Encyclopaedia Britannica > Volume 21, ROT-Siam

543
s c o —s c o
Drum¬
mond of
Haw¬
thorn-
den.
Hannay.
Mathe¬
mati¬
cians.
Philo¬
sophers.
Writers
on juris
prud¬
ence.
Medical
writers.
published Poems, amorous, funerall, divine, pastor all (1616),
and Flowers of Zion, or Spiritual Poems (1623). He also
wrote a History of Scotland during the Reigns of the Five
Jameses (1-655), some political tracts, and the Cypress
Grove, a moral treatise in prose. As a writer of sonnets
he has always been highly esteemed. Nearly contemporary
with Drummond was Patrick Hannay, a native of Gallo¬
way, who seems to have followed James to England. He
published his poems in 1622, the principal of which are
Philomela the Nightingale and Sheretrine and Mariana.
He occupies a favourable pbsition amongst the minor
Scottish poets. After the removal of the Scottish court
to London and the union of the crowns in 1603, the old
language began to be considered as a provincial dialect;
and the writers subsequent to Drummond, who was the
first Scottish poet that wrote well in English, take their
places amongst British authors.
To the short sketch above given may be added a notice of the
early Scottish writers on mathematics, philosophy, jurisprudence,
and medicine. In mathematical science the name ot Joannes
Sacro Bosco (John Holywood or Holybush) may be mentioned, as
he is believed to have been a native of Nithsdale and a canon oi
the monastery of Holywood, from which he took his name. He
flourished about the beginning of the 13th century, and his treatise
Be Sphera Mundi was very generally taught in colleges and schools.
The system of astronomy and the other mathematical treatises ot
Janies Bassantie, who taught at Paris about 1560 with much success,
were celebrated in their time. The greatest of the Scottish mathe¬
maticians, however, was John Napier {q.v.) of Merchiston, who
wrote on various kindred subjects, and in 1614 astonished the
world by his discovery of logarithms. In philosophy, besides the
voluminous works of Duns Scotus and John Major already men¬
tioned, various learned commentaries on Aristotle, of which Scottish
philosophy then almost entirely consisted, were published by
Robert Balfour, principal of the college of Guienne; by John Ruther¬
ford, professor of philosophy at St Andrews (under whom Admirable
Crichton was a pupil); and by James Cheyne, professor of philosophy
at Douai. In jurisprudence a celebrated treatise on the Peuaal
Lmv was written by Sir Thomas Craig about 1603. It was not,
however, published till about half a century after his death, as the
printing of any treatise on the law of Scotland while he lived seems
to have°been considered as out of the question. Commentaries on
some of the titles of the Pandects of Justinian, and a treatise Be,
Potestate Papes, (1609), in opposition to the usurpation of temporal
power by the pope, were written by William Barclay, professor oi
law in the university of Angers. Another early legal work was a
treatise On the Connexion between Government. and Religion, by
Adam Blackwood, judge of the parlement of Poitiers, who was the
antagonist of Buchanan and a strenuous defender of Mary queen
of Scots. In medicine the principal early Scottish works were
written by Duncan Liddell, a native of Aberdeen, who m 1605
published at Helmstadt his Disputationes medidnales, containing
the theses or disputations maintained by himself and his pupils
from 1592 to 1606. He also published other works, which contain
an able digest of the medical learning of his age. Henry Blackwood,
dean of faculty to the college of physicians at Paris, wrote various
treatises on medicine, of which a list will be found m Mackenzie s
Lives of the Scottish Writers, but which are now only historically
interesting. . , . (-J' ,''
SCOTT, David (1806-1849), historical painter, was born
at Edinburgh in October 1806, and studied under his father,
Robert Scott, an engraver of repute in the city. For a
time in his youth he occupied himself with the burin;
but he soon turned his attention to original work in colour,
and in 1828 he exhibited his first oil picture, the Hopes of
Early Genius dispelled by Death, which was followed by
Cain, Nimrod, Adam and Eve singing their Morning
Hymn, Sarpedon carried by Sleep and Death, and other
subjects of a poetic and imaginative character. In 1829
he became a member of the Scottish Academy, and in
