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Phytochemicals
Nutrient–Gene Interactions
Phytochemicals
Nutrient–Gene Interactions
Edited by
Mark S. Meskin
Wayne R. Bidlack
R. Keith Randolph

Boca Raton London New York

A CRC title, part of the Taylor & Francis imprint, a member of the
Taylor & Francis Group, the academic division of T&F Informa plc.
Published in 2006 by
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© 2006 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
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International Standard Book Number-10: 0-8493-4180-9 (Hardcover)
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Phytochemicals : nutrient-gene interactions / edited by Mark S. Meskin, Wayne R. Bidlack, R. Keith

Randolph.
p. cm.
Papers presented at the Fifth International Phytochemical Conference, "Phytochemicals:
nutrient-gene interactions", Oct. 18 and 19, 2004, at California State Polytechnic University,
Pomona.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8493-4180-9
1. Nutrition--Genetic aspects--Congresses. 2. Genetic regulation--Congresses. 3. Gene
expression--Congresses. 4. Nutrient interaction--Congresses. 5. Phytochemicals--Congresses. 6.
Physiological genomics--Congresses. I. Meskin, Mark S. II. Bidlack, Wayne R. III. Randolph, R.
Keith. IV. International Phytochemical Conference (5th : 2004 : California State Polytechnic
University, Pomona)

QP144.G45P49 2006
612.3--dc22 2005054916

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 Preface
This is the fifth volume in a series of books that have emerged from five international
phytochemical conferences held over the past decade at California State Polytechnic
University, Pomona. The invited lectures at these conferences have ranged over a
wide variety of phytochemical-related topics including discussions of a broad range
of potentially important individual plant-based chemicals. The driving force behind
these phytochemical conferences has been to promote authoritative scientific
research to support the widespread renewed interest in phytochemicals and health
that emerged in the 1990s, to identify gaps in the phytochemical knowledge base,
to explore methodologies for screening and testing phytochemicals for efficacy and
safety, to encourage pharmacokinetic studies of phytochemicals, and to look at the
mechanisms of action of phytochemicals. The previous four volumes reflect the
direction of phytochemical research during the past ten years and highlight the key
phytochemicals and phytochemical classes that have shown promise in the promotion
of health and the prevention of disease. The four volumes include Phytochemicals:
A New Paradigm (1998), Phytochemicals as Bioactive Agents (2000), Phytochemi-
cals in Nutrition and Health (2002), and Phytochemicals: Mechanisms of Action
(2004).
The emphasis and direction of phytochemical research has shifted in the years
since this series of international phytochemical conferences was initiated in 1996.
Interest in phytochemicals has grown exponentially during the past few years as
evidenced by the creation of research centers, the proliferation of newsletters, jour-
nals and books, and the many conferences and symposia that are now held on an
annual basis. In order to maintain the relevance and value of the biannual conferences
held at California State Polytechnic University Pomona, the organizers took a more
focused approach to designing and planning the most recent conference. The previ-
ous conferences were quite eclectic. There was an identified theme but there were
typically a number of diverse topics covered in order to keep abreast of all the
important trends in phytochemical research.
The conference organizing committee decided that a critical direction for phy-
tochemical research is the understanding of interactions between the wide variety
of plant-based chemicals and genes. It was decided that the 2004 conference would
focus primarily on phytochemical–gene interactions and the potential implications
of those interactions for phytochemcial research, health care and research and devel-
opment in the food and pharmaceutical/supplement industries. The study of nutri-
ent–gene interactions is not new but research in this area is exploding with the
completion of the human genome project and the availability of new screening
technologies (see Chapter 3). There is significant epidemiological evidence (see
Chapters 9 and 11) demonstrating that diets rich in fruits, vegetables, and whole
grains can decrease the risk of chronic degenerative diseases. However, each person
will respond to dietary components in a unique and individual way depending on
his or her own genetic constitution. Understanding the interactions between phy-
tochemicals and genes will begin to help deliver on the promise of truly individu-
alized therapies tailored to one’s genetic makeup. Such individualized care opens
the door to the development of a wide range of new phytochemical-based therapeutic
products.
The Fifth International Phytochemical Conference, “Phytochemicals: Nutri-
ent–Gene Interactions,” took place on October 18 and 19, 2004. The papers discussed
at the conference, in expanded and updated form, are presented in this book. This
book will be of value to both those who are relatively unfamiliar with the fields of
nutrigenomics and nutrigenetics as well as those who want a current overview and
update of these fields of research. Interactions between dietary factors and genes are
explored in most of the chapters. These diet–gene interactions are discussed in the
context of inflammation (Chapters 1, 4, 6, 10 and 12), cardiovascular and coronary
heart disease (Chapters 2, 5, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12), obesity (Chapters 3, 6, 7 and 11),
type II diabetes mellitus (Chapters 3 and 11) and cancer (Chapters 10, 11 and 12).
This book will appeal to nutrition researchers and nutritionists, food scientists and
food technologists, pharmacists, botanists, and other allied health professionals who
are interested in the opportunities created by an understanding of phytochemi-
cal–gene interactions.
In Chapter 1, Kornman and Fogarty define and describe nutrigenomics, nutrige-
netics and pharmacogenetics. Inflammation, a critical component of atherosclerotic
heart disease, is used as one example of how nutrigenomics can be applied in a way
that will both individualize and improve treatment of disease. These authors point
out that in the past nutrients were “first appreciated for their value as a fuel source,”
then as co-factors, and now “it is known that certain nutrients selectively alter gene
expression through transcription factor systems that regulate the activation of specific
sets of genes.” Four mechanisms are offered for the nutrient effects on gene expres-
sion. Knowledge of nutrigenomics presents both opportunities and challenges for
the development of therapeutic products. Kornman and Fogarty address the technical
and ethical issues facing the development of phytochemical and nutritional products.
Ordovas points out in Chapter 2 that the current approach to preventive medicine
is centered on blanket dietary recommendations such as the Dietary Guidelines for
Americans or what he calls a “one-size-fits-all” approach. While this approach has
seen some success, it clearly fails to take into account the well known individual
variation in response to dietary interventions. This chapter examines “how genetic
variations identified in samples from large population-based studies are beginning
to provide hints about gene–diet and gene–environment interactions.” The studies
described by Ordovas have found significant interactions between factors in the diet,
genetic variants and different markers of cardiovascular disease. With this type of
information in hand it is beginning to be possible to identify individuals who may
respond more favorably to one recommendation rather than another. In order to take
advantage of this new information, phytochemical product development will require
a solid grounding in nutrigenetics and nutrigenomics.
Chapters 3 and 4 discuss experimental methodologies. In Chapter 3, Kaput points
out that “identifying genes regulated by diet and involved in chronic diseases is
challenging because of the complexity of food and the genetic heterogeneity of
humans.” In his chapter, Kaput describes an experimental strategy that “identifies
genes regulated by diet, genotype, and genotype X diet interactions.” Utilizing this
strategy, Kaput and his colleagues were able to identify 29 murine genes regulated
by diet, genotype, or genotype X diet that map to diabetic Quantitative Trait Loci
(QTL). The identified genes are likely to be associated with the development of type
II diabetes mellitus in obese yellow mice. Clearly such studies need to be followed
up in humans. However, it is also clear that a time will come when genetic testing
will identify individuals who are likely to respond to specific diets or dietary com-
ponents. In that future, Kaput notes “food companies may develop new markets and
novel foods are likely to evolve in tandem with the ability to identify genotypes.”
Regulations in the United States do not require dietary supplements, including
phytochemical supplements, to be evaluated for safety and efficacy prior to market-
ing. In Chapter 4 Lemay makes a strong case that controlled clinical trials in the
dietary supplement field are a necessary part of the product development process
and are ultimately beneficial to supplement manufacturers. He describes a method-
ological approach that progresses from in vivo to ex vivo testing, followed by clinical
evaluation. To demonstrate the first two steps in the process, Lemay reports on the
results of a study that found that a hops extract dietary supplement exerted ex vivo
Cox-2 inhibition comparable to that of a known pain-reliever. This is an important
finding because Cox-2 selectivity might suggest an improved safety profile. Clinical
evaluation of the extract will still be required to prove its effectiveness compared to
other anti-inflammatory agents. Kornman comments in Chapter 1 that the lack of
regulation of dietary supplements combined with the substantial pseudo-science
being promoted to the consumer today can “poison the well” for science-based
commercial products. In light of these comments, it is refreshing to read the recom-
mendations of Lemay.
Interest in resveratrol, the major compound of the stilbene phytoestrogens found
in grape skins, has been high ever since the French Paradox was described and
moderate red wine consumption was hypothesized to provide antioxidant protection
to consumers of high fat diets. Chapters in two previous volumes (Chapter 4 in
Phytochemicals in Nutrition and Health, 2002; and, Chapter 9 in Phytochemicals:
Mechanisms of Action, 2004) discussed the role of resveratrol in the prevention of
cardiovascular disease. In light of the focus of the current volume on diet–gene
interactions, the organizers thought it was important to revisit resveratrol, and discuss
it in the context of lipid peroxidation and gene expression. In Chapter 5, Kutuk,
Telci and Basaga indicate that “oxidatively modified low-density lipoproteins and
end products of lipid peroxidation have all been shown to affect cellular processes
by modulation of signal transduction pathways hence effecting the nuclear transcrip-
tion of genes.” In their review they discuss the molecular mechanisms that underlie
resveratrol activity “with special focus on its effect on signaling cascades mediated
by oxidized lipids and their breakdown products.”
As indicated in Chapters 6 and 7, the worldwide prevalence of obesity and related
disorders is reaching epidemic proportions and is increasing unabated. The phy-
tochemical conference organizing committee realized the importance and complexity
of this issue and invited two researchers to address the role of genes in the patho-
genesis of obesity. Kern discusses adipose tissue gene expression in the context of
inflammation and obesity in Chapter 6. One of his most interesting observations
involves human evolution and the location of adipose tissue depots in the body.
“Modern humans still have the genome of a hunter-gatherer, trapped in a body
designed for a struggle against famine, infectious diseases and the threats from the
elements. These Paleolithic threats seldom emerge, and the new threat is the result
of the hunter-gatherer genome faced with an overabundant food supply and no need
for physical activity.” Pérusse echoes this theme in Chapter 7 where he places the
obesity epidemic in the context of “a changing environment characterized by a
progressive reduction in physical activity and the abundance of highly palatable
foods. These changes in our lifestyle occurred over a period of time that is too short
to cause changes in the frequencies of genes associated with obesity, which suggests
that genes interacting with diet and other components of the modern lifestyle are
important in determining an individual’s susceptibility to obesity.” Pérusse reviews
gene–environment interactions in obesity and the implications of these interactions
for the prevention and treatment of obesity.
The theme of the human genome incapable of evolving at a rate that could keep
up with the breathtaking changes in the environment over the past 10,000 years
since the introduction of agriculture and animal husbandry continues in Chapter 8
with a discussion of saturated fat consumption in ancestral diets and Chapter 10
which discusses the radical shift in the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids from
pre-agricultural diets to modern Western diets. Cordain presents very provocative
data in Chapter 8 that suggest the normal dietary intake of saturated fatty acids in
our ancestral diet fell in the range of 10 to 15% of total energy, higher than current
dietary recommendations of less than 10% of total energy. Based on these data
Cordain claims that there is no genetic or evolutionary foundation for recommending
such low levels of saturated fat intake and that we have insufficient data on the
effects of long term low saturated fat intake. Simopoulos presents data in Chapter
10 that suggest Western diets are deficient in omega-3 fatty acids and too high in
omega-6 fatty acids. She proposes that this imbalance contributes to cardiovascular
disease, cancer, inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. In her chapter, Simopoulos
discusses the influence of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids on the expression of
genes involved in lipogenesis, glycolysis, inflammation, early gene expression, and
vascular cell adhesion molecules.
Chapter 9 provides some of the background evidence suggesting a role for
phytochemicals in health promotion and disease prevention. In this chapter Hu
reviews and summarizes epidemiological research on plant-based foods and dietary
patterns and concludes that there is substantial evidence “that healthy plant-based
diets—those with adequate omega-3 fatty acids, that are rich in unsaturated fats,
whole grains, fruits and vegetables—can, and should play an important part in the
prevention of cardiovascular disease and other chronic diseases.”
Slavin gives a comprehensive overview of the research on whole grains and
chronic disease in Chapter 11. The protective components of grains are found in the
germ and bran and include dietary fiber, starch, fat, antioxidant nutrients, minerals,
vitamins, lignans and phenolic compounds. Consumption of the compounds in whole
grains has been linked to reductions in risk of coronary heart disease, cancer,
diabetes, obesity and other chronic diseases. Slavin makes a case for pursuing the
mechanisms of protective action for these components of whole grains which might
include phytonutrient-gene interactions.
 Vitamin E is a popular topic in books on phytochemicals but these books typically
focus on the antioxidant properties of vitamin E. Zingg and Azzi discuss the molecular
activities of vitamin E in the final chapter, Chapter 12. What is unique about this
chapter is that it focuses on the non-antioxidant cellular properties of vitamin E. In
this comprehensive discussion, Zingg and Azzi cover the natural and synthetic vitamin
E analogues, their occurrence in foods, plasma and tissue concentrations, uptake and
distribution and finally the molecular action of vitamin E including the modulation of
enzymatic activity and the modulation of gene expression. There are strong indications
that each natural and synthetic vitamin E analogue can have a specific biological effect,
often not associated with its antioxidant activity. The non-antioxidant activities might
explain some of the health-promoting effects of vitamin E.
It is our hope that this volume will stimulate further interest and research in
nutrigenomics and nutigenetics. A new understanding of phytochemical–gene inter-
actions offers great potential for illuminating how diets rich in fruits, vegetables,
and whole grains can decrease the risk of chronic degenerative diseases. The idea
of a more individualized approach to dietary advice based on genotype is no longer
science fiction. Safe and effective phytochemical products, based on genomics, can
be developed responsibly based on real science.

