History of the English Language and Literature 5. Walter Scott (1771-1832), poet and novelist, the son of a Scotch attorney (called in Edinburgh a W.S. or Writer to H.M.â——s Signet), was born there in the year 1771. He was educated at the High School, and then at the College—now called the University—of Edinburgh. In 1792 he was called to the Scottish Bar, or became an â——advocate.â—— During his boyhood, he had had several illnesses, one of which left him lame for life. Through those long periods of sickness and of convalescence, he read Percyâ——s â——Reliques of Ancient Poetry,â—— and almost all the romances, old plays, and epic poems that have been published in the English language. This gave his mind and imagination a set which they never lost all through life. 6. His first publications were translations of German poems. In the year 1805, however, an original poem, the Lay of the Last Minstrel, appeared; and Scott became at one bound the foremost poet of the day. Marmion, the Lady of the Lake, and other poems, followed with great rapidity. But, in 1814, Scott took it into his head that his poetical vein was worked out; the star of Byron was rising upon the literary horizon; and he now gave himself up to novel-writing. His first novel, Waverley, appeared anonymously in 1814. Guy Mannering, Old Mortality, Rob Roy, and others, quickly followed; and, though the secret of the authorship was well kept both by printer and publisher, Walter Scott was generally believed to be the writer of these works, and he was frequently spoken of as â——the Great Unknown.â—— He was made a baronet by George IV. in 1820. 7. His expenses in building Abbotsford, and his desire to acquire land, induced him to go into partnership with Ballantyne, his printer, and with Constable, his publisher. Both firms failed in the dark 340 year of 1826; and Scott found himself unexpectedly liable for the large sum of £147,000. Such a load of debt would have utterly crushed most men; but Scott stood clear and undaunted in front of it. â——Gentlemen,â—— he said to his creditors, â——time and I against any two. Let me take this good ally into my company, and I believe I shall be able to pay you every farthing.â—— He left his beautiful country house at Abbotsford; he gave up all his country pleasures; he surrendered all his property to his creditors; he took a small house in Edinburgh; and, in the short space of five years, he had paid off £130,000. But the task was too terrible; the pace had been too hard; and he was struck down by paralysis. But even this disaster did not daunt him. Again he went to work, and again he had a paralytic stroke. At last, however, he was obliged to give up; the Government of the day placed a royal frigate at his disposal; he went to Italy; but his health had utterly broken down, he felt he could get no good from the air of the south, and he turned his face towards home to die. He breathed his last breath at Abbotsford, in sight of his beloved Tweed, with his family around him, on the 21st of September 1832. 8. His poetry is the poetry of action. In imaginative power he ranks below no other poet, except Homer and Shakespeare. He delighted in war, in its movement, its pageantry, and its events; and, though lame, he was quartermaster of a volunteer corps of cavalry. On one occasion he rode to muster one hundred miles in twenty-four hours, composing verses by the way. Much of â——Marmionâ—— was composed on horseback. â——I had many a grand gallop,â—— he says, â——when I was thinking of â——Marmion.â——â—— His two chief powers in verse are his narrative and his pictorial power. His boyhood was passed in the Borderland of Scotland—â——a district in which every field has its battle and every rivulet its song;â—— and he was at home in every part of the Highlands and the Lowlands, the Islands and the Borders, of his native country. But, both in his novels and his poems, he was a painter of action rather than of character. 9. His prose works are now much more read than his poems; but both are full of life, power, literary skill, knowledge of men and women, and strong sympathy with all past ages. He wrote so fast that his sentences are often loose and ungrammatical; but they are never unidiomatic or stiff. The rush of a strong and large life goes through them, and carries the reader along, forgetful of all minor blemishes. His best novels are Old Mortality and Kenilworth; his greatest romance is Ivanhoe.
THE FIRST HALF OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
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