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 seat of his maternal grandfather.  He completely regained his health, although he was always lame.

From the autobiography which Scott began but did not complete, it would appear that his lameness and solitary habits were favorable to reading; that even as a child he was greatly excited by tales and poems of adventure; and that as a youth he devoured everything he could find pertaining to early Scottish poetry and romance, of which he was passionately fond.  He was also peculiarly susceptible to the beauties of Scottish scenery, being thus led to enjoy the country and its sports at a much earlier age than is common with boys,—­which love was never lost, but grew with his advancing years.  Among his fellows he was a hearty player, a forward fighter in boyish “bickers,” and a teller of tales that delighted his comrades.  He was sweet-tempered, merry, generous, and well-beloved, yet peremptory and pertinacious in pursuit of his own ideas.