Mark S. Meskin
 Acknowledgments
The editors and authors wish to thank the Nutrilite Health Institute, Access Business
Group, for its support of the 2004 Fifth International Phytochemical Conference,
Phytochemicals: Nutrient–Gene Interactions, held in partnership with the Depart-
ment of Human Nutrition and Food Science, College of Agriculture at the California
State Polytechnic University, Pomona, October 18 and 19, 2004. The research
presented at that conference contributed to the publication of this volume.
The editors would like to thank Susan B. Lee for all her support and constant
encouragement of this project. We would also like to thank the editorial staff mem-
bers at Taylor & Francis for their patience and excellent work, especially Marsha
Hecht and David Fausel.
 Editors
Mark S. Meskin, Ph.D., R.D., is professor and director of the Didactic Program in
Dietetics in the Department of Human Nutrition and Food Science, College of
Agriculture, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. Dr. Meskin has been
at Cal Poly Pomona since 1996.
Dr. Meskin received his Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology from the Uni-
versity of California, Los Angeles (1976), his master of science degree in food and
nutritional sciences from California State University, Northridge (1983), and his
Ph.D. degree in pharmacology and nutrition from the University of Southern Cali-
fornia, School of Medicine (1990). In addition, he was a postdoctoral fellow in
cancer research at the Kenneth Norris Jr. Cancer Hospital and Research Institute,
Los Angeles (1990–1992). He received his academic appointment at the University
of Southern California, School of Medicine (1992) and served as assistant professor
of cell and neurobiology and director of the nutrition education programs
(1992–1996). While at the University of Southern California, School of Medicine,
he created, developed, directed, and taught in the master’s degree program in nutri-
tion science. Dr. Meskin has also served as a faculty member of the Department of
Family Environmental Sciences at California State University, Northridge and the
Human Nutrition Program at the University of New Haven, Connecticut.
Dr. Meskin has been a registered dietitian since 1984 and is also a certified
nutrition specialist (1995). He has been involved with both the local and national
Institute of Food Technologists for over 25 years. He is a past chair of the Southern
California IFT and remains involved in SCIFT. Dr. Meskin has been an active Food
Science Communicator for the national IFT, was a member of the IFT/National
Academy of Sciences Liaison Committee, and has served as a member of the IFT
Expert Panel on Food Safety and Nutrition. He is also involved in several IFT
divisions, including the Nutrition Division, Toxicology and Safety Evaluation Divi-
sion, and the Nutriceuticals and Functional Foods Division.
Dr. Meskin served as a science advisor to the Food, Nutrition and Safety Com-
mittee of the North American branch of the International Life Sciences Institute for
a three-year term (2000–2002). He has been a long-time member of the advisory
board of the Marilyn Magaram Center for Food Science, Nutrition and Dietetics at
California State University, Northridge. Dr. Meskin was involved with the Southern
California Food Industry Conference for many years as an organizer, chair, moder-
ator, and speaker. He has also been a member of the Medical Advisory Board of the
Celiac Disease Foundation.
Dr. Meskin is regularly invited to speak to a wide variety of groups and has
written for several newsletters. He has been a consultant for food companies, phar-
maceutical companies, HMOs, and legal firms. He is a member of many professional
and scientific societies including the American Dietetic Association, the American
Society for Nutrition, the American College of Nutrition, the American Council on
Science and Health, the Institute of Food Technologists, and the National Council
for Reliable Health Information.
 He has several major areas of research interest including: (1) hepatic drug
metabolism and the effects of nutritional factors on drug metabolism and clearance;
nutrient–drug interactions; (2) the role of bioactive non-nutrients (phytochemicals,
herbs, botanicals, nutritional supplements) in disease prevention and health promo-
tion; (3) fetal pharmacology and fetal nutrition, maternal nutrition, and pediatric
nutrition; (4) nutrition education; (5) the development of educational programs for
improving science literacy and combating health fraud.
Dr. Meskin has co-edited four books on phytochemical research including:
Phytochemicals: A New Paradigm (1998), Phytochemicals as Bioactive Agents
(2000), Phytochemicals in Nutrition and Health (2002), and Phytochemicals: Mech-
anisms of Action (2004).
Dr. Meskin is a member of numerous honor societies including Phi Beta Kappa,
Pi Gamma Mu, Phi Kappa Phi, Omicron Nu, Omicron Delta Kappa, Phi Upsilon
Omicron, Gamma Sigma Delta, and Sigma Xi. He was elected a fellow of the
American College of Nutrition in 1993 and was certified as a charter fellow of the
American Dietetic Association in 1995. He received the Teacher of the Year Award
in the College of Agriculture in 1999, the Advisor of the Year Award in the College
of Agriculture in 2002, and the Advisor of the Year Award from Gamma Sigma Delta
in 2004.

