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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. xi. APRIL 25, IMS.
the result. It will be found in his ' Lectures
and Essays,' published in 1887. He concluded
the lecture with the following riddle, which
he said "comes from one of our children's old
books":-
Before creating Nature willed
That atoms into forms should jar, By me the boundless space was filled,
On me was built the first made star ; For me the saint will break his word,
By the proud Atheist I 'tn revered ; At me the coward draws his sword,
And by the hero I am feared. Scorned by the meek and humble mind,
Yet often by the vain possessed ; Heard by the deaf, seen by the blind,
And to the troubled conscience rest ; Than Wisdom's sacred self I 'm wiser,
And yet by every blockhead known ; 1 'm freely given by the miser,
Kept by the prodigal alone ; As vice deformed, as virtue fair,
The courtier's loss, the patriot's gains ; The poet's purse, the coxcomb's care ;
Guess and you '11 have me for your pains.
A. J. DAVY.
Torquay.
ROBERT SCOT (9 th S. xi. 268). As the name of this ingenious inventor does not occur in the 'Dictionary of National Biography,' I send you some particulars concerning his somewhat remarkable career. It appears that he came of a good old stock, being descended from the ancient barons of Bawerie, in Scotland. He applied himself assiduously to study, and extended his know- ledge by visiting foreign countries. To military science he paid special attention, and soon perceived that it was open to great improvements. The field-pieces of that age were machines of iron or brass, immensely cumbrous, and almost unmanageable. The problem to be solved was, how to render a gun more portable without lessening its projectile force. After full consideration of the matter he came to the conclusion that there was "nothing like leather." Of hardened leather, therefore, he constructed guns. The correctness of his idea was tested by experiment, and the result was considered to show the immeasurable superiority of leather over brass and iron.
Having raised a company of 200 men, he went over to Sweden, where he was welcomed by Gustavus Adolphus, who, seeing his ability and the value of his discovery, forthwith took him into his service, and at the end of two years rewarded him with the office of Quartermaster-General of the Army.
After five years' service under Gustavus he repaired to Denmark, where he was appointed General of the King's Artillery; but soon
afterwards, yielding to the advice of friends,
he returned to England, and tendered his
services to his own sovereign, King Charles I.
This step, which was taken in 1629, turned
out a very profitable one for the colonel. He
was received with open arms by Charles,
who appointed him one of the gentlemen of
his privy chamber, granted him an annual
pension of 600/. out of the Court of Wards,
and purchased for him a house in Lambeth
at a cost of 1,400. Col. Scott, however, did
not live long to enjoy these tokens of the
royal favour, for, dying in 1631, he was
buried in Lambeth Church, where a sumptu-
ous monument was erected to his memory by
his wife Anne, whom he had married in France.
The sculptor has represented the colonel as
an armour-clad fierce-looking man, wearing
a heavy moustache and a pointed beard. An
engraving of the monument will be found in
Allen's ' History and Antiquities of the Parish
of Lambeth,' facing p. 100. In the epitaph
his name is spelt " Scott."
In the very year of the colonel's death Gustavus Adolphus had ample proof of the effectiveness and utility of the leathern artillery at the memorable battle of Leipzig. The guns were found to be so easily portable that a small battery could soon be removed from one part of the field to another, or a new battery made in the space of ten minutes ; and when a fresh attack was about to be made on the part of the enemy a battery was immediately at hand to repel it. In fact, it was in great measure owing to the invention of Col. Scott that the Swedish king obtained so glorious a victory, and the imperial General Tilly himself was con- strained to admit that the portable cannon performed wonders. How it came about that the leathern ordnance was shortly after- wards laid aside as worthless is difficult to explain, or even to conjecture, but it is not recorded to have made any subsequent appearance on the battle - field, though a leather cannon was fired in Edinburgh as late as the year 1788, probably out of curiosity.
Most of the foregoing particulars are taken from an article contributed by me to All the Year Round, and published in that periodical on 24 September, 1864.
THOMPSON COOPER, F.S.A.
COL. HOLDEN will find the desired informa- tion in Col. Hime's valuable paper on leather- guns in Proceedings Royal Artillery Institu- tion, No. 12, vol. xxv. (1898). C. D.
HEDGEHOG (9 th S. xi. 247, 317). The arms of the ancient Scottish family of Herries are
