Most biographers aim to make the birth and parentage of their heroes as
respectable as possible. Of authors who are "nobly born" there are very
few; most English and Scotch literary men are descended from ancestors
of the middle class,--lawyers, clergymen, physicians, small landed
proprietors, merchants, and so on,--who were able to give their sons an
education in the universities. Sir Walter Scott traced his descent to an
ancient Scottish chief. His grandfather, Robert Scott, was bred to the
sea, but, being ship-wrecked near Dundee, he became a farmer, and was
active in the cattle-trade. Scott's father was a Writer to the Signet in
Edinburgh,--what would be called in England a solicitor,--a thriving,
respectable man, having a large and lucrative legal practice, and being
highly esteemed for his industry and integrity; a zealous Presbyterian,
formal and precise in manner, strict in the observance of the Sabbath,
and of all that he considered to be right. His wife, Anne Rutherford,
was the daughter of a professor of medicine in the University of
Edinburgh,--a lady of rather better education than the average of her
time; a mother whom Sir Walter remembered with great tenderness, and to
whose ample memory and power of graphic description he owed much of his
own skill in reproducing the past. Twelve children were the offspring of
this marriage, although only five survived very early youth.

Walter, the ninth child, was born on the 15th of August, 1771, and when
quite young, in consequence of a fever, lost for a time the use of his
right leg. By the advice of his grandfather, Dr. Rutherford, he was sent
into the country for his health. As his lameness continued, he was, at
the age of four, removed to Bath, going to London by sea. Bath was then
a noted resort, and its waters were supposed to cure everything. Here
little Walter remained a year under the care of his aunt, when he
returned to Edinburgh, to his father's house in George Square, which was
his residence until his marriage, with occasional visits to the county