It is thy voice, my God, that bids them fly,
Thy voice directs them through the vaulted sky;
Then let the good thy mighty power revere,
Let hardened sinners thy just judgments fear.”
The old lady repeated them to me herself, and the tears were in her eyes: for I really believe, simple as they are, that she values these lines, being the first effusion of her son’s genius, more than any later beauties which have so charmed all the world besides.’
Before quitting the High School, he, along with his brothers, received the advantages of some tutorial training under a Mr Mitchell, who afterwards became a minister connected with the Scotch Church. Previous to entering the university of Edinburgh, young Walter spent some time with his aunt at Kelso. Here, in order that he might be kept up in his classical studies, he attended the grammar-school, at that time under the rectorship of Mr Lancelot Whale, a worthy man and good scholar, who possessed traits of character not unlike some of those which have been depicted in Dominie Sampson. It was while thus residing for a short time at Kelso, about 1783, that Sir Walter made the acquaintance of James Ballantyne, then a schoolboy of his own age, with kindred literary tastes.
Sir Walter’s education being irregular from bad health, he did not distinguish himself as a scholar, yet often surprised his instructors by the miscellaneous knowledge which he possessed, and now and then was acknowledged to display a sense of the beauties of the Latin authors such as is seldom seen in boys. In the rough amusements which went on out of school, his spirit enabled him to take a leading share, notwithstanding his lameness. He would help to man the Cowgate Port in a snow-ball match, and pass the Kittle Nine Steps on the Castle Rock with the best of them. In the winter evenings, when out-of-door exercise was not attractive, he would gather his companions round him at the fireside, and entertain them with stories, real and imaginary, of which he seemed to have an endless store. Unluckily, his classical studies, neglected as they comparatively were, experienced an interruption from bad health, just as he was beginning to acquire some sense of their value.
It would, nevertheless, be difficult to say whether Scott was the worse or the better of the interruptions he experienced in school learning. He lost a certain kind of knowledge, it is true, but he gained another. The vacant time at his disposal he gave to general reading. History, travels, poetry, and prose fiction he devoured without discrimination, unless it were that he preferred imaginative literature to every other; and of all imaginative writers, was fondest of such as Spenser, whose knights and ladies, and dragons and giants, he was never tired of contemplating. Any passage of a favourite poet which pleased him particularly was sure to remain on his memory, and thus he was able to astonish his friends with his poetical recitations. At the same time, he admits that solidly useful matters had a poor chance of being remembered. His sober-minded parents and other friends regarded these acquirements without pride or satisfaction; they marvelled at the thirst for reading and the powers of memory, but thought it all to little good purpose, and only excused it in consideration of the infirm health of the young prodigy. Scott himself lived to lament the indifference he shewed to that regular mental discipline which is to be acquired at school. He says in his autobiography: ‘It is with the deepest regret that I recollect in my manhood the opportunities of study which I neglected in my youth; through every part of my literary career, I have felt pinched and hampered by my own ignorance; and I would at this moment give half the reputation I have had the good-fortune to acquire, if by doing so I could rest the remaining part upon a solid foundation of learning and science.’
It is the tradition of the family—and the fact is countenanced by this propensity to tales of chivalric adventure—that Sir Walter wished at this period of his life to become a soldier. The illness, however, which had beset his early years rendered this wish bootless, even although his parents had been inclined to gratify it. His malady had had the effect of contracting his right leg, so that he could hardly walk erect, even with the toes of that foot upon the ground. It has been related by a member of his family that, on this being represented to him as an insuperable obstacle to his entering the army, he left the room in an agony of mortified feeling, and was found some time afterwards suspended by the wrists from his bedroom window, somewhat after the manner of the unfortunate Knight of the Rueful Countenance, when beguiled by the treacherous Maritornes at the inn. On being asked the cause of this strange proceeding, he said he wished to prove to them that, however unfitted by his limbs for the profession of a soldier, he was at least strong enough in the arms. He had actually remained in that uneasy and trying posture for upwards of an hour.
His parents made many efforts to cure his lameness. Edinburgh at this time boasted of an ingenious mechanist in leather, the first person who extended the use of that commodity beyond ordinary purposes; on which account there is an elaborate memoir of him in Dodsley’s Annual Register for 1793. His name was Gavin Wilson, and, being something of a humorist, he exhibited a sign-board intended to burlesque the vanity of his brother-tradesmen—his profession being thus indicated: ‘Leather leg-maker, not to his Majesty.’ Honest Gavin, on the application of his parents, did all he could for Sir Walter, but in vain.