys Norgate (London, 1906). For the Ballantyne controversy see also The Ballantyne Press and its Founders (1909), which should be taken into account in considering Lockhart's attitude on the subject.

In the long list of critical essays on Scott and his works may be mentioned: — W. Bagehot, “The Waverley Novels,” in Literary Studies (1879, vol. ii.); W. Hazlitt, in his Spirit of the Age (1825); James Hogg, The Domestic Manners and Private Life of Sir Walter Scott (Glasgow, 1834); A. Lang, in Letters to Dead Authors (1886); Catalogue of the Scott Exhibition held at Edinburgh in 1871, preface by Sir W. Stirling-Maxwell (Edinburgh, 1872); Sir Leslie Stephen, Hours in a Library (London, 1874); J. Veitch, The History and Poetry of the Scottish Border (Glasgow, 1878); L. Maigron, Le Roman historique à l'époque romantique, Essai sur I'influence de Walter Scott (Paris, 1898). An account of the portraits of Scott, and a bibliography of his works, are given in Sir W. Stirling-Maxwell's Catalogue of the Scott Exhibition, commemorating Scott's centenary at Edinburgh in July-August 1871.

(W. M.; X.)


SCOTT, WILLIAM BELL (1811-1890), British poet and artist, son of Robert Scott (1777-1841), the engraver, and brother of David Scott, the painter, was born in Edinburgh on the 12th of September 1811. While a young man he studied art and assisted his father, and he published verses in the Scottish magazines. In 1837 he went to London, where he became sufficiently well known as an artist to be appointed in 1844 master of the government school of design at Newcastle-on-Tyne. He held the post for twenty years, and did good work in organizing art-teaching and examining under the Science and Art Department. He did much fine decorative work, too, on his own account, notably at Wellington Hall, in the shape of eight large pictures illustrating Border history, with life-size figures, supplemented by eighteen pictures illustrating the ballad of Chevy Chase in the spandrels of the arches of the hall. For Penhill Castle, Perthshire, he executed a similar series, illustrating The King's Quhair. After 1870 he was much in London, where he bought a house in Chelsea, and he was an intimate friend of Rossetti and in high repute as an artist and an author. His poetry, which he published at intervals (notably Poems, 1875, illustrated by etchings by himself and Alma-Tadema), recalled Blake and Shelley, and was considerably influenced by Rossetti; he also wrote several volumes of artistic and literary criticism, and edited Keats, “L.E.L.,” Byron, Coleridge, Shelley, Shakespeare and Scott. He resigned his appointment under the Science and Art Department in 1885, and from then till his death (22nd November 1890) he was mainly occupied in writing his reminiscences, which were published posthumously in 1802, with a memoir by Professor Minto. It is for his connexion with Rossetti's circle that Bell Scott will be chiefly remembered.


SCOTT, WINFIELD (1786-1866), American general, was born near Petersburg, Virginia, on the 13th of June 1786. In 1805 he entered the College of William and Mary, where he studied law, and he continued his studies in the law office of David Robertson in Petersburg. In 1807 he removed to Charleston, South Carolina, but as war with England seemed imminent he soon left for Washington and offered his services. In 1808 he was commissioned as a captain of artillery, recruited a company in Richmond and Petersburg, and was ordered to New Orleans. His criticism of his superior officer, General James Wilkinson, led to his being suspended for a year, but the