ALLAN'S LIFE OF SCOTT.
IT was but the other day, since the lull in the publishing world set in, that we found leisure to read this biography ; which has been on our table for several months.
The events of Scort's career as an author, the circumstances under which his works were composed, and the immediate causes of their production, are pretty generally known from his titlepages, his own confessions, and the criticisms and narratives of contem- porary journals. Matters more directly personal—as his marriage, his appointments to offices of profit or honour, and the pecuniary difficulties in which he was involved at the close of his career— are things of general notoriety, whose exactness may always be verified from public documents, by those who are pleased to take the trouble. But the mental training he underwent—the nourish- ment and growth of his mind—has yet to be described. A similar observation may be extended to his personal and social habits, to his private peculiarities, weaknesses, and opinions—in short, to all those matters which, looking at life as a drama, may be said to show the man in action—to exhibit the dramatic character of the individual. For all these things we look forward to Mr. LOCK- HART'S forthcoming Life. In the mean time, the reader may upon some ro -Its make shift with Mr. ALLAN;—who complains, by the by, "of the efforts strenuously made, from what may be almost termed an official quarter, to monopolize every possible source of information," and of the consequent difficulty of collecting " the necessary materials."
" What had been, is unknown—what is, appears ;" and, in the commencement of the biography, there seems no lack of illustra- tive anecdote or of information upon the early life of the hero. As a skilful narrative, or a piece of sustained composition, the work may not rank very high; but the account of Scoris youth- ful days has at least one good characteristic— it is real. The author is impressed with his subject: he has sought for his infor- mation from living sources ; and though many of his communica- tions are homely in their guise, they seem to have the stamp of truth upon them. Many of his facts, too, are amusing ; some are indicative of Scottish manners; and others characteristic of indi- vidual persons, with whom the future novelist was connected in infancy or youth ; whilst the passages quoted from the works of Scorr himself seem necessary parts of the picture. We also see —though in a glass and dimly—something of the mode in which his genius was directed, and how the materials on which it was to exercise itself were laid up. His precarious state of health in childhood insured indulgence to his whims, and frequently con- fined him to the house. Deprived of more active amusements, he was thrown upon an extensive course of desultory reading, and reduced to listen to the tales and traditions which were rife amongst Scottish ladies of a certain age towards the latter end of the last century ; or young " Wattle " was fortunately surrounded by persons just qualified to feed and stimulate his youthful mind. His valetudinary visits to his grandfather's imbued him with a love of natural scenery; and our biographer rather fancifully traces some of his characters to the impressions of this period. lie wa not, however, upon the sick-list during the whole of his youth The genius of the man was spirit in the boy ; and the [floc combats of his Scotch schoolfellows, however " low," gave a ton of greater manliness to his character than the system of fagot) and fighting at our English seminaries. From his irregul attendance at schools, and, it would appear, even at the univer sity, his acquirements in learning were scanty. This loss, in deed, was supplied by something to him far more valuable he gained in its stead an endless variety of images and ideas a great store of traditionary adventures and tales drawn fro a time teeming with both, and distinguished by very remarkabl particulars of incident, characters, and manners, such as coul only have existed in a peculiar state of society — a barbaris on the verge of civilization, and occasionally intermixing wit it. But there is no combining incongruities. The neglect o strict mental discipline was the source of his fluency, and tb number of his works; but it occasioned his want of exactness an his diffuseness of composition. It induced him also to conten himself with the forms and even the accidents of things, instea of searching for their essential characters ; circumstances tha lessen the effect of his works on each successive perusal, and nil militate greatly against their hold upon posterity. But SCOTT'S training did not terminate with his youthful days As a lawyer's clerk, as a law student, as a barrister, and an ant query, he was forming his taste and storing his mind. The re putation of being an invalid stuck to WALTER, in his father office, and the young lawyer was in no hurry to disown it. Hi chief amusement was to pay visits or to make excursions in th country, listening to the exploits of friends who had been out the Forty-five, or to " auld wives' " tales and ballads of a still re motor time. But ScoTT was much more than an elegant herald a brilliantly vivacious antiquary, a truthful landscape-painter, o even a vigorous and animated chronicler of traditionary feuds o romances of history. He painted man as he really shows himsel from the cottage to the court : he was the first of his age—perhap of any age— who truly exhibited the middle classes, especiall the members of the three learned professions; imparting to hi delineations interest without exaggeration and humour withou caricature. The training which enabled him to do this is ind' cated by the biography in the narrative of his brief career as law student and an advocate, and in his " annual raids" int Border land whilst collecting materials for the Minstrelsy. 0 this work, if we remember rightly, JEFFREY observed that it con tained the materials of scores of romances : a writer who tried hi hand upon them as statesmen take office—without preparation would have found them, we suspect, full of sameness. But wha was doubtful of the ballads, was true if applied to the exercise o collecting and preparing them. With the publication of the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Borde the characteristic interest of the work may be said to close Various reasons can be assigned for this. Scow's literar struggles were ended; his mind was formed, his materials wet garnered. He moved henceforth in a higher circle, more splendid more intellectual, and more polished than that of his earlier ass ciates, but very possibly more dull. His companions, too, wer less accessible to the present biographer, and more swayed per haps by the "official monopolist." SCOTT himself, in his Pre faces, had told what was most interesting relative to the work that followed. Lastly, something of the superior interest of th earlier portion may be due to Mr. ALLAN'S predecessor, Mr WEIR, (a Scotch advocate, and now the editor of the Glusgo Argus, a clever Radical paper), to whom the compilation o the Memoir was originally intrusted, but who was,"suddenl compelled to relinquish it, after proceeding a considerable way in his task. Be the causes what they may, the period fro the hero's first coming forward as an original author, till th CONSTABLE failure, is in the main a chronicle of successive pub lications. The causes and extent of Scorr's pecuniary mbar rassments, and the prudent strictures of the biographer, bay a practical and matter-of-fact interest ; whilst the more tha chivalrous—the honest spirit in which SCOTT determined to pa every man his own—and the fatal result of his labour, give o necessity a melancholy attraction to the closing scenes. But th freshness of the volume terminates where we have mentioned. The extracts taken will be selected merely for their detache interest, and to give a notion of the composition, and of the kin of reading which the book affords. The points we have touch upon in the foregoing remarks can only be distinctly perceived b a perusal of the whole.
SIR WALTER'S FATHER
WAS of an unimaginative, clear-sighted, persevering disposition. Ravin passed Writer to the Signet iu the year 1755, be managed, with or without th aid of patrons, to draw to himself a large share of professional business, and accumulate a handsome fortune. At the period when the son who was after wards to illustrate his name was born to him, he was a personable.manou th wrong side of forty, frugal and methodical in his habits, a rigid drplinana in his family, strict and sharp in matters of business. In his political sent meats he was a Whig, such as Whigs then were ; jealous of the superior pre tensions of the Aristocracy, afraid even of the memory (for it was then nothin more) of the turbulent spirit of the Jacobites, attached to the existing order things for the sake of quiet. In his religious sentiments—sad be waasoniewha ostentatious in professing them—he was a strict Calvinistic Presbyterian.. n was withal an honest man, and fond of a sly quiet juke. Methodical eve. thing, he insisted upon the moat punctual observance of family hours. food was wholesome and plentiful, but plain ; and with the ascetic affectation° a certain class of citizens of the old school, any expression of preference
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