uninteresting; inasmuch as it illustrates the saw of an olden poet,
that

Learning is an addition beyond
Nobility of birth: honour of blood,
Without the ornament of knowledge, is
A glorious ignorance.

SHIRLEY.

Sir Walter was born at Edinburgh, on the 15th of August, 1771--or, on
the birthday of Napoleon Buonaparte. His father was a man of
prosperous fortune and good report; and for many years was "an elder
in the parish church of Old Grey Friars, while Dr. Robertson, the
historian, acted as one of the ministers. The other clergyman was Dr.
John Erskine, of whom Sir Walter has given an animated picture in his
novel of _Guy Mannering_."[1] Mrs. Scott is described as a
well-educated gentlewoman, possessing considerable natural talents;
though she did not enjoy the acquaintance of Allan Ramsay, Blacklock,
Beattie, and Burns, as has been stated by some biographers. She,
however, advantageously mixed in literary society, and from her
superintendence of the early education of her eldest son, Walter,
there is reason to infer that such advantages may have influenced his
habits and taste. He was the third of a family, consisting of six sons
and one daughter. The cleverest of the sons is stated by Sir Walter to
have been Daniel, a sailor, who died young. Thomas, the next brother
to Sir Walter, was a man of considerable talent, and before the avowal
of the authorship of the Waverley Novels, report ascribed to him a
great part or the whole of them. Sir Walter observes--"Those who
remember that gentleman (of the 70th regiment, then stationed in