* * * * *




III.

SIR WALTER SCOTT AND HIS MOTHER.


THE MOTHER'S EDUCATION--THE SON'S TRAINING--DOMESTIC LOVE AND SOCIAL
DUTIES.


It was in the Spring of 1758 that the daughter of a distinguished
professor of medicine in the University of Edinburgh changed her maiden
name of Rutherford for her married name of Scott, having the happiness
to unite her lot with one who was not only a scrupulously honorable man,
but who, from his youth up, had led a singularly blameless life. Well
does Coventry Patmore sing:

"Who is the happy husband? He,
Who, scanning his unwedded life,
Thanks Heaven, with a conscience free,
'Twas faithful to his future wife."

Such a husband as this was the father of Sir Walter Scott, a writer to
the signet (or lawyer) in large practice in Edinburgh. He had never been
led from the right way; and when the less virtuously inclined among the