Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 51.djvu/110

 Robert Hope-Scott [q. v.], and died in 1858. (2) Anne, born 2 Feb. 1803, and died unmarried 25 June 1833. (3) Charles, born 24 Dec. 1805, died at Teheran, where he was attaché to the British embassy, in 1841.

Scott is now lineally represented by the family of his great-granddaughter the Hon. Mrs. Mary Monica Maxwell Scott, now of Abbotsford; the second daughter of J. R. Hope-Scott, she married the Hon. Joseph Constable Maxwell (third son of William Maxwell, lord Herries). Mr. Maxwell assumed the additional surname of Scott on his marriage.

Upon Scott's death the principal of the debt amounted to about 54,000l., against which there was a life insurance of 22,000l. Cadell advanced the balance of about 30,000l. upon the security of the copyrights. A settlement was then made (2 Feb. 1833) with the creditors. The debt to Cadell appears to have been finally discharged in 1847, when Cadell accepted the remaining copyright of the works and of Lockhart's ‘Life,’ fortunately prolonged by the Act of 1842. Abbotsford was thus freed from the debts of the founder (, Lockhart, ii. 297).

Scott will be severely judged by critics who hold, with Carlyle, that an author should be a prophet. Scott was neither a Wordsworth nor a Goethe, but an ‘auld Wat’ come again, and forced by circumstances to substitute publishing for cattle-lifting. The sword was still intrinsically superior in his eyes to the pen. His strong commonsense and business training kept him from practical anachronisms, and gave that tinge of ‘worldliness’ to his character which Lockhart candidly admits, but his life was an embodiment of the genial and masculine virtues of the older type so fondly celebrated in his writings. A passionate patriotism in public and cordial loyalty to his friends mark his whole career. A chief (in one of his favourite quotations) should be ‘a hedge about his friends, a heckle to his foes.’ He was too magnanimous to have personal foes, and no petty jealousy entangled him in a literary squabble. His history is a long record of hearty friendships. His old chums, Clerk, Erskine, and Skene; his literary acquaintances, George Ellis and Morritt; his great rivals, Moore and Byron on one side, and Wordsworth, Southey, and Coleridge on the other; political antagonists such as Jeffrey and Cockburn; publishers who ascribed their misfortunes to him, Constable and Ballantyne; the feminine authors, Miss Seward, Joanna Baillie, Miss Edgeworth, and Miss Austen (whose merits, though she was personally unknown to him, he was among the first to recognise); and a whole host of obscurer authors, Leyden, Hogg, Maturin, Gillies, and others, are all names which recall a generous friendliness on Scott's part, which was in almost every case returned by good feeling, and in very many by the warmest affection. In his own circle at Abbotsford and Edinburgh, including his family, his servants, and his numerous dependents and associates, he was idolised, and was at once a warm and judicious friend. The same qualities make all appreciative readers love him, even when the secret of the charm is not observed. No doubt these qualities are compatible with the characteristic which, in its unfavourable aspects, is called pride. We may be induced to forgive him if, in the active discharge of his duties as friend and patron, he took a rather low estimate of the functions of preacher or artist, and was blind to the equivocal practices into which he was first seduced as the protector of an old friend. The pride, in any case, displayed itself as a noble self-respect and sense of honour when he was roused by calamity to a sense of his errors and made his last heroic struggle.

Lockhart gives a list of portraits of Scott, most of which were shown at the centenary exhibition of 1871. The catalogue then published gives some interesting notices and photographic reproductions. A miniature taken at Bath about 1775 belonged in 1871 to D. Laing; an early copy is at Abbotsford. A miniature of 1797, sent to Charlotte Carpenter, is also at Abbotsford. A portrait by James Saxon, 1805, is engraved for the ‘Lady of the Lake.’ Raeburn painted a full-length portrait in 1808 for Constable, with Hermitage Castle in the distance, and ‘Camp.’ A replica of 1809, with a greyhound added, is at Abbotsford. Raeburn painted other portraits, including a head for Lord Montagu in 1822, and another, about the same time, for Chantrey. William Nicholson (1781–1844) [q. v.] painted a watercolour in 1815, and an etching from it in 1817 for a series of eminent Scotsmen. He painted three others, one of which, and portraits of Scott's daughters, are at Abbotsford. Andrew Geddes [q. v.] made a sketch for his picture of the discovery of the regalia in 1818. Another sketch was made by Joseph Slater, from which a portrait was painted in 1821 for Sir R. H. Inglis. Thomas Phillips (1770–1845) [q. v.] painted a head in 1819 for John Murray, the publisher. John Watson Gordon [q. v.] painted a portrait, with an Irish terrier, for the Marchioness of Abercorn in 1820; and one in 1829, frequently engraved. The