THE LIFE OF JOHN SCOTT. THIS very amiable man, the youngest son of Samuel and Martha Scott, was born on the 9th day of January 1730, in the Grange Walk, in the parish of St. Mary Magdalen, Bermondsey. His father was a draper and citizen of London, a man of plain and irreproachable manners, and one of the society of the people called Quakers, in which persuasion our poet was educated, and continued during the whole of his life, although not with the strictest attention to all the peculiarities of that society. In his seventh year he was put under the tuition of one John Clarke, a native of Scotland, who kept a school in Bermondsey street, but attended young Scott at his father's house, where he instructed him in the rudiments of the Latin tongue. Little is known of his proficiency under this tutor, whom, however, in his latter days, he remembered with pleasure, although he was a man of severe manners. In his tenth year his father retired with his family, consisting of Mrs. Scott and two sons, to the village of Amwell, in Hertfordshire, where, for some time, he carried on the malting trade. Here our poet was sent to a private day-school, in which he is said to have had but few opportunities praised by the public critics, but received the valuable commendations of Dr. Young, Mrs. Talbot, and Mrs. Carter, who loved poetry, and loved it most when in conjunction with piety. Although Mr. Scott had not given his name to this publication, he was not long undiscovered, and began to be honoured with the notice of several of the literati of the day; which, however, did not flatter him into vanity or carelessness. For many years he abstained from further publication, determined to put in no claims that were not strengthened by the utmost industry, and frequent and careful revisal. In 1761, during the prevalence of the small-pox at Ware, he removed to St. Margaret's, a small hamlet about two miles distant from Amwell, where Mr. Hoole informs us he became first acquainted with him, and saw the first sketch of his poem of Amwell, to which he then gave the title of A Prospect of Ware, and the Country adjacent. In 1766, he became sensible of the many disadvantages he laboured under by living in continual read of the small-pox, and had the courage to submit to inoculation, which was successfully performed. He then visited London more frequently, and Mr. Hoole, had the satisfaction to introduce him, among others, to Dr. Johnson. 66 Notwithstanding the great difference of their political principles, Scott had too much love for goodness and genius, not to be highly gratified in the opportunity of cultivating a friendship with that great exemplar of human virtues, and that great veteran of human learning; while the doctor, with a mind superior to the distinction of party, delighted with equal complacency in the amiable qualities of Scott, of whom he always spoke with feeling regard.” In 1767, he married Sarah Frogley, the daughter of his early friend and adviser Charles Frogley. |