Wayne R. Bidlack, Ph.D., is dean of the College of Agriculture, at California State

Polytechnic University, Pomona, and is professor with return rights in both the
Department of Animal and Veterinary Science and the Department of Human Nutri-
tion and Food Science.
Dr. Bidlack received his bachelor of science degree in dairy science and tech-
nology from the Pennsylvania State University (1966), his master of science degree
from Iowa State University (1968), and his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University
of California, Davis (1972). In addition, he was a postdoctoral fellow in pharmacol-
ogy at USC School of Medicine (1972–1974). He received his academic appointment
at the University of Southern California (1974), served as assistant dean of medical
student affairs (1988–1991), and served as professor and interim chair of pharma-
cology and nutrition (1992). Dr. Bidlack has also served as chairman and professor
of food science and human nutrition, and as director of the Center for Designing
Foods to Improve Nutrition at Iowa State University in Ames, from 1992 to 1995.
Dr. Bidlack has been a professional member of the Institute of Food Technolo-
gists for more than 20 years. He has served as a member of the annual program
committee and has served as a member of both the Expert Panel on Nutrition and
Food Safety and the Scientific Lectureship Committee, and as a scientific lecturer.
He served as program chairman and chairman of the IFT Toxicology and Safety
Evaluation Division (1989–1990) and has served as a member of the executive
committee for both the TaSE Division and the Nutrition Division. He has served as
editor of the TaSE newsletter. For the Southern California Section of IFT, Dr. Bidlack
has served as councilor, chairman of the scholarship committee, program chairman
and chairman of the section (1988–1989). He has also served as regional commu-
nicator for IFT in Southern California. Dr. Bidlack was elected a fellow of IFT in
June 1998 and elected as counselor representative to the IFT executive committee.
Another Random Scribd Document
with Unrelated Content
FORS CLAVIGERA.
 LETTER XXXI.
Of the four great English tale-tellers whose dynasties have set or risen
within my own memory—Miss Edgeworth, Scott, Dickens, and Thackeray
—I find myself greatly at pause in conjecturing, however dimly, what
essential good has been effected by them, though they all had the best
intentions. Of the essential mischief done by them, there is, unhappily, no
doubt whatever. Miss Edgeworth made her morality so impertinent that,
since her time, it has only been with fear and trembling that any good
novelist has ventured to show the slightest bias in favour of the Ten
Commandments. Scott made his romance so ridiculous, that, since his day,
one can’t help fancying helmets were always pasteboard, and horses were
always hobby. Dickens made everybody laugh, or cry, so that they could not
go about their business till they had got their faces in wrinkles; and
Thackeray settled like a meatfly on whatever one had got for dinner, and
made one sick of it.

That, on the other hand, at least Miss Edgeworth and Scott have indeed
some inevitable influence for good, I am the more disposed to think,
because nobody now will read them. Dickens is said to have made people
good-natured. If he did, I wonder what sort of natures they had before!
Thackeray is similarly asserted to have chastised and repressed
flunkeydom,—which it greatly puzzles me to hear, because, as far as I can
see, there isn’t a carriage now left in all the Row with anybody sitting inside
it: the people who ought to have been in it are, every one, hanging on
behind the carriage in front.

What good these writers have done, is therefore, to me, I repeat, extremely
doubtful. But what good Scott has in him to do, I find no words full enough
to tell. His ideal of honour in men and women is inbred, indisputable; fresh
as the air of his mountains; firm as their rocks. His conception of purity in
woman is even higher than Dante’s; his reverence for the filial relation, as
deep as Virgil’s; his sympathy universal;—there is no rank or condition of
men of which he has not shown the loveliest aspect; his code of moral
principle is entirely defined, yet taught with a reserved subtlety like
Nature’s own, so that none but the most earnest readers perceive the
intention: and his opinions on all practical subjects are final; the
consummate decisions of accurate and inevitable common sense, tempered
by the most graceful kindness.

That he had the one weakness—I will not call it fault—of desiring to
possess more and more of the actual soil of the land which was so rich to
his imagination, and so dear to his pride; and that, by this postern-gate of
idolatry, entered other taints of folly and fault, punished by supreme misery,
and atoned for by a generosity and solemn courage more admirable than the
unsullied wisdom of his happier days, I have ceased to lament: for all these
things make him only the more perfect to us as an example, because he is
not exempt from common failings, and has his appointed portion in
common pain.

I said we were to learn from him the true relations of Master and Servant;
and learning these, there is little left for us to learn; but, on every subject of
immediate and vital interest to us, we shall find, as we study his life and
words, that both are as authoritative as they are clear. Of his impartiality of
judgment, I think it is enough, once for all, to bid you observe that, though
himself, by all inherited disposition and accidental circumstances,
prejudiced in favour of the Stewart cause, the aristocratic character, and the
Catholic religion,—the only perfectly noble character in his first novel is
that of a Hanoverian colonel,1 and the most exquisitely finished and heroic
character in all his novels, that of a Presbyterian milkmaid.

But before I press any of his opinions—or I ought rather to say, knowledges
—upon you, I must try to give you some idea of his own temper and life.
His temper, I say; the mixture of clay, and the fineness of it, out of which
the Potter made him; and of his life, what the power of the Third Fors had
been upon it, before his own hands could make or mar his fortune, at the
turn of tide. I shall do this merely by abstracting and collating (with
comment) some passages out of Lockhart’s life of him; and adding any
elucidatory pieces which Lockhart refers to, or which I can find myself, in
his own works, so that you may be able to read them easily together. And
observe, I am not writing, or attempting to write, another life of Scott; but
only putting together bits of Lockhart’s life in the order which my side-
notes on the pages indicate for my own reading; and I shall use Lockhart’s
words, or my own, indifferently, and without the plague of inverted
commas. Therefore, if anything is wrong in my statement, Lockhart is not
answerable for it; but my own work in the business will nevertheless be
little more than what the French call putting dots on the i’s, and adding such
notes as may be needful for our present thought.

Sir Walter was born on the 15th August, 1771, in a house belonging to his
father, at the head of the College Wynd, Edinburgh. The house was pulled
down to make room for the northern front of the New College; and the wise
people of Edinburgh then built, for I don’t know how many thousand
pounds, a small vulgar Gothic steeple on the ground, and called it the “Scott
Monument.” There seems, however, to have been more reason than usual
for the destruction of the College Wynd, for Scott was the first survivor of
seven children born in it to his father, and appears to have been saved only
by the removal to the house in George’s Square,2 which his father always
afterwards occupied; and by being also sent soon afterwards into the open
country. He was of purest Border race—seventh in descent from Wat of
Harden and the Flower of Yarrow. Here are his six ancestors, from the
sixteenth century, in order:—

1. Walter Scott (Auld Wat) of Harden.

2. Sir William Scott of Harden.
3. Walter Scott of Raeburn.
4. Walter Scott, Tutor of Raeburn.
5. Robert Scott of Sandy-Knowe.
6. Walter Scott, citizen of Edinburgh.

I will note briefly what is important respecting each of these.

i. Wat of Harden. Harden means ‘the ravine of hares.’ It is a glen down

which a little brook flows to join the river Borthwick, itself a tributary of
the Teviot, six miles west of Hawick, and just opposite Branxholm. So long
as Sir Walter retained his vigorous habits, he made a yearly pilgrimage to it,
with whatever friend happened to be his guest at the time.3

Wat’s wife, Mary, the Flower of Yarrow, is said to have chiefly owed her
celebrity to the love of an English captive,—a beautiful child whom she had
rescued from the tender mercies4 of Wat’s moss-troopers, on their return
from a Cumberland foray. The youth grew up under her protection, and is
believed to have written both the words and music of many of the best
songs of the Border.5

This story is evidently the germ of that of the ‘Lay of the last Minstrel,’
only the captivity is there of a Scottish boy to the English. The lines
describing Wat of Harden are in the 4th canto,—

“Marauding chief; his sole delight

The moonlight raid, the morning fight.
Not even the Flower of Yarrow’s charms,
In youth, might tame his rage for arms;
And still in age he spurned at rest,
And still his brows the helmet pressed,
Albeit the blanchèd locks below
Were white as Dinlay’s spotless snow.”6

With these, read also the answer of the lady of Branksome, 23rd and 24th
stanzas,—

“ ‘Say to your lords of high emprize,

Who war on women and on boys,—
For the young heir of Branksome’s line,
God be his aid; and God be mine:
Through me no friend shall meet his doom;
Here, while I live, no foe finds room.’

Proud she looked round, applause to claim;

Then lightened Thirlstane’s eye of flame;
His bugle Watt of Harden blew.
 Pensils7 and pennons wide were flung,
To heaven the Border slogan rung,
‘St. Mary, for the young Buccleugh.’ ”

Let us stop here to consider what good there may be in all this for us. The
last line, “St. Mary for the young Buccleugh,” probably sounds absurd
enough to you. You have nothing whatever to do, you think, with either of
these personages. You don’t care for any St. Mary; and still less for any,
either young or old, Buccleugh?

