SCOTT.

contributed some vigorous essays on 'The Characteristics of the Great Masters' to Blackwood's Magazine. An unusually interesting Memoir by his brother, W. B. Scott, was published in 1850.

SCOTT, SIR WALTER, the fourth child of Walter Scott, Writer to the Signet in Edinburgh, was born in that city on the 15th August 1771. He came of the old Border family, the Scotts of Harden, an offshoot from the house of Buccleuch. Though he matured into a man of robust health, and of strength nearly herculean, as a child he was feeble and sickly, and very early he was smitten with a lameness which remained with him through life. His childhood was passed for the most part at Sandyknowe, the farm of his grandfather, in Roxburghshire. Here the foundations of his mind were laid; and his early and delighted familiarity with the ballads and legends then floating over all that part of the country, probably did more than any other influence to determine the sphere and modes of his future literary activity. Between the years 1779 and 1783 he attended the High School of Edinburgh, where, despite occasional flashes of talent, he shone considerably more on the playground as a bold, high-spirited, and indomitable little fellow, with an odd turn for story-telling, than within he did as a student. In 1783, he went to the University, and for three years he remained there, as it seemed, not greatly to his advantage. Afterwards, in the height of his fame, he was wont to speak with deep regret of his neglect of his early opportunities. But though leaving college but scantly furnished with the knowledge formally taught there, in a desultory way of his own he had been hiving up stores of valuable, though unassorted information. From his earliest childhood onward, he was a ravenous and insatiable reader; his memory was of extraordinary range and tenacity, and of what he either read or observed he seems to have forgot almost nothing. Of Latin, he knew little, of Greek less; but a serviceable, if somewhat inexact knowledge of French, Italian, Spanish, and German he had acquired, and he continued to retain. On the whole, for his special purposes, his educa tion was perhaps as available as if he had been the pride of all his preceptors. In 1786, he was articled apprentice to his father, in whose office he worked as a clerk till 1792, in which year he was called to the bar. In his profession he had fair success, and in 1797 he was married to Charlotte Margaret Carpenter, a lady of French birth and parentage. Towards the end of 1799, through the interest of his friends Lord Melville and the Duke of Buccleuch, he was made sheriff-depute of Selkirkshire, an appointment which brought him £300 a year, with not very much to do for it. Meantime, in a tentative and intermittent way, his leisure had been occupied with literature, which more and more distinctly announced itself as the main business of his life. His first publication, a translation of Burger's ballads, Lenore and The Wild Huntsman, was issued in 1796. In 1798 appeared his translation of Goethe's drama of Goetz von Berlichingen; and in the year following he wrote the fine ballads, Glenfinlas, the Eve of St John, and the Grey Brother. The year 1802 gave to the world the first two volumes of his Border Minstrelsy, which were followed in 1803 by a third and final one. This work, the fruit of those 'raids'-as he called them

