HOW TO GET STRONG
Which stood four-square to all the winds that blew!
Such was he whom we deplore.
The long self-sacrifice of life is