Well, I’m sorry for you:—but if you don’t care for St. Mary, the wife of
Joseph, do you care at all for St. Mary-Anne, the wife of Joe? Have you any
faith in the holiness of your own wives, who are here, in flesh and blood? or
do you verily wish them, as Mr. Mill8 would have it—sacrifice all pretence
to saintship, as to holy days—to follow “some more lucrative occupation
than that of nursing the baby”? And you don’t care for the young
Buccleugh? Cut away the cleugh, then, and read the Buc backwards. Do
you care for your own cub as much as Sir Walter would have cared for his
own beast? (see, farther on, how he takes care of his wire-haired terrier,
Spice,) or as any beast cares for its cub? Or do you send your poor little brat
to make money for you, like your wife; as though a cock should send his
hen and chickens to pick up what they could for him; and it were the usual
law of nature that nestlings should feed the parent birds? If that be your way
of liberal modern life, believe me, the Border faith in its Mary and its
master, however servile, was not benighted in comparison.

But the Border morals? “Marauding chief, whose sole delight,” etc. Just
look for the passages indicated under the word ‘theft’ in my fine new index
to the first two volumes of ‘Fors.’ I will come back to this point: for the
present, in order to get it more clearly into your minds, remember that the
Flower of Yarrow was the chieftainess to whom the invention of serving the
empty dish with two spurs in it, for hint to her husband that he must ride for
his next dinner, is first ascribed. Also, for comparison of the English
customs of the same time, read this little bit of a letter of Lord
Northumberland’s to Henry VIII. in 1533.9
“Please it your most gracious Highness to be advertised that my
comptroller, with Raynold Carnaby, desired licence of me to invade the
realm of Scotland, to the annoyance of your Highness’s enemies, and so
they did meet upon Monday before night, at Warhope, upon North Tyne
water, to the number of 1500 men: and so invaded Scotland, at the hour of
eight of the clock at night, and actively did set upon a town10 called
Branxholm, where the Lord of Buccleugh dwelleth, albeit that knight he
was not at home. And so they burnt the said Branxholm, and other towns,
and had ordered themselves so that sundry of the said Lord Buccleugh’s
servants, who did issue forth of his gates, were taken prisoners. They did
not leave one house, one stack of corn, nor one sheaf without the gate of the
said Lord Buccleugh unburnt; and so in the breaking of the day receded
homeward. And thus, thanks be to God, your Highness’s subjects, about the
hour of twelve of the clock the same day, came into this, your Highness’s
realm, bringing with them above forty Scotsmen prisoners, one of them
named Scott, of the surname and kin of the said Lord of Buccleugh. And of
his household they brought also three hundred nowte” (cattle), “and above
sixty horses and mares, keeping in safety from loss or hurt all your said
Highness’s subjects.”

They had met the evening before on the North Tyne, under Carter Fell; (you
will find the place partly marked as “Plashett’s coal-fields” in modern
atlases;) rode and marched their twenty miles to Branxholm; busied
themselves there, as we hear, till dawn, and so back thirty miles down
Liddesdale,—a fifty miles’ ride and walk altogether, all finished before
twelve on Tuesday: besides what pillaging and burning had to be done.

Now, but one more point is to be noticed, and we will get on with our
genealogy.

After this bit of the Earl’s letter, you will better understand the speech of the
Lady of Buccleugh, defending her castle in the absence of her lord, and
with her boy taken prisoner. And now look back to my 25th letter, for I
want you not to forget Alice of Salisbury. King Edward’s first sight of her
was just after she had held her castle exactly in this way, against a raid of
the Scots in Lord Salisbury’s absence. Edward rode night and day to help
her; and the Scots besiegers, breaking up at his approach, this is what
follows, which you may receive on Froissart’s telling as the vital and
effectual truth of the matter. A modern English critic will indeed always and
instantly extinguish this vital truth; there is in it something inherently
detestable to him; thus the editor of Johnes’ Froissart prefaces this very
story with “the romance—for it is nothing more.” Now the labyrinth of
Crete, and the labyrinth of Woodstock, are indeed out of sight; and of a real
Ariadne or Rosamond, a blockhead might be excused for doubting; but St.
George’s Chapel at Windsor—(or Winde-Rose, as Froissart prettily
transposes it, like Adriane for Ariadne) is a very visible piece of romance;
and the stones of it were laid, and the blue riband which your queen wears
on her breast is fastened, to this day, by the hand of Alice of Salisbury.

“So the King came at noon; and angry he was to find the Scots gone; for he
had come in such haste that all his people and horses were dead-tired and
toiled. So every one went to rest; and the King, as soon as he was disarmed,
took ten or twelve knights with him, and went towards the castle to salute
the Countess, and see how the defence had been made. So soon as the Lady
of Salisbury knew of the King’s coming, she made all the gates be opened,”
(inmost and outmost at once,) “and came out, so richly dressed that every
one was wonderstruck at her, and no one could cease looking at her, nor
from receiving, as if they had been her mirrors, the reflection of her great
nobleness, and her great beauty, and her gracious speaking and bearing
herself. When she came to the King, she bowed down to the earth, over
against him, in thanking him for his help, and brought him to the castle, to
delight him and honour him—as she who well knew how to do it. Every
one looked at her, even to amazement, and the King himself could not stop
looking at her, for it seemed to him that in the world never was lady who
was so much to be loved as she. So they went hand in hand into the castle,
and the Lady led him first into the great hall, and then into her own
chamber, (what the French now call a pouting-room, but the ladies of that
day either smiled or frowned, but did not pout,) which was nobly furnished,
as befitted such lady. And always the King looked at the gentle Lady, so
hard that she became all ashamed. When he had looked at her a long while,
he went away to a window, to lean upon it, and began to think deeply. The
Lady went to cheer the other knights and squires; then ordered the dinner to
be got ready, and the room to be dressed. When she had devised all, and
commanded her people what seemed good to her, she returned with a
gladsome face before the King,”—in whose presence we must leave her yet
awhile, having other matters to attend to.

So much for Wat of Harden’s life then, and his wife’s. We shall get a little
faster on with the genealogy after this fair start.

ii. Sir William Scott of Harden.

Wat’s eldest son; distinguished by the early favour of James VI.

In his youth, engaging in a foray on the lands of Sir Gideon Murray of

Elibank, and being taken prisoner, Murray offers him choice between being
hanged, or marrying the plainest of his daughters. The contract of marriage,
written on the parchment of a drum, is still in possession of the family of
Harden.11

This is Lockhart’s reading of the circumstances, and I give his own

statement of them in the note below. But his assumption of the extreme
plainness of the young lady, and of the absolute worldly-mindedness of the
mother, are both examples of the modern manner of reading traditions, out
of which some amusement may be gathered by looking only at them on the
grotesque side, and interpreting that grotesqueness ungenerously. There
may, indeed, be farther ground than Lockhart has thought it worth while to
state for his colour of the facts; but all that can be justly gathered from those
he has told is that, Sir Gideon having determined the death of his
troublesome neighbour, Lady Murray interfered to save his life; and could
not more forcibly touch her husband’s purpose than by reminding him that
hostility might be better ended in alliance than in death.

The sincere and careful affection which Sir William of Harden afterwards
shows to all his children by the Maid of Elibank, and his naming one of
them after her father, induce me still farther to trust in the fairer reading of
the tradition. I should, indeed, have been disposed to attach some weight,
on the side of the vulgar story, to the curiously religious tendencies in Sir
William’s children, which seem to point to some condition of feeling in the
mother, arising out of despised life. Women are made nobly religious by the
possession of extreme beauty, and morbidly so by distressed consciousness
of the want of it; but there is no reason for insisting on this probability,
since both the Christian and surname of Sir Gideon Murray point to his
connection with the party in Scotland which was at this time made strong in
battle by religious faith, and melancholy in peace by religious passion.

iii. Walter Scott, first Laird of Raeburn; third son of Sir William and this
enforced bride of Elibank. They had four sons altogether; the eldest,
William, becomes the second Sir William of Harden; their father settled the
lands of Raeburn upon Walter; and of Highchester on his second son,
Gideon, named, after the rough father-in-law, of Elibank.

Now about this time (1657), George Fox comes into Scotland; boasting that
“as he first set his feet upon Scottish ground he felt the seed of grace to
sparkle about him like innumerable sparks of fire.” And he forthwith
succeeds in making Quakers of Gideon, Walter, and Walter’s wife. This is
too much for Sir William of Harden, the eldest brother, who not only
remains a staunch Jacobite, but obtains order from the Privy Council of
Scotland to imprison his brother and brother’s wife; that they may hold no
further converse with Quakers, and also to “separate and take away their
children, being two sons and a daughter, from their family and education,
and to breed them in some convenient place.” Which is accordingly done;
and poor Walter, who had found pleasantly conversible Quakers in the
Tolbooth of Edinburgh, is sent to Jedburgh, with strict orders to the
Jedburgh magistrates to keep Quakers out of his way. The children are sent
to an orthodox school by Sir William; and of the daughter I find nothing
further; but the two sons both became good scholars, and were so
effectually cured of Quakerism, that the elder (I don’t find his Christian
name), just as he came of age, was killed in a duel with Pringle of Crichton,
fought with swords in a field near Selkirk—ever since called, from the
Raeburn’s death, “the Raeburn meadow-spot;”—and the younger, Walter,
who then became “Tutor of Raeburn,” i.e., guardian to his infant nephew,
intrigued in the cause of the exiled Stewarts till he had lost all he had in the
world—ran a narrow risk of being hanged—was saved by the interference
of Anne, Duchess of Buccleugh—founded a Jacobite club in Edinburgh, in
which the conversation is said to have been maintained in Latin—and wore
his beard unclipped to his dying day, vowing no razor should pass on it until
the return of the Stewarts, whence he held his Border name of “Beardie.”