SCOTT, SIR MICHAEL, a medieval scholar and philosopher of the 13th c., whose real history is not only obscure but positively unknown. Boece identifies hin. with a Michael Scott of Balweary, in the parish of Kirkcaldy, in Fifeshire, who, along with Sir Michael de Wemyss, was sent to Norway in 1290, by the Scottish Estates, to bring home the • Maiden of Norway,' and his death is fixed in the following year. But Sir Robert Sibbald, in his History of Fife and Kinross (published in the reign of Charles II.), speaks of a certain indenture, dated 1294, to which S.'s name was affixed, and in another part of the same book states that he went on a second embassy to Norway, in 1310, to demand the cession of the Orkneys. If we may rely upon Sir Robert's statement, it is hardly possible that the Scotch wizard' of European renown could have been the same person as Michael Scott of Balweary, because (as the story goes) after studying at Oxford or Paris, he went to the court of Frederic II., and wrote there some books at the request of that monarch. Now Frederic died in 1250, and supposing the wizard' not more than 30 years old at that time, this would make him 70 when he went to Norway the first time to bring home the Maiden,' and 90 on his second visit to demand the cession of the Orkneys; neither of which things is likely. Hector Boece, it should be observed, is our sole authority for the identification of Michael Scott of Balweary with the wizard, while, on the other hand, Dempster, in his Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Scotorum (Bologna, 1627), distinctly avers that the name Scotus, borne by the latter, was that of his nation and not of his family-Michael, the Scot.' It has been suggested that the ambassador may have been the son of the wizard, and that Boece may have confounded the two-a supposition probable enough in itself, but for which, in the absence of evidence, nothing can be said. The legend is further complicated by the fact that it appears to be English as well as Scottish. Cumberland claims the magic hero for herself. Camden, in his Britannia (1586), asserts that he was a monk of Ulme or Holme Cultram in that country, about 1290, who applied himself so closely to the mathematics, and other abstract parts of learning, that he was generally looked on as a conjurer; and a vain credulous humour has handed down I know not what miracles done by him.' He likewise states that S.'s 'magic books' were preserved there, but adds that they were then mouldering into dust; and Satchells (see his rhyming History of the Right Honourable Name of Scott) declares that he examined a huge tome which was held to be the wizard's, at Burgh-under-Bowness in 1629. According to the Scottish legend, he was buried in the Abbey of Melrose, and the Border was the scene of many of his most wonderful exploits, such as the cleaving of the Eildon Hills into three separate cones, and his bridling of the river Tweed! Dante mentions him in his Inferno (some years before 1321), in a way that shews that already his fame as a magician had over the Border counties, in which he had been spread over the continent, and suggests the suswont to spend his vacations, was most favourably picion that he must have died sooner than is com- received by the public, and at once won for him a monly believed. All, however, that any one who prominent place among the literary men of the rationally looks at the legend can believe is, that a time. In 1804, he issued an edition of the old certain Michael Scott, or Michael the Scot, flourished poem Sir Tristrem, admirably edited and elucidated in the 13th c., and was mistaken by the common by valuable dissertations. Meantime The Lay of people of his country for a wizard or magician, the Last Minstrel had been in progress, and by its probably on account of his skill as an experimentalist publication in 1805, S. became at a bound the most in natural philosophy. The writings attributed to popular author of his day. During the next ten him indicate that his studies lay in this direction. years, besides a mass of miscellaneous work, the

SCOTT.

and now, in this challenge of adverse fate, S.'s manhood and proud integrity were most nobly approved. With his creditors, composition would have been easy; but this usual course he disdained. 'God granting him time and health,' he said, he would owe no man a penny. And somewhat declined as he now was from the first vigour and elasticity of his strength, he set himself by the labour of his pen to liquidate this enormous debt.

Breaking up his establishment at Abbotsford, where the wife whom he loved lay dying, he hired a lodging in Edinburgh, and there for some years, with stern and unfaltering resolution, he toiled at his prodigious task. The stream of novels flowed as formerly; a History of Napoleon, in eight volumes, was undertaken and completed, with much other miscellaneous work; and within the space of two years, S. had realised for his creditors the amazing sum of nearly £40,000. A new and annotated edition of the novels was issued with immense success, and there seemed every prospect that, within a reasonable period, S. might again front the world, as he had pledged himself to do, not owing to any man a penny. In this hope he toiled on; but the limits of endurance had been reached, and the springs of the outworn brain broke in that stress of cruel and long-continued effort. In 1830 he was smitten down with paralysis, from which he never thoroughly rallied. It was hoped that the climate of Italy might benefit him; and by the government of the day a frigate was placed at his disposal in which to proceed thither. But in Italy he pined for the home to which he returned only to die. At Abbotsford, on the 21st September 1832, he died with his children round him and the murmur of the Tweed in his ears. On the 26th, he was buried beside his wife in the old Abbey of Dryburgh.