1832 visited Italy, where he spent more than a year in
study. At Rome he executed a large symbolical painting,
entitled the Agony of Discord, or the Household Gods
Destroyed. On his return to Scotland he continued the
strenuous and unwearied practice of his art; but his pro¬
ductions were too recondite and abstract in subject ever to
become widely popular, while the defects and exaggerations
of their draftsmanship repelled connoisseurs. So the
gravity which had always been characteristic of the artist
passed into gloom; he shrank from society and led a
secluded life, hardly quitting his studio, his mind con¬
stantly occupied with the great problems of life and of
his art. The works of his later years include Vasco da
Gama encountering the Spirit of the Storm, a picture-
immense in size and most powerful in conception finishe
in 1842, and now preserved in the Trinity House, Leith,
the Duke of Gloucester entering the Water Gate of Calais
(1841), an impressive subject, more complete and har-
monious in execution than was usual with the artist; the
Alchemist (1838), Queen Elizabeth at the Globe Theatre
(1840), and Peter the Hermit (1845), remarkable for their
varied and elaborate character-painting ; and Ariel and
Caliban (1837) and the Triumph of Love (1846), distin¬
guished by their beauty of colouring and depth of poetic
feeling. The most important of his religious subjects are
the Descent from the Cross (1835) and the Crucifixion—
the Dead Rising (1844). In addition to his works in
colour Scott executed several remarkable series of designs.
Two of these—the Monograms of Man and the illustra¬
tions to Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner—etched by his
own hand, and published in 1831 and 1837 respectively,
while his subjects from the Pilgrim’s Progress and Nichols
Architecture of the Heavens were issued after his death
Among his literary productions are five elaborate and
thoughtful articles on the characteristics of the Italian
masters, published in Blackwood’s Magazine, 1839 to 1841,
and a pamphlet on British, French, and German Painting,
1841. He died in Edinburgh on the 5th of March l849.
As a colourist David Scott occupies a high place in the
Scottish school, but the most distinctive merit of his works
lies in the boldness of their conception and their imagina¬
tive and poetic power.
See W. B. Scott, Memoir of David Scott, E.S.A. (1850), ami
J. M. Gray, David Scott, B.S.A., and his Works (1884).
SCOTT, Sir George Gilbert (1811-1878), one of the
most successful ecclesiastical architects of the 19th century,
was born in 1811 at Gawcott near Buckingham, where his
father was rector; his grandfather was Thomas Scott
(1747-1821), the well-known commentator on the Bible.
In 1827 young Scott was apprenticed for four years to an
architect in London named Edmeston, and at the end of
his pupildom acted as clerk of the works at the new
Fishmongers’ Hall and other buildings in order to acquire
a knowledge of the practical details of his profession In
Edmeston’s office he became acquainted with a fellow-
pupil, named Moffat, a man who possessed considerable
talents for the purely business part of an architect s work,
and the two entered into partnership. In 1834 they
were appointed architects to the union workhouses of
Buckinghamshire, and for four years were busily occupied
in building a number of cheap and ugly unions, both there
and in Northamptonshire and Lincolnshire. In 1838
Scott built at Lincoln his first church, won in an open
competition, and this was quickly followed by six others,
all very poor buildings without chancels; that was. a
period when church building in England had reached its
very lowest point both in style and in poverty of construc¬
tion. About 1839 his enthusiasm was aroused by some
of the eloquent writings of Pugin on mediseyal architect¬
ure and by the various papers on ecclesiastical subjects
published by the Camden Society. These opened a new
world to Scott, and he thenceforth studied and imitated
the architectural styles and principles of the Middle Ages
with the utmost zeal and patient care. The first result of
this new study was his design for the Martyrs Memorial
at Oxford, erected in 1840, a clever adaptation of the late
13th-century crosses in honour of Queen Eleanor. . From
that time Scott became the chief ecclesiastical architect in