Encyclopaedia Britannica > Volume 21, ROT-Siam

544
SCOTT
England, and in the next twenty-eight years completed
an almost incredibly large number of new churches and
“ restorations,” the fever for which was fomented by the
Ecclesiological Society and the growth of ecclesiastical
feeling in England.
In 1844 Scott won the first premium in the competition
for the new Lutheran church at Hamburg, a noble building
with a very lofty spire, designed strictly in the style of the
13th century.. In the following year his partnership with
Moffat was dissolved, and in 1847 Scott was employed to
renovate and refit Ely cathedral, the first of a long series
of English cathedral and abbey churches which passed
through his hands. In 1851 Scott visited and studied the
architecture of the chief towns in northern Italy, and in
1855 won the competition for the town-house at Hamburg
designed after the model of similar buildings in north
Germany. In spite of his having won the first prize,
another architect was selected to construct the building’
after a very inferior design. In 1856 a competition was
lield for designs of the new Government offices in London *
Scott obtained the third place in this, but the work was
afterwards given to him on the condition (insisted on by
Lord Palmerston) that he should make a new design, not
Gothic, but Classic or Renaissance in style: This Scott
very unwillingly consented to do, as he had little sympathy
with any styles but those of England or France from the
13th to the 15th century. In 1862-63 he was employed to
design and construct the Albert Memorial, a very costly
and elaborate work, in the style of a magnified 13th-century
reliquary or ciborium, adorned with many statues and re-
liefs in bronze and marble. On the partial completion of
this he received the honour of knighthood. In 1866 he
competed for the new London law-courts, but the prize was
adjudged to his old pupil, G. E. Street. In 1873, owing
to illness caused by overwork, Scott spent some time in
tome and other parts of Italy. The mosaic pavement
which he designed for Durham cathedral soon afterwards
was the result of his study of the 13th-century mosaics in
the old basilicas of Rome. On his return to England he
resumed his professional labours, and continued to work
• i0?toVith0Ut intermission tin his sllort illness and death
m !8/8. He was buried in the nave of Westminster
Abbey, and an engraved brass, designed by G E Street
was placed over his grave. In 1838 Scott married his
cousin, Caroline Oldrid, who died in 1870; they had five
sons, two of whom have taken up their father’s profession
Scott s architectural works were more numerous than those of
unLrSnl Y0 UteCt the ccntury; unfortunately for his fame, he
undertook far more than it was possible for him really to design or
of remb’6 rcf^ ^gllt caf1 He carried out extensive works
ol repair, refurnishing, and restoration in the following buildings •
-the cathedrals of Ely, Hereford, Lichfield, Salisbury” Chichester
Bian30r’ fu Afph’ Chestcr’ Gloucester, Ripon’
\\ mcestei, Exeter, Rochester, the abbeys of Westminster, St Albans
Tewkesbury and countless minor churches. He also built the new
Hud ° ICe3 ^India’ fo/cigib Home, and Colonial), the Mid-
In 1 T11-1? vS aud hote1’ and alarSe number of private
of the rote he1’ bel diUgS; His sty]e was (^th the one exception
of the MiddleT™^ offi<fs) a carefui c°Py °f architectural periods
witbmu nAg i’ •USed ^'lth a Profound knowledge of detail, but
without much leal inventive power, and consequently rather dull
d —^111 effect- As a “restorer ” of ancient buildings he
tino wty f immein.so amount of the most irreparable destruc-
on, but any other architect of Ins generation would probably have
Aca emvToV; ^ While a “embef of theVoya?
tectnrf LS tt 1 1<:! f°r many years the post of professor of archi-
whicb wpr? gam-\l0^ Senis of able iectures on mediaeval styles,
winch were published m 1879. He wrote a work on Domestic
which ^dite^bv b y0lm ief°F Personal and Professional Recollections,
large number J ?■ ?MeSt fn> Was Published in 1879, and also a
iS idtwmvi ntlftafdi,ep10rts 011 lnany of tbe ancient build-
among whom had t0 n 0'V1Og to his numerous pupils,
for some Cme vl, m leadmg architects, his influence was
U + some I1?16 veiy widely spread ; but it is now rapidly passing
away, mainly owing to the growing reaction against tie somowhat
ftTSe^nSr °f "’Mdl lle' ^ “ the0,3r “4 ™
SCOTT, John. See Eldon, Earl of.
SCOTT, Michael. See Scot, Michael
SCOTT, Sir Walter (1771-1832), poet and novelist,
was born at Edinburgh on 15th August 1771. His pedi¬
gree, in which he took a pride that strongly influenced the
course of his life, may be given in the words of his own
fragment of autobiography. “ My birth was neither dis¬
tinguished nor sordid. According to the prejudices of my
country it was esteemed gentle, as I was connected, though
remotely, with ancient families both by my father’s and
mother’s side. My father’s grandfather was Walter Scott
well known by the name of fieardie. He was the second
son of Walter Scott, first laird of Raeburn, who was third
son of Sir William Scott, and the grandson of Walter Scott
commonly called in tradition Auld Watt of Harden. I
am therefore lineally descended from that ancient chief¬
tain, whose name I have made to ring in many a ditty
and fiom his fair dame, the Flower of Yarrow,—no bad
genealogy for a Border minstrel.”
Scott’s desire to be known as a cadet of the house of
Haiden, and his ruling passion—so disastrous in its
ultimate results to found a minor territorial family of
Scotts, have been very variously estimated. He himself,
in a notice of John Home, speaks of pride of family as
natural to a man of imagination,” remarking that, “in
this motley world, the family pride of the north country
has its effects of good and of evil.” Whether the good or
the evil preponderated in Scott’s own case would not be
easy to determine. It tempted him into courses that
ended m commercial ruin; but throughout his life it was
a constant spur to exertion, and in his last years it proved
itself as a working principle capable of inspiring and main¬
taining a. most chivalrous conception of duty. If the
ancient chieftain Auld Watt was, according to the anecdote
told by his illustrious descendant, once reduced in the
matter of live stock to a single cow, and recovered his
dignity by stealing the cows of his English neighbours,
Professor Yeitch is probably right in holding that Scott’s
Border ancestry were, as a matter of literal fact, sheep-
farmers, who varied their occupation by “ lifting ” sheep
and cattle, and whatever else was “neither too heavy
nor too hot.” The Border lairds were really a race of
shepherds in so far as they were not a race of robbers.
Professor Yeitch suggests that Scott may have derived
from this pastoral ancestry an hereditary bias towards the
observation of nature and the enjoyment of open-air life.
He certainly inherited from them the robust strength of
constitution that carried him successfully through so many
exhausting labours. And it was his pride in their real
or supposed feudal dignity and their rough marauding
exploits that first directed him to the study of Border
history and poetry, the basis of his fame as a poet and
romancer. His father, a writer to the signet (or attorney)
in Edinburgh—the original of the elder Fairford in fied-
gauntlet was the first of the family to adopt a town life
or a learned profession. His mother was the daughter of
Dr. Rutherford, a medical professor in the university of
Edinburgh, who also traced descent from the chiefs of
famous Border clans. The ceilings of Abbotsford display
the arms of about a dozen Border families with which
Scott claimed kindred through one side or the other. His
father was conspicuous for methodical and thorough in¬
dustry ; his mother was a woman of imagination and cul¬
ture. The son seems to have inherited the best qualities
of the one and acquired the best qualities of the other.
The details of his early education are given with great
precision in his autobiography. Stuart Mill was not more
minute in recording the various circumstances that shaped