most important items of which were elaborate editions of Dryden (1808) and of Swift (1814), including in either case a Life, he gave to the world the poems Marmion (1808); The Lady of the Lake (1810), The Vision of Don Roderick (1811), Rokeby (1812), The Bridal of Triermain, anonymously published (1813), The Lord of the Isles, and The Field of Waterloo. The enthusiasm with which the earlier of these works were received somewhat began to abate as the series proceeded. The charm of novelty was no longer felt; moreover, a distinct deterioration in quality is not in the later poems to be denied ; and in the bold outburst of Byron, with his deeper vein of sentiment and concentrated energy of passion, a formidable rival had appeared. All this S. distinctly noted, and after what he felt as the comparative failure of The Lord of the Isles in 1815, with the trivial exception of the anonymous piece Harold the Dauntless (1817), he published no more poetry. But already in Waverley, which appeared | without his name in 1814, he had achieved the first of a new and more splendid series of triumphs. Guy Mannering, The Antiquary, The Black Dwarf, Old Mortality, Rob Roy, and The Heart of Midlothian rapidly followed, and the 'Great Unknown,' as he was called (whom yet every one could very well guess to be no other than Walter S.), became the idol of the hour. The rest of the famous series, known as the Waverley Novels, it would be idle to mention in detail. From this time onward, for some years, S. stood on such a pinnacle of fame and brilliant social prosperity as no other British man of letters has ever gone near to reach. He resided chiefly at Abbotsford, the 'romance in stone' he had built himself in the Border country which he loved, and thither, as Pilgrims of his Genius,' summer after summer repaired crowds of the noble and the distinguished, to partake the princely hos- In estimate of S. as an author, a few words must pitalities of a man whom they found as delightful suffice. As regards his poetry, there is now little in the easy intercourse of his home, as before they difference of opinion. Its merits, if somewhat superhad found him in his writings. In 1820, to set a seal ficial, are very genuine, and continue to secure for upon all this distinction, a baronetcy was bestowed it some portion of the popular favour with which it upon him as a special mark of the royal favour. was at first received. Deficient in certain of the But the stately fabric of his fortunes, secure as it higher and deeper qualities, and in those refinements seemed, was in secret built upon the shifting sands of finish which we are of late accustomed to exact, of commercial speculation, and in the disastrous it is admirable in its frank abandon, in its boldness crisis of the year 1826 a huge ruin smote it. In and breadth of effect, its succession of clear pictures, 1805, S.'s income, as calculated by his biographer, its careless, rapid, easy narrative, unfailing life, was something nigh £1000 a year, irrespective of spirit, vigorous and fiery movement. As a lyrist, what literature might bring him; a handsome com- S. specially excelled; and scattered hither and petency, shortly by his appointment to a clerkship thither in his works are to be found little snatches of the Court of Session, to have an increment at of ballad and song scarcely surpassed in the lanfirst of £800, subsequently of £1300. But what was guage. The rank of S. as a writer of prose fiction, ample for all prosaic needs, seemed poor to his it is not so easy to fix with anything like preimagination with its fond and glittering dreams. cision. So imposing to the mind is his immense Already some such vision, as at Abbotsford was prestige as a novelist, that even at this date it is afterwards realised, flitted before his mind's eye, difficult to criticise him coolly; but it is not without and it was the darling ambition of his heart to risk of awakening some under-murmur of dissent, re-create and leave behind him, in the founding of a that the absolute supremacy can now be assigned family, some image of the olden glories which were him which at one time, almost without question, the life of his literary inspirations. In the year used to be conceded as his due. Nor is the dissent above mentioned, lured by the prospect of profit, without some just ground of reason. S., with the and without the knowledge of his friends, he joined artistic instinct granted him in largest measure, had James Ballantyne, an old schoolfellow, in the little of the artistic conscience. Writing with the establishment of a large printing business in Edin- haste of the improvisatore, he could exercise over burgh. To this, a few years afterwards, a publish- his work, as it proceeded, no jealous rigour of supering business was added, under the nominal conduct vision; and on its appearance he was amply pleased of John Ballantyne, a brother of James; S., in the with it if the public paid him handsomely. Hence new adventure, becoming as before a partner. he is an exceedingly irregular writer; many of his Gradually the affairs of the two firms became com- works are in structure most lax and careless, and plicated with those of the great house of Constable some of the very greatest of them are disgraced by & Co., in the sudden collapse of which S. found occasional infusions of obviously inferior matter. himself one forenoon a bankrupt, with personal Yet, all reasonable deductions made, it may be liabilities to the extent of something like £150,000. doubtful whether in mass and stature he is quite "In the reproof of chance

