Footnote 45: [In writing of his little grandson's earliest lessons, Scott recalls these days in a letter to Lockhart (March 3, 1826):—
"I rejoice to hear of Johnnie's grand flip towards instruction. I hope Mrs. Mactavish, whom I like not the worse, you may be sure, for her name, will be mild in her rule, and let him listen to reading a good deal without cramming the alphabet and grammar down the poor child's throat. I cannot at this moment tell how or when I learned to read, but it was by fits and snatches, as one aunt or another in the old rumble-tumble farmhouses could give me a lesson, and I am sure it increased my love and habit of reading more than the austerities of a school could have done. I gave trouble, I believe, in wishing to be taught, and in self-defence gradually acquired the mystery myself. Johnnie is infirm a little, though not so much so as I was, and often he has brought back to my recollection the days of my own childhood. I hope he will be twice any good that was in me, with less carelessness."—Lang's Life of Lockhart, vol. i. p. 397.][Back to Main Text]
Footnote 46: Miscellaneous Prose Works, vol. xx. p. 154.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 47: It may amuse my reader to recall, by the side of Scott's early definition of "a virtuoso," the lines in which Akenside has painted that character—lines which might have been written for a description of the Author of Waverley:—
"He knew the various modes of ancient times,
Their arts and fashions of each various guise;
Their weddings, funerals, punishments of crimes;
Their strength, their learning eke, and rarities.
Of old habiliment, each sort and size,
Male, female, high and low, to him were known;
Each gladiator's dress, and stage disguise,
With learned clerkly phrase he could have shown."[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 48: He was, in fact, six years and three months old before this letter was written.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 49: Mrs. Keith of Ravelston was born a Swinton of Swinton, and sister to Sir Walter's maternal grandmother.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 50: Waverley, chap, xlvii. note.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 51: According to Mr. Irving's recollections, Scott's place, after the first winter, was usually between the 7th and the 15th from the top of the class. He adds, "Dr. James Buchan was always the dux; David Douglas (Lord Reston) second; and the present Lord Melville third."[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 52: Chap. xvi. verse 7.[Back to Main Text]