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WALTER SCOTT was born in Edinburgh on the 15th of August 1771. He was one of the younger sons of a lawyer (Writer to the Signet, or W.S.), and was called after his father. His family belonged to the Scotts of Harden-a branch of the great Border family of Buccleuch. A fever which attacked him in his childhood, left him with weak health and his right leg shrunk; and he was sent to the country, and allowed to roam about in the open air with little or no book-work to do. He took a great liking to the old ballads of Scotland—especially Hardyknute-and would shout them all over the house; while he was also a constant devourer of the books of romance and legend-the stories from which he would tell over again in the evening to his fascinated companions. Thus it was that his great power of story-telling began. At the age of twenty-one he was called to the Bar; and in 1799 he was appointed to the office of Sheriff of Selkirkshire. He employed this position to make 'raids' into the Border regions, for the purpose of collecting the ballads and traditional tales of the country, and about this time he began to write poetry himself. The most important of his poetical works are The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805), Marmion (1808), The Lady of the Lake (1810), and The Lord of the Isles (1815), the last of which has less merit than the others. When he thought that his vein of poetry had been worked out, and saw that Byron was beginning to attract the eyes of the reading world, he turned to the writing of novels, and in 1814 produced Waverley-a name which was afterwards given to the whole series. The failure, in 1826, of a publishing house with which he was connected, made him a bankrupt. Offers of assistance poured in upon him from every quarter; but he declined them all, and set to work to wipe off his debts by the production of more novels. But his exertions overtasked his strength; and in April 1831 he had a paralytic stroke. He did not remit his labour, even in the Mediterranean, where he went for change of air; but stroke following stroke, he at length sank after reaching his home at Abbotsford, on the 21st of September 1832. His remains lie buried in Dryburgh Abbey, by the river Tweed. The following is, briefly, the story of 'The Chase:' At early morn the stag is started in Glenartney, and is thence hotly pursued over the heights of Uam-Var, through Cambusmore, over Bochastle heath, across the river Teith, and past Loch Vennachar and Loch Achray, to the deep glen of the Trossachs, where at length the hounds are baffled in the scent. Of all the hunting train, only one has followed the chase thus far; but his gallant steed, now exhausted, stumbles in the glen, and falls to rise no more. Calling off the hounds from their vain pursuit, the solitary huntsman seeks his way out of the glen, and comes upon Loch Katrine as the sun is sinking in the west. Enraptured for a time with the romantic scenery in view, he then blows a blast on his horn in the hope that some of the hunting party may join him. Suddenly he sees a lovely maiden, 'the Lady of the Lake,' shoot out in a skiff upon the waters of the lake, from the deep wooded shore of an islet opposite; and she, thinking it was the blast of her father's horn, rows across to meet him. Though startled at the sight of the stranger, who tells her of his mishap, the maid quickly recognises in his person the guest whose visit had been foretold by the aged seer or bard of her father's household, and she invites him to their rustic dwelling on the island. [The huntsman is to be known in the meantime as James Fitz-James, the Knight of Snowdoun, but it is afterwards discovered (see Canto VI., stanzas 26 and 28) that 'Snowdoun's knight is Scotland's king,' James V. This monarch often wandered in disguise among his subjects, either from a love of romantic adventure, or for the purpose of becoming better acquainted with the affairs of his kingdom. Some of his merry adventures are celebrated in the old Scottish ballads; and Scott in this poem has set him forward as the very beau-ideal of a chivalrous knight. During his minority the King was for some time under the charge of the Earl of Angus, a Douglas and the most powerful of the Scottish nobles. But in his seventeenth year James escaped from the custody of Angus, and assumed the reins of government. Angus was then banished from the court, and his estates were forfeited. He fled into England, whence he did not return till after the death (1542) of Janies. The island in Loch Katrine is represented as the temporary hiding-place afforded to the outlawed Douglas-an imaginary person in the poem-by his kinsman Roderick Dhu, a Highland chieftain. The lovely maid Ellen, the daughter of this Douglas, is the Lady of the Lake.] |