Lies the trae proof of men'

reached by any other novelist who could be mentioned. To class him, or even speak of him, along

SCOTT-SCOTTISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE.

with Shakspeare, is absurd; but it is scarcely absurd his defences. These were followed by the sharp perhaps to say that, since Shakspeare, to no British and sanguinary battles of Molino del Rey and Churman has such wealth in this kind been intrusted. ubusco, September 8th, strong positions skilfully If, as we believe, the final test of greatness in this and bravely defended by superior numbers; and on field be the power to vitalise character, to enrich the 14th S. entered the city of Mexico at the head our experience by imaginative contact with beings of less than 8000 soldiers. Peace was negotiated ever after more intimately distinct and real for us with the cession of New Mexico and California to than the men we daily shake hands with, very few the United States, and the victorious general was writers can be held to surpass Scott. Further, he welcomed home with the liveliest demonstrations. invented the historical novel, and in doing so, In 1852 General S. was the candidate of the Whig created a distinct literature, brought life into our party for the presidency, but was defeated by one conceptions of the past, and revolutionised our of his subordinate officers, General Franklin Pierce. methods of writing history itself by a vivid infusion In 1855, was created for him the office of lieutenantinto them of picturesque and imaginative elements. general. At the beginning of the war of Secession On his Scotch novels his fame most securely rests; in 1861, he foresaw more than many others its the others, for the most part, being obviously at extent and serious character, and advised the calling times even painfully inferior. S.'s was essentially out a much larger force than was first brought a great, shrewd, sagacious, practical intelligence; on into the field. He had even suggested the advisthe speculative side he was not so properly weak as ability of allowing the wayward sisters to part in entirely defective. peace.' Age and growing infirmities compelled him in November, 1861, to retire, and, after visiting Europe, he died at West Point in May, 1866. See Memoirs, by himself (2 vols., New York, 1864).

SCOTTISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE. The remarks which follow are merely supplementary to the articles on ANGLO-Saxon LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE, ENGLISH LANGUage, and ENGLISH LITERATURE (q. v.). Reference is made in the second of these articles to the different opinions which have prevailed regarding the origin of the dialects of the north-eastern provinces of Scotland. There can hardly be a doubt that the true explanation is that which is preferred by the writer of the article-that the language of those districts, like that of the south-eastern provinces of the Scottish kingdom, was as decidedly AngloSaxon in its form and substance as that of Norfolk or Yorkshire.' This is also the opinion of Mr Latham, as expressed in the brief chapter of his work on the English Language, in which he treats of the Lowland Scotch.' He adds, in reference to the claims of the latter to be considered a separate language, that the Lowland Scotch means 'the literary Lowland Scotch which, under the first five Stewarts, was as truly an independent language as compared with the English, as Swedish is to Danish, Portuguese to Spanish, or vice versa.' This is expressed with substantial justice, though it would have been more accurate to speak of the Scotch as an independent tongue from the reign of the first prince of the House of Stewart to the accession of James VI. to the English crown.