It is only when we remember how often this history must have dwelt on Sir
Walter’s mind that we can understand the tender subtlety of design with
which he has completed, even in the weary time of his declining life, the
almost eventless story of ‘Redgauntlet,’ and given, as we shall presently
see, in connection with it, the most complete, though disguised, portion of
his own biography.

iv. Beardie. I find no details of Beardie’s life given by Scott, but he was
living at Leasudden when his landlord, Scott of Harden,12 living at Mertoun
House, addressed to him the lines given in the note to the introduction to the
sixth canto of ‘Marmion,’ in which Scott himself partly adopts the verses,
writing from Mertoun House to Richard Heber.

“For course of blood, our proverbs dream,

Is warmer than the mountain stream.
And thus my Christmas still I hold
Where my great-grandsire came of old,13
‘With amber beard and flaxen hair,
And reverend apostolic air,
The feast and holytide to share,
And mix sobriety with wine,
And honest mirth with thoughts divine.’
Small thought was his, in after-time,
E’er to be hitched into a rhyme.
The simple sire could only boast
That he was loyal to his cost,
The banished race of kings revered,
And lost his land—but kept his beard,—”

“a mark of attachment,” Scott adds in his note, “which I suppose had been
common during Cromwell’s usurpation; for in Cowley’s ‘Cutter of Coleman
Street’ one drunken cavalier upbraids another that when he was not able to
pay a barber, he affected to ‘wear a beard for the King.’ ”

Observe, here, that you must always be on your guard, in reading Scott’s
notes or private letters, against his way of kindly laughing at what he
honours more deeply than he likes to confess. The house in which Beardie
died was still standing when Sir Walter wrote his autobiography, (1808), at
the north-east entrance of the churchyard of Kelso.

He left three sons. Any that remain of the family of the elder are long since
settled in America (male heirs extinct). James Scott, well known in India as
one of the original settlers of Prince of Wales Island, was a son of the
youngest, who died at Lasswade, in Midlothian (first mention of Scott’s
Lasswade).

But of the second son, Scott’s grandfather, we have to learn much.

v. Robert Scott of Sandy-Knowe, second son of Beardie. I cannot shorten

Scott’s own account of the circumstances which determined his choice of
life.

“My grandfather was originally bred to the sea, but being shipwrecked near
Dundee in his trial voyage, he took such a sincere dislike to that element,
that he could not be persuaded to a second attempt. This occasioned a
quarrel between him and his father, who left him to shift for himself. Robert
was one of those active spirits to whom this was no misfortune. He turned
Whig upon the spot, and fairly abjured his father’s politics and his learned
poverty. His chief and relative, Mr. Scott of Harden, gave him a lease of the
farm of Sandy-Knowe, comprehending the rocks in the centre of which
Smailholm or Sandy-Knowe Tower is situated. He took for his shepherd an
old man called Hogg, who willingly lent him, out of respect to his family,
his whole savings, about £30, to stock the new farm. With this sum, which
it seems was at the time sufficient for the purpose, the master and servant14
set off to purchase a stock of sheep at Whitsun-tryste, a fair held on a hill
near Wooler, in Northumberland. The old shepherd went carefully from
drove to drove, till he found a hirsel likely to answer their purpose, and then
returned to tell his master to come up and conclude the bargain. But what
was his surprise to see him galloping a mettled hunter about the race-
course, and to find he had expended the whole stock in this extraordinary
purchase! Moses’ bargain of green spectacles did not strike more dismay
into the Vicar of Wakefield’s family than my grandfather’s rashness into the
poor old shepherd. The thing, however, was irretrievable, and they returned
without the sheep. In the course of a few days, however, my grandfather,
who was one of the best horsemen of his time, attended John Scott of
Harden’s hounds on this same horse, and displayed him to such advantage
that he sold him for double the original price. The farm was now stocked in
earnest, and the rest of my grandfather’s career was that of successful
industry. He was one of the first who were active in the cattle trade,
afterwards carried to such an extent between the Highlands of Scotland and
the leading counties in England, and by his droving transactions acquired a
considerable sum of money. He was a man of middle stature, extremely
active, quick, keen, and fiery in his temper, stubbornly honest, and so
distinguished for his skill in country matters that he was the general referee
in all points of dispute which occurred in the neighbourhood. His birth
being admitted as gentle, gave him access to the best society in the county,
and his dexterity in country sports, particularly hunting, made him an
acceptable companion in the field as well as at the table.”

Thus, then, between Auld Wat of Harden, and Scott’s grandfather, we have
four generations, numbering approximately a hundred and fifty years, from
1580 to 1730,15 and in that time we have the great change in national
manners from stealing cattle to breeding and selling them, which at first
might seem a change in the way of gradually increasing honesty. But
observe that this first cattle-dealer of our line is “stubbornly honest,” a
quality which it would be unsafe to calculate upon in any dealer of our own
days.

Do you suppose, then, that this honesty was a sudden and momentary virtue
—a lightning flash of probity between the two darknesses of Auld Wat’s
thieving and modern cozening?
Not so. That open thieving had no dishonesty in it whatsoever. Far the
contrary. Of all conceivable ways of getting a living, except by actual
digging of the ground, this is precisely the honestest. All other gentlemanly
professions but this have taint of dishonesty in them. Even the best—the
physician’s—involves temptation to many forms of cozening. How many
second-rate mediciners have lived, think you, on prescriptions of bread pills
and rose-coloured water?—how many, even of leading physicians, owe all
their success to skill unaided by pretence? Of clergymen, how many preach
wholly what they know to be true without fear of their congregations? Of
lawyers, of authors, of painters, what need we speak? These all, so far as
they try to please the mob for their living, are true cozeners,—unsound in
the very heart’s core. But Wat of Harden, setting my farm on fire, and
driving off my cattle, is no rogue. An enemy, yes, and a spoiler; but no more
a rogue than the rock eagles. And Robert the first cattle-dealer’s honesty is
directly inherited from his race, and notable as a virtue, not in opposition to
their character, but to ours. For men become dishonest by occult trade, not
by open rapine.

There are, nevertheless, some very definite faults in our pastoral Robert of
Sandy-Knowe, which Sir Walter himself inherits and recognizes in his own
temper, and which were in him severely punished. Of the rash investment of
the poor shepherd’s fortune, we shall presently hear what Sir Walter
thought. Robert’s graver fault, the turning Whig to displease his father, is
especially to be remembered in connection with Sir Walter’s frequent
warnings against the sacrifice to momentary passion of what ought to be the
fixed principles of youth. It has not been enough noticed that the design of
his first and greatest story is to exhibit and reprehend, while it tenderly
indicates the many grounds for forgiving, the change of political temper
under circumstances of personal irritation.

But in the virtues of Robert Scott, far outnumbering his failings, and above
all in this absolute honesty and his contentment in the joy of country life, all
the noblest roots of his grandson’s character found their happy hold.

Note every syllable of the description of him given in the introduction to the
third canto of ‘Marmion:’
 “Still, with vain fondness, could I trace
Anew each kind familiar face
That brightened at our evening fire;
From the thatched mansion’s grey-haired sire,
Wise without learning, plain, and good,
And sprung of Scotland’s gentler blood;
Whose eye in age, quick, clear, and keen,
Showed what in youth its glance had been;
Whose doom discording neighbours sought,
Content with equity unbought,
To him, the venerable priest,
Our frequent and familiar guest.”

Note, I say, every word of this. The faces “brightened at the evening
fire,”—not a patent stove; fancy the difference in effect on the imagination,
in the dark long nights of a Scottish winter, between the flickering shadows
of firelight, and utter gloom of a room warmed by a close stove!

“The thatched mansion’s.”—The coolest roof in summer, warmest in

winter. Among the various mischievous things done in France, apparently
by the orders of Napoleon III., but in reality by the foolish nation uttering
itself through his passive voice, (he being all his days only a feeble Pan’s
pipe, or Charon’s boatswain’s whistle, instead of a true king,) the
substitution of tiles for thatch on the cottages of Picardy was one of the
most barbarous. It was to prevent fire, forsooth! and all the while the poor
peasants could not afford candles, except to drip about over their church
floors. See above, 6, 17.

“Wise without learning.”—By no means able, this Border rider, to state how
many different arrangements may be made of the letters in the word
Chillianwallah. He contrived to exist, and educate his grandson to come to
something, without that information.

“Plain, and good.”—Consider the value there is in that virtue of plainness—

legibility, shall we say?—in the letters of character. A clear-printed man,
readable at a glance. There are such things as illuminated letters of
character also,—beautifully unreadable; but this legibility in the head of a
family is greatly precious.

“And sprung of Scotland’s gentler blood.”—I am not sure if this is merely

an ordinary expression of family pride, or whether, which I rather think,
Scott means to mark distinctly the literal gentleness and softening of
character in his grandfather, and in the Lowland Scottish shepherd of his
day, as opposed to the still fiery temper of the Highland clans—the blood
being equally pure, but the race altogether softer and more Saxon. Even
Auld Wat was fair-haired, and Beardie has “amber beard and flaxen hair.”

“Whose doom discording neighbours sought,

Content with equity unbought.”—

Here you have the exactly right and wise condition of the legal profession.

All good judging, and all good preaching, must be given gratis. Look back
to what I have incidentally said of lawyers and clergy, as professional—that
is to say, as living by their judgment, and sermons. You will perhaps now be
able to receive my conclusive statement, that all such professional sale of
justice and mercy is a deadly sin. A man may sell the work of his hands, but
not his equity, nor his piety. Let him live by his spade; and if his neighbours
find him wise enough to decide a dispute between them, or if he is in
modesty and simplicity able to give them a piece of pious advice, let him do
so, in Heaven’s name, but not take a fee for it.

