Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 51.djvu/48

 not practise much, if at all, at the bar, but recommended himself to Charles I by a suggestion for increasing the revenue by altering the law of feudal tenure. He became in 1629 an extraordinary, and in 1632 an ordinary, lord of session under the title of Scotstarvet. He was one of many Scottish lawyers and lairds who accepted the covenant, which he subscribed at his parish kirk of Ceres on 30 April 1638, and in the following November he declined to sign the king's confession. In 1640 he served on the committee of the estates for the defence of the country. In 1641 he was, with consent of the estates, reappointed judge by a new commission. During the war between England and Scotland he served on the war committee in 1648 and 1649. During the Commonwealth he lost the office both of judge and director of chancery. He made many appeals to be restored to the latter as an administrative, and not a judicial, office; but, although he obtained an opinion in his favour by the commissioners of the great seal, Cromwell gave it in 1652 to Jeffrey the quaker, who held it till the Restoration. Scot, through Monck, again appealed to Cromwell for the reversion of the office if Jeffrey died. Cromwell fined him 1,500l. in 1654 for his part in the war. But his later correspondence with Cromwell did not improve his character with the royalists, and on the Restoration he was fined 500l., and was not restored to the office of judge or that of director of chancery, which was conferred on Sir William Ker, who, he indignantly said, ‘danced him out of it, being a dextrous dancer.’ Sir James Balfour well describes Scot's public character in a few words: ‘He was a busy man in troubled times.’ But in spite of his misfortunes, Scot did not cease to be busy when peace came. He returned to Scotstarvet, where he engaged in literary work and correspondence. There he died in 1670.

Scot was thrice married: first, to Anne, sister of William Drummond [q. v.] of Hawthornden, the poet, by whom he had two sons and seven daughters; secondly, to Margaret, daughter of Sir James Melville of Hallhill; and thirdly, to Margaret Monpenny of Pitmilly, widow of Rigg of Aitherny, by each of whom he had one son. The son by his second wife, George Scott (d 1685), is separately noticed. Sir John's male descendants became extinct in the person of Major-general John Scot, M.P. for Fife, his great-great-grandson, who, at his death on 24 Jan. 1776, was reputed the richest commoner in Scotland. The general's fortune passed chiefly to his eldest daughter, who married the Duke of Portland, but the estate of Scotstarvet was sold to Wemyss of Wemyss Hall. Its tower, which Sir John built, still stands, and the inscription, with his initials and those of his first wife, Anne Drummond, as the builders, and its date (1627) are carved on a stone over the door.

Scot consoled himself for his disappointment in losing office by composing ‘The Staggering State of Scottish Statesman between 1550 and 1650.’ In it he endeavoured to show the mean arts and hapless fate of all those who secured offices, but it was not published until a hundred years after his death (Edinburgh, 1754, 8vo), so can only have been a private solace to himself and a few friends for whom manuscript copies were made. A more honourable resource was the public spirit which led him to devote the most of his time and a large part of his fortune to the advancement of learning and the credit of his country in the republic of letters. The tower of Scotstarvet became a kind of college, where he attracted round him the learned Scotsmen of the time, and corresponded with the scholars of Holland, Caspar Barlæus, Isaac Gruterus, and others. In it his brother-in-law Drummond composed his ‘History of the Jameses’ and the macaronic comic poem ‘Polemo-Middinia,’ which had its occasion in a dispute of long standing as to a right of way between the tenants of Scotstarvet and of Barns, the estate of Sir Alexander Cunningham, whose sister was Drummond's betrothed. His intimacy with John Bleau of Amsterdam led to the inclusion of a Scottish volume in the series of ‘Delitiæ Poetarum’ then being issued by that enterprising publisher. The Scottish volume, edited by Arthur Johnston [q. v.], and printed at the sole cost of Sir John Scot in two closely printed duodecimo volumes, has preserved the last fruits of Scottish latinity. A more important work was the publication of detailed maps of Scotland in the great atlas of Blaeu. Scot interested himself in the survey of Scotland begun in 1608 by Timothy Pont [q. v.] Pont's drawings, after his death about 1614, were purchased by the crown. Scot caused them to be revised by Sir Robert Gordon of Straloch and his son, James Gordon, parson of Rothiemay, and then went in 1645 to Amsterdam to superintend their publication, dictating from memory, to the astonishment of the publisher, the description of several districts. The work was not issued till 1654, when it appeared as ‘Geographiæ Blaeuaniæ volumen quintum,’ with dedicatory epistles to Scot both by Blaeu and Gordon of Straloch. Other examples of Scot's liberal and judicious public