SCOTT, WINFIELD, American general, was born at Petersburg, Virginia, of Scottish ancestry, January 13, 1786, was educated at William and Mary College, and studied the profession of law; but in 1808, having a genius for military pursuits, he was appointed captain of light artillery in General Wilkinson's division, stationed at Baton Rouge, Louisiana, but was suspended for having accused his general of complicity with the conspiracy of Aaron Burr. At the commencement of the war of 1812, he was appointed lieutenant-colonel, and sent to the Canadian frontier. He crossed with his regiment at Queenstown Heights, where the American troops were at first successful; but on the British receiving reinforcements, they were repulsed with heavy loss, and S. was taken prisoner. The following year, having been exchanged, he was appointed adjutant-general, and was wounded by the explosion which followed the assault on Fort George. In 1814, as brigadier-general, he established a camp of instruction, and from April to July drilled his raw levies in the French tactics with such effect, that on the 3d of July he took Fort Erie, opposite Buffalo, by assault; and on the 5th fought a sharp drawn battle at Chippewa, and twenty days after, the famous frontier battle of Lundy's Lane, in which he had two horses killed under him, and was twice wounded, the last time severely. He was raised to the rank of major-general, and compiled the General Regulations of the Army, and translated and adapted from the French the system of Infantry Tactics, which was afterwards the text-book of the American army. In the Indian hostilities of the American frontier, in the excitement attending the threat of Nullification in South Carolina, and in the Seminole war, General S. manifested those qualities of wisdom and moderation which made him rather a pacificator than a warrior. During the the present day. Canadian revolt of 1837-1838, he displayed great During the earlier period Scotland was an indetact in allaying the excited passions of the frontier. pendent kingdom, politically separate from England, In 1841 he was appointed commander-in-chief of the and, as a general rule, bitterly opposed to English U. S. army, and in 1846 directed the military opera- influence-forming in that respect a contrast to what tions in the war against Mexico. Taking the field it was before the decease of Álexander III. A welln person, he, March 9, 1847, landed 12,000 men at known brief lament for the death of that king Vera Cruz, and invested and bombarded the city, preserved by Winton, and marked by considerable which capitulated on the 26th. April 18th he beauty and pathos, is generally supposed to be one carried the heights of Cerro Gordo, on the 19th he of the earliest specimens of Scottish poetry which took Jalapa, on the 22d Perote, and on May 15th has come down to us. The first Scottish poet-in Puebla, where, owing to his heavy losses, chiefly by the proper sense of the word-was John Barbour, diseases incident to the climate, he was obliged to archdeacon of Aberdeen, who was born in the first wait for reinforcements. On the 10th of August he half of the 14th c., and died in 1395. His great advanced, with 10,780 men, to encounter the larger work- the only one which has been preserved - is forces and strong positions of General Santa Anna. his poem of The Bruce, in which he celebrates the He turned El Penon, and won the brilliant victories struggles and final victory of the Scottish king, of Contreras and Churubusco. Santa Anna entered Robert I. The poem is not unworthy of such a apon negotiations only to gain time and strengthen hero, and is superior to any composition by English

The history of Scottish literature may be divided into two periods; the first extending from the date of the earliest composition in the language of Northern Britain to the union of England and Scotland under one king, the second from that time to

SCOTTISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE-SCOTTISH MUSIC.

SCOTUS AND SCOTISTS-SCREAMER.

disappearance is not wonderful, when we take into account, first, the strong measures resorted to, about 1530, by both civil and ecclesiastical authorities, to put down all ballads reflecting on the Roman Catholic hierarchy, and afterwards the fanatical proscription of music, along with every other innocent amusement, by the Puritans. The most valuable of now existing early collections of Scotch melodies is the Skene MS., in the Advocates' Library, noted down by Sir John Skene of Hallyards about the year 1630. It contains a number of native airs, mixed with some foreign dance-tunes-upwards of a hundred in all. Many of the Scotch melodies differ considerably from the more modern versions, presenting in general a ruder outline; but often exhibiting beauties which the changes which these airs have subsequently undergone have only tended to destroy.

Among the peculiarities which give its character to the music of Scotland, the most prominent is the prevalent omission of the fourth and seventh of the scale, and consequent absence of semitones, giving rise

to such melodic forms as

or

On the subject of Scottish music generally, reference is made to Dauney's Ancient Scottish Melodies from a MS. of the Reign of King James VI., with an Introductory Inquiry Illustrative of the History of the Music of Scotland (Edin. 1838). SCOTUS AND SCOTISTS. See DUNS SCOTUS. SCOUT, a person sent out in the front or on the flank of an army to observe the force and movements of the enemy. He should be a keen observer, and withal fleet of foot, or well mounted.