Finally, Robert Scott is a cattle-dealer, yet a gentleman, giving us the exact

balance of right between the pride which refuses a simple employment, and
the baseness which makes that simple employment disgraceful, because
dishonest. Being wholly upright, he can sell cattle, yet not disgrace his
lineage. We shall return presently to his house; but must first complete, so
as to get our range of view within due limits, the sketch of the entire
ancestral line.

vi. Walter Scott, of George’s Square, Edinburgh, Scott’s father, born 1729.
He was the eldest son of Robert of Sandy-Knowe, and had three brothers
and a sister, namely, Captain Robert Scott, in East India Service; Thomas
Scott, cattle-dealer, following his father’s business; a younger brother who
died early, (also) in East India Service; and the sister Janet, whose part in
Scott’s education was no less constant, and perhaps more influential, than
even his mother’s. Scott’s regard for one of his Indian uncles, and his regret
for the other’s death, are both traceable in the development of the character
of Colonel Mannering; but of his uncle Thomas, and his aunt Jessie, there is
much more to be learned and thought on.

The cattle-dealer followed his father’s business prosperously; was twice

married—first to Miss Raeburn, and then to Miss Rutherford of Knowsouth
—and retired, in his old age, upon a handsome independence. Lockhart,
visiting him with Sir Walter, two years before the old man’s death, (he
being then eighty-eight years old,) thus describes him:

“I thought him about the most venerable figure I had ever set my eyes on,—
tall and erect, with long flowing tresses of the most silvery whiteness, and
stockings rolled up over his knees, after the fashion of three generations
back. He sat reading his Bible without spectacles, and did not, for a
moment, perceive that any one had entered his room; but on recognizing his
nephew he rose with cordial alacrity, kissing him on both cheeks, and
exclaiming, ‘God bless thee, Walter, my man; thou hast risen to be great,
but thou wast always good.’ His remarks were lively and sagacious, and
delivered with a touch of that humour which seems to have been shared by
most of the family. He had the air and manners of an ancient gentleman,
and must in his day have been eminently handsome.”

Next read Sir Walter Scott’s entry made in his copy of the Haliburton
Memorials:—

“The said Thomas Scott died at Monklaw, near Jedburgh, at two of the
clock, 27th January, 1823, in the 90th year of his life, and fully possessed of
all his faculties. He read till nearly the year before his death; and being a
great musician on the Scotch pipes, had, when on his deathbed, a favourite
tune played over to him by his son James, that he might be sure he left him
in full possession of it. After hearing it, he hummed it over himself, and
corrected it in several of the notes. The air was that called ‘Sour Plums in
Galashiels.’ When barks and other tonics were given him during his last
illness, he privately spat them into his handkerchief, saying, as he had lived
all his life without taking doctors’ drugs, he wished to die without doing
so.”

No occasion whatever for deathbed repentances, you perceive, on the part

of this old gentleman; no particular care even for the disposition of his
handsome independence; but here is a bequest of which one must see one’s
son in full possession—here is a thing to be well looked after, before setting
out for heaven, that the tune of “Sour Plums in Galashiels” may still be
played on earth in an incorrupt manner, and no damnable French or English
variations intruded upon the solemn and authentic melody thereof. His
views on the subject of Materia Medica are also greatly to be respected.

“I saw more than once,” Lockhart goes on, “this respectable man’s sister
(Scott’s aunt Janet), who had married her cousin Walter, Laird of Raeburn,
thus adding a new link to the closeness of the family connection. She also
must have been, in her youth, remarkable for personal attractions; as it was,
she dwells on my memory as the perfect picture of an old Scotch lady, with
a great deal of simple dignity in her bearing, but with the softest eye and the
sweetest voice, and a charm of meekness and gentleness about every look
and expression. She spoke her native language pure and undiluted, but
without the slightest tincture of that vulgarity which now seems almost
unavoidable in the oral use of a dialect so long banished from courts, and
which has not been avoided by any modern writer who has ventured to
introduce it, with the exception of Scott, and I may add, speaking generally,
of Burns. Lady Raeburn, as she was universally styled, may be numbered
with those friends of early days whom her nephew has alluded to in one of
his prefaces as preserving what we may fancy to have been the old Scotch
of Holyrood.”

To this aunt, to his grandmother, his mother, and to the noble and most wise
Rector of the High School of Edinburgh, Dr. Adam, Scott owed the
essential part of his “education,” which began in this manner. At eighteen
months old his lameness came on, from sudden cold, bad air, and other such
causes. His mother’s father, Dr. Rutherford, advised sending him to the
country; he is sent to his grandfather’s at Sandy-Knowe, where he first
becomes conscious of life, and where his grandmother and aunt Janet
beautifully instruct, but partly spoil him. When he is eight years old, he
returns to, and remains in, his father’s house at George’s Square. And now
note the following sentence:—

“I felt the change from being a single indulged brat, to becoming a member
of a large family, very severely; for under the gentle government of my kind
grandmother, who was meekness itself, and of my aunt, who, though of a
higher temper, was exceedingly attached to me, I had acquired a degree of
license which could not be permitted in a large family. I had sense enough,
however, to bend my temper to my new circumstances; but such was the
agony which I internally experienced, that I have guarded against nothing
more, in the education of my own family, than against their acquiring habits
of self-willed caprice and domination.”

The indulgence, however, no less than the subsequent discipline, had been
indeed altogether wholesome for the boy, he being of the noble temper
which is the better for having its way. The essential virtue of the training he
had in his grandfather’s and father’s house, and his aunt Jessie’s at Kelso, I
will trace further in next letter.

1 Colonel Talbot, in ‘Waverley;’ I need not, surely, name the other:—note only that, in
speaking of heroism, I never admit into the field of comparison the merely stage-ideals of
impossible virtue and fortune—(Ivanhoe, Sir Kenneth, and the like)—but only persons
whom Scott meant to be real. Observe also that with Scott, as with Titian, you must often
expect the most tender pieces of completion in subordinate characters. ↑
2 I beg my readers to observe that I never flinch from stating a fact that tells against me.
This George’s Square is in that New Town of Edinburgh which I said, in the first of these
letters, I should like to destroy to the ground. ↑
3 Lockhart’s Life, 8vo. Edinburgh: Cadell, 1837. Vol. i. p. 65. In my following foot-
notes I shall only give volume and page—the book being understood. ↑
4 i. 67. What sort of tender mercies were to be expected? ↑
5 His name unknown, according to Leyden, is perhaps discoverable; but what songs?
Though composed by an Englishman, have they the special character of Scottish music? ↑
6 Dinlay;—where? ↑
7 Pensil, a flag hanging down—‘pensile.’ Pennon, a stiff flag sustained by a cross arm,
like the broad part of a weathercock. Properly, it is the stiff-set feather of an arrow.
“Ny autres riens qui d’or ne fust
Fors que les pennons, et le fust.”

‘Romance of the Rose,’ of Love’s arrows: Chaucer translates,

“For all was gold, men might see,
Out-take the feathers and the tree.”

8 People would not have me speak any more harm of Mr. Mill, because he’s dead, I
suppose? Dead or alive, all’s one to me, with mischievous persons; but alas! how very
grievously all’s two to me, when they are helpful and noble ones. ↑
9 Out of the first of Scott’s notes to the Lay, but the note is so long that careless readers
are sure to miss the points; also I give modern spelling for greater ease. ↑
10 A walled group of houses: tynen, Saxon, to shut in (Johnson). ↑
11 i. 68. “The indignant laird was on the point of desiring his prisoner to say a last
prayer, when his more considerate dame interposed milder counsels, suggesting that the
culprit was born to a good estate, and that they had three unmarried daughters. Young
Harden, it is said, not without hesitation, agreed to save his life by taking the plainest of the
three off their hands.” ↑
12 Eldest son, or grandson, of Sir William Scott of Harden, the second in our
genealogy. ↑
13 Came, by invitation from his landlord, Scott of Harden. ↑
14 Here, you see, our subject begins to purpose! ↑
15 I give the round numbers for better remembering. Wat of Harden married the Flower
of Yarrow in 1567; Robert of Sandy-Knowe married Barbara Haliburton in 1728. ↑
FORS CLAVIGERA.
 LETTER XXXII.
I do not know how far I shall be able in this letter to carry you forward in
the story of Scott’s life; let me first, therefore, map its divisions clearly; for
then, wherever we have to stop, we can return to our point in fit time.

First, note these three great divisions—essentially those of all men’s lives,
but singularly separate in his,—the days of youth, of labour, and of death.

Youth is properly the forming time—that in which a man makes himself, or

is made, what he is for ever to be. Then comes the time of labour, when,
having become the best he can be, he does the best he can do. Then the time
of death, which, in happy lives, is very short: but always a time. The ceasing
to breathe is only the end of death.

Scott records the beginning of his own in the following entry in his diary,
which reviews the life then virtually ended:—

“December 18th, 1825.1—What a life mine has been!—half educated,

almost wholly neglected, or left to myself; stuffing my head with most
nonsensical trash, and undervalued by most of my companions for a time;
getting forward, and held a bold, clever fellow, contrary to the opinion of all
who thought me a mere dreamer; broken-hearted for two years; my heart
handsomely pieced again, but the crack will remain till my dying day. Rich
and poor four or five times: once on the verge of ruin, yet opened a new
source of wealth almost overflowing. Now to be broken in my pitch of
pride.2…

“Nobody in the end can lose a penny by me; that is one comfort. Men will
think pride has had a fall. Let them indulge in their own pride in thinking
that my fall will make them higher, or seem so at least. I have the
satisfaction to recollect that my prosperity has been of advantage to many,
and to hope that some at least will forgive my transient wealth on account
of the innocence of my intentions, and my real wish to do good to the poor.
Sad hearts, too, at Darnick, and in the cottages of Abbotsford. I have half
resolved never to see the place again. How could I tread my hall with such a
diminished crest?—how live a poor, indebted man, where I was once the
wealthy, the honoured? I was to have gone there on Saturday, in joy and
prosperity, to receive my friends. My dogs will wait for me in vain. It is
foolish, but the thoughts of parting from these dumb creatures have moved
me more than any of the painful reflections I have put down. Poor things, I
must get them kind masters! There may be yet those who, loving me, may
love my dog because it has been mine. I must end these gloomy
forebodings, or I shall lose the tone of mind with which men should meet
distress. I feel my dogs’ feet on my knees; I hear them whining, and seeking
me everywhere.”

He was fifty-four on the 15th August of that year, and spoke his last words
—“God bless you all,”—on the 21st September, 1832: so ending seven
years of death.

His youth, like the youth of all the greatest men, had been long, and rich in
peace, and altogether accumulative and crescent. I count it to end with that
pain which you see he remembers to his dying day, given him by—Lilias
Redgauntlet, in October, 1796. Whereon he sets himself to his work, which
goes on nobly for thirty years, lapping over a little into the death-time3
(‘Woodstock’ showing scarcely a trace of diminution of power).

Count, therefore, thus:—

Youth, twenty-five years 1771–1796.

Labour-time, thirty years 1796–1826.
Death-time, seven years 1825–1832.

The great period of mid-life is again divided exactly in the midst by the
change of temper which made him accurate instead of fantastic in
delineation, and therefore habitually write in prose rather than verse. The
‘Lady of the Lake’ is his last poem, (1810). ‘Rokeby,’ (1812) is a versified
novel; the ‘Lord of the Isles’ is not so much. The steady legal and historical
work of 1810–1814, issuing in the ‘Essay on Scottish Judicature,’ and the
‘Life of Swift,’ with preparation for his long-cherished purpose of an
edition and ‘Life of Pope,’4 (“the true deacon of the craft,” as Scott often
called him,) confirmed, while they restrained and chastised, his imaginative
power; and ‘Waverley,’ (begun in 1805) was completed in 1814. The
apparently unproductive year of accurate study, 1811, divides the thirty
years of mid-life in the precise centre, giving fifteen to song, and fifteen to
history.

You may be surprised at my speaking of the novels as history. But Scott’s

final estimate of his own work, given in 1830, is a perfectly sincere and
perfectly just one; (received, of course, with the allowance I have warned
you always to make for his manner of reserve in expressing deep feelings).
“He replied5 that in what he had done for Scotland as a writer, he was no
more entitled to the merit which had been ascribed to him than the servant
who scours the brasses to the credit of having made them; that he had
perhaps been a good housemaid to Scotland, and given the country a
‘rubbing up;’ and in so doing might have deserved some praise for
assiduity, and that was all.” Distinguish, however, yourselves, and
remember that Scott always tacitly distinguishes, between the industry
which deserves praise, and the love which disdains it. You do not praise Old
Mortality for his love to his people; you praise him for his patience over a
bit of moss in a troublesome corner. Scott is the Old Mortality, not of tables
of stone, but of the fleshly tables of the heart.

We address ourselves to-day, then, to begin the analysis of the influences

upon him during the first period of twenty-five years, during which he built
and filled the treasure-house of his own heart. But this time of youth I must
again map out in minor detail, that we may grasp it clearly.

1. From birth to three years old. In Edinburgh, a sickly child; permanent

lameness contracted, 1771–1774.

2. Three years old to four. Recovers health at Sandy-Knowe. The dawn of

conscious life, 1774–1775.
3. Four years old to five. At Bath, with his aunt, passing through London on
the way to it. Learns to read, and much besides, 1775–1776.

4. Five years old to eight. At Sandy-Knowe. Pastoral life in its perfectness

forming his character: (an important though short interval at Prestonpans
begins his interest in sea-shore), 1776–1779.

5. Eight years old to twelve. School life, under the Rector Adams, at High
School of Edinburgh, with his aunt Janet to receive him at Kelso, 1779–
1783.

6. Twelve years old to fifteen. College life, broken by illness, his uncle
Robert taking good care of him at Rosebank, 1783–1786.

7. Fifteen to twenty-five. Apprenticeship to his father, and law practice

entered on. Study of human life, and of various literature in Edinburgh. His
first fee of any importance expended on a silver taper-stand for his mother.
1786–1796.

You have thus ‘seven ages’ of his youth to examine, one by one; and this
convenient number really comes out without the least forcing; for the
virtual, though not formal, apprenticeship to his father—happiest of states
for a good son—continues through all the time of his legal practice. I only
feel a little compunction at crowding the Prestonpans time together with the
second Sandy-Knowe time; but the former is too short to be made a period,
though of infinite importance to Scott’s life. Hear how he writes of it,6
revisiting the place fifty years afterwards:—

“I knew the house of Mr. Warroch, where we lived,” (see where the name of
the Point of Warroch in ‘Guy Mannering’ comes from!) “I recollected my
juvenile ideas of dignity attendant on the large gate, a black arch which lets
out upon the sea. I saw the Links where I arranged my shells upon the turf,
and swam my little skiff in the pools. Many recollections of my kind aunt—
of old George Constable—of Dalgetty” (you know that name also, don’t
you?), “a virtuous half-pay lieutenant, who swaggered his solitary walk on
the parade, as he called a little open space before the same port.” (Before
the black arch, Scott means, not the harbour.) And he falls in love also
there, first—“as children love.”

And now we can begin to count the rosary of his youth, bead by bead.

1st period—From birth to three years old.

I have hitherto said nothing to you of his father or mother, nor shall I yet,
except to bid you observe that they had been thirteen years married when
Scott was born; and that his mother was the daughter of a physician, Dr.
Rutherford, who had been educated under Boerhaave. This fact might be
carelessly passed by you in reading Lockhart; but if you will take the pains
to look through Johnson’s life of Boerhaave, you will see how perfectly
pure and beautiful and strong every influence was, which, from whatever
distance, touched the early life of Scott. I quote a sentence or two from
Johnson’s closing account of Dr. Rutherford’s master:—

“There was in his air and motion something rough and artless, but so
majestic and great at the same time, that no man ever looked upon him
without veneration, and a kind of tacit submission to the superiority of his
genius. The vigour and activity of his mind sparkled visibly in his eyes, nor
was it ever observed that any change of his fortune, or alteration in his
affairs, whether happy or unfortunate, affected his countenance.

“His greatest pleasure was to retire to his house in the country, where he
had a garden stored with all the herbs and trees which the climate would
bear; here he used to enjoy his hours unmolested, and prosecute his studies
without interruption.”7

The school of medicine in Edinburgh owed its rise to this man, and it was
by his pupil Dr. Rutherford’s advice, as we saw, that the infant Walter’s life
was saved. His mother could not nurse him, and his first nurse had
consumption. To this, and the close air of the wynd, must be attributed the
strength of the childish fever which took away the use of the right limb
when he was eighteen months old. How many of your own children die,
think you, or are wasted with sickness, from the same causes, in our
increasing cities? Scott’s lameness, however, we shall find, was, in the end,
like every other condition of his appointed existence, helpful to him.

A letter from my dear friend Dr. John Brown,8 corrects (to my great delight)
a mistake about George’s Square I made in my last letter. It is not in the
New Town, but in what was then a meadow district, sloping to the south
from old Edinburgh; and the air of it would be almost as healthy for the
child as that of the open country. But the change to George’s Square, though
it checked the illness, did not restore the use of the limb; the boy wanted
exercise as well as air, and Dr. Rutherford sent him to his other
grandfather’s farm.

II. 1774—1775. The first year at Sandy-Knowe. In this year, note first his
new nurse. The child had a maid sent with him to prevent his being an
inconvenience to the family. This maid had left her heart behind her in
Edinburgh (ill trusted),9 and went mad in the solitude;—“tempted by the
devil,” she told Alison Wilson, the housekeeper, “to kill the child and bury
it in the moss.”

“Alison instantly took possession of my person,” says Scott. And there is no

more said of Alison in the autobiography.

But what the old farm-housekeeper must have been to the child, is told in
the most finished piece of all the beautiful story of ‘Old Mortality.’ Among
his many beautifully invented names, here is one not invented—very dear
to him.

“ ‘I wish to speak an instant with one Alison Wilson, who resides here,’ said
Henry.

“ ‘She’s no at hame the day,’ answered Mrs. Wilson in propriâ personâ—the

state of whose headdress perhaps inspired her with this direct mode of
denying herself—‘and ye are but a mislear’d person to speer for her in sic a
manner. Ye might have had an M under your belt for Mistress Wilson of
Milnwood.’ ” Read on, if you forget it, to the end, that third chapter of the
last volume of ‘Old Mortality.’ The story of such return to the home of
childhood has been told often; but never, so far as I have knowledge, so
exquisitely. I do not doubt that Elphin’s name is from Sandy-Knowe also;
but cannot trace it.

Secondly, note his grandfathers’ medical treatment of him; for both his
grandfathers were physicians,—Dr. Rutherford, as we have seen, so
professed, by whose advice he is sent to Sandy-Knowe. There, his cattle-
dealing grandfather, true physician by diploma of Nature, orders him,
whenever the day is fine, to be carried out and laid down beside the old
shepherd among the crags or rocks around which he fed his sheep. “The
impatience of a child soon inclined me to struggle with my infirmity, and I
began by degrees to stand, to walk, and to run. Although the limb affected
was much shrunk and contracted, my general health, which was of more
importance, was much strengthened by being frequently in the open air;
and, in a word, I, who in a city had probably been condemned to hopeless
and helpless decrepitude, (italics mine,) was now a healthy, high-spirited,
and, my lameness apart, a sturdy child,—non sine dîs animosus infans.”

This, then, is the beginning of Scott’s conscious existence,—laid down

beside the old shepherd, among the rocks, and among the sheep. “He
delighted to roll about in the grass all day long in the midst of the flock, and
the sort of fellowship he formed with the sheep and lambs impressed his
mind with a degree of affectionate feeling towards them which lasted
throughout life.”10

Such cradle, and such companionship, Heaven gives its favourite children.

In 1837, two of the then maid-servants of Sandy-Knowe were still living in

its neighbourhood; one of them, “Tibby Hunter, remembered the child
Scott’s coming, well. The young ewe-milkers delighted, she says, to carry
him about on their backs among the crags; and he was ‘very gleg (quick) at
the uptak, and soon kenned every sheep and lamb by head-mark as well as
any of them.’ His great pleasure, however, was in the society of the ‘aged
hind’ recorded in the epistle to Erskine. ‘Auld Sandy Ormistoun,’ called,
from the most dignified part of his function, ‘the cow-bailie,’ had the chief
superintendence of the flocks that browsed upon ‘the velvet tufts of
loveliest green.’ If the child saw him in the morning, he could not be
satisfied unless the old man would set him astride on his shoulder, and take
him to keep him company, as he lay watching his charge.

“The cow-bailie blew a particular note on his whistle which signified to the
maid-servants in the house below when the little boy wished to be carried
home again.”

“Every sheep and lamb by head-mark;”—that is our first lesson; not an easy
one, you will find it, if you try the flock of such a farm. Only yesterday
(12th July, 1873,) I saw the dairy of one half filled with the ‘berry-bread’
(large flat-baked cakes enclosing layers of gooseberries) prepared by its
mistress for her shearers;—the flock being some six or seven hundred, on
Coniston Fells.

That is our first lesson, then, very utterly learned ‘by heart.’ This is our
second, (marginal note on Sir Walter’s copy of Allan Ramsay’s Tea-table
Miscellany, ed. 1724): “This book belonged to my grandfather, Robert
Scott, and out of it I was taught ‘Hardiknute’ by heart before I could read
the ballad myself. It was the first poem I ever learnt, the last I shall ever
forget.”11 He repeated a great part of it, in the forests of La Cava, in the
spring of the year in which he died; and above the lake Avernus, a piece of
the song of the ewe-milkers:—

“Up the craggy mountain, and down the mossy glen,

We canna’ go a-milking, for Charlie and his men.”

These I say, then, are to be your first lessons. The love, and care, of simplest
living creatures; and the remembrance and honour of the dead, with the
workmanship for them of fair tombs of song.

The Border district of Scotland was at this time, of all districts of the
inhabited world, pre-eminently the singing country,—that which most
naturally expressed its noble thoughts and passions in song.

The easily traceable reasons for this character are, I think, the following;
(many exist, of course, untraceably).
First, distinctly pastoral life, giving the kind of leisure which, in all ages
and countries, solaces itself with simple music, if other circumstances are
favourable,—that is to say, if the summer air is mild enough to allow
repose, and the race has imagination enough to give motive to verse.

The Scottish Lowland air is, in summer, of exquisite clearness and softness,
—the heat never so great as to destroy energy, and the shepherd’s labour not
severe enough to occupy wholly either mind or body. A Swiss herd may
have to climb a hot ravine for thousands of feet, or cross a difficult piece of
ice, to rescue a lamb, or lead his flock to an isolated pasture. But the
borderer’s sheep-path on the heath is, to his strong frame, utterly without
labour or danger; he is free-hearted and free-footed all the summer day
long; in winter darkness and snow finding yet enough to make him grave
and stout of heart.

Secondly, the soldier’s life, passing gradually, not in cowardice or under

foreign conquest, but by his own increasing kindness and sense, into that of
the shepherd; thus, without humiliation, leaving the war-wounded past to be
recalled for its sorrow and its fame.

Thirdly, the extreme sadness of that past itself: giving pathos and awe to all
the imagery and power of Nature.

Fourthly, (this a merely physical cause, yet a very notable one,) the beauty
of the sound of Scottish streams.

I know no other waters to be compared with them;—such streams can only

exist under very subtle concurrence of rock and climate. There must be
much soft rain, not (habitually) tearing the hills down with floods; and the
rocks must break irregularly and jaggedly. Our English Yorkshire shales and
limestones merely form—carpenter-like—tables and shelves for the rivers
to drip and leap from; while the Cumberland and Welsh rocks break too
boldly, and lose the multiplied chords of musical sound. Farther, the
loosely-breaking rock must contain hard pebbles, to give the level shore of
white shingle, through which the brown water may stray wide, in rippling
threads. The fords even of English rivers have given the names to half our
prettiest towns and villages;—(the difference between ford and bridge
curiously—if one may let one’s fancy loose for a moment—characterizing
the difference between the baptism of literature, and the edification of
mathematics, in our two great universities);—but the pure crystal of the
Scottish pebbles,12 giving the stream its gradations of amber to the edge,
and the sound as of “ravishing division to the lute,” make the Scottish fords
the happiest pieces of all one’s day walk. “The farmhouse itself was small
and poor, with a common kailyard on one flank, and a staring barn of the
doctor’s (‘Douglas’) erection on the other; while in front appeared a filthy
pond, covered with ducks and duckweed,13 from which the whole tenement
had derived the unharmonious designation of ‘Clarty Hole.’ But the Tweed
was everything to him: a beautiful river, flowing broad and bright over a
bed of milk-white pebbles, unless where, here and there, it darkened into a
deep pool, overhung as yet only by the birches and alders which had
survived the statelier growth of the primitive forest; and the first hour that
he took possession he claimed for his farm the name of the adjoining
ford.”14 With the murmur, whisper, and low fall of these streamlets,
unmatched for mystery and sweetness, we must remember also the variable,
but seldom wild, thrilling of the wind among the recesses of the glens; and,
not least, the need of relief from the monotony of occupations involving
some rhythmic measure of the beat of foot or hand, during the long
evenings at the hearth-side.

In the rude lines describing such passing of hours quoted by Scott in his
introduction to the ‘Border Minstrelsy,’15 you find the grandmother
spinning, with her stool next the hearth,—“for she was old, and saw right
dimly” (fire-light, observe, all that was needed even then;) “she spins to
make a web of good Scots linen,” (can you show such now, from your
Glasgow mills?) The father is pulling hemp (or beating it). The only really
beautiful piece of song which I heard at Verona, during several months’ stay
there in 1869, was the low chant of girls unwinding the cocoons of the
silkworm, in the cottages among the olive-clad hills on the north of the city.
Never any in the streets of it;—there, only insane shrieks of Republican
populace, or senseless dance-music, played by operatic-military bands.
And one of the most curious points connected with the study of Border-life
is this connection of its power of song either with its industry or human
love, but never with the religious passion of its “Independent” mind. The
definite subject of the piper or minstrel being always war or love, (peasant
love as much honoured as the proudest,) his feeling is steadily antagonistic
to Puritanism; and the discordance of Scottish modern psalmody is as
unexampled among civilized nations as the sweetness of their ballads—
shepherds’ or ploughmen’s (the plough and pulpit coming into fatalest
opposition in Ayrshire); so that Wandering Willie must, as a matter of
course, head the troop of Redgauntlet’s riotous fishermen with “Merrily
danced the Quaker’s wife.” And see Wandering Willie’s own description of
his gudesire: “A rambling, rattling chiel he had been, in his young days, and
could play weel on the pipes;—he was famous at ‘Hoopers and Girders;’ a’
Cumberland could not touch him at ‘Jockie Lattin;’ and he had the finest
finger for the back-lilt between Berwick and Carlisle;—the like o’ Steenie
was na the sort they made Whigs o’.” And yet, to this Puritan element, Scott
owed quite one of the most noble conditions of his mental life.

But it is of no use trying to get on to his aunt Janet in this letter, for there is
yet one thing I have to explain to you before I can leave you to meditate, to
purpose, over that sorrowful piece of Scott’s diary with which it began.

If you had before any thoughtful acquaintance with his general character, or
with his writings, but had not studied this close of his life, you cannot but
have read with surprise, in the piece of the diary I quoted, the recurring
sentences showing the deep wounds of his pride. Your impression of him
was, if thoughtfully received, that of a man modest and self-forgetful, even
to error. Yet, very evidently, the bitterest pain under his fallen fortune is felt
by his pride.

Do you fancy the feeling is only by chance so strongly expressed in that

passage?

It is dated 18th December. Now read this:—

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