When the siege of Jotapata was over, and I was among the Romans, I was kept with much care, by means of the great respect that Vespasian showed me.  After being freed from my bonds I went to Alexandria, where I married.  From thence I was sent, together with Titus, to the siege of Jerusalem, and was frequently in danger of being put to death.  For the Jews desired to get me into their power to have me punished, and the Romans, whenever they were beaten, thought it was through my treachery.  But Titus Caesar was well acquainted with the uncertain fortune of war, and returned no answer to the soldiers’ solicitation against me.

When Titus was going away to Rome he made choice of me to sail along with him, and paid me great respect And when we were come to Rome I had great care taken of me by Vespasian, for he gave me an apartment in his own house.

When Vespasian was dead, Titus kept up the same kindness which his father had shown me, and Domitian, who succeeded, still augmented his respects to me; nay, Domitia, the wife of Caesar, continued to show me many kindnesses.

* * * * *

JOHN GIBSON LOCKHART

Life of Sir Walter Scott

John Gibson Lockhart was born in Scotland in 1794.  He received part of his education at Glasgow, part at Oxford, and in 1816 he became an advocate at the Scotch bar.  As one of the chief supporters of Blackwood’s Magazine, he began to exhibit that sharp, bitter wit which was his most salient characteristic.  In 1820 he married the eldest daughter of Sir Walter Scott, and for this reason, perhaps no one has been better qualified to write the biography of the great novelist.  Lockhart’s “Life of Sir Walter Scott” is a biography in the best sense of the word—­one which has been ranked even with Boswell’s “Johnson.”  It reveals to the reader the inmost personality of the man himself, and no life from first to last could better afford such complete revelation.  Moreover, the “Life” was a labour of love, Lockhart himself receiving not a fraction of its very considerable proceeds, but resigning them absolutely to Scott’s creditors.  Published in seven volumes in 1838, in every respect it is the greatest of all Lockhart’s books.  Lockhart died in 1854.

Early Years

Sir Walter Scott was distantly connected with ancient families both on his father’s and his mother’s side.  His father, Walter Scott, a Writer to the Signet in Edinburgh, was a handsome, hospitable, shrewd and religious man, who married, in 1758, Anne, eldest daughter of Dr. John Rutherford, professor of medicine in Edinburgh University.  The Scotts had twelve children, of whom only five survived early youth.

The subject of this biography was born on August 15, 1771, in a house at the head of the College Wynd.  He was a healthy child, but when eighteen months old was affected with a fever which left a permanent lameness in the right leg.  With a view to curing this weakness he was sent to live with his paternal grandfather, at the farm house of Sandy-Knowe near Dryburgh Abbey, in the extreme south of Berwickshire.