SCRAP-METAL, a term applied to fragments of any kind of metal, which are only of use for remelting. Copper and brass scrap consist of the turnings from the lathe, and all useless and worn pieces, whether old or new. They are readily remelted. Scrap-tin consists of the clippings and fragments of tinned iron and worn-out tinned vessels; these are frequently dipped into hydrochloric acid, to dissolve off the tin-coating from the iron; and the muriate of tin so formed is of commercial value for dyeing purposes. Scrap-iron consists of any waste pieces of iron, although the term is usu ally held to mean malleable iron only; and for many purposes it is particularly valuable, as it is found that a greater strength can be obtained by welding small fragments of iron together, than is found in large masses, the fibre being much more twisted Passages of this kind and interwoven, from the mingling of pieces in every imaginable direction..

occur in all the airs of Scotland which have any claim to popularity, and form one of their most recognisable features. Another characteristic is the substitution of the descending for the ascending sixth and seventh in the minor scale, as at the beginning of the air called Adew, Dundee, in the Skene MS.

A very prevalent course of modulation is an alternation between the major key and its relative minor, the melody thus ever keeping true to the diatonic scale of the principal key, without the introduction of accidentals. An air will often begin in the major key, and end in the relative minor, or the reverse. The closing note is by no means necessarily the key-note, a peculiarity especially remarkable in the Highland airs, which, if in a major key, most frequently terminate in the second; if in a minor, on the seventh. Closes are also to be found on the third, fifth, and sixth. The peculiarities of modulation of the music of Scotland have something in common with the modes of ancient ecclesiastical music, to which it may be more correctly said to belong, than to the modern major and minor keys ; and the avoidance of the fourth and seventh may have originated in the imperfection of the ancient wind instruments; yet these peculiarities are not to be found in the national airs of other countries where ecclesiastical music may be supposed to have had the same influence, and the early instruments to have been equally imperfect.

Among the more modern printed collections of Scottish melodies with words, the most important are George Thomson's collection, with symphonies and accompaniments by Pleyel, Kozeluch, Haydn, Beethoven, Hummel, and Weber (vols. i.-iv., 1793 -1805; vol. v. 1826; and vol. vi. 1841), one distinguishing feature of which was the appearance of Burns's words conjoined with the old melodies of the country; and a more recent collection in 3 vols., published by Messrs Wood & Co., and edited, with historical, biographical, and critical notes, by Mr G. F. Graham (1848–1849).

SCREAMER (Palamedea), a genus of birds of the order Gralla, allied to the Jacanas (q. v.). The bill is rather short, conical, curved at the extremity; there is a bare space around the eyes; the toes are long; each wing is furnished with two strong spurs. The HORNED S., or KAMICHI (P. cornuta), inhabits swamps in Brazil and Guiana, and feeds on the leaves and seeds of aquatic plants. It is of a blackish-brown colour, nearly as large as a turkey, and has somewhat the appearance of a gallinaceous bird. It receives its name from its loud and harsh cry. From the head, a little behind the bill, there rises a long, slender, movable horn, of which no use has been conjectured. The spurs of the wings

are supposed to be useful in defence against snakes and other enemies.-Closely allied to this genus is the genus Chauna, or Opistolophus, to which belongs the CHAUNA, or CRESTED S. (C. or O. chavaria), a native of Brazil and Paraguay, the head of which has no horn, but is adorned with erectile feathers. The plumage is mostly lead-coloured and blackish. The wings are armed with spurs. It is very capable of domestication, and is sometimes reared with flocks of geese and turkeys, to defend them from vultures, being a bold and powerful bird.

SCREEN, in Architecture, an enclosure or partition of wood, stone, or metal work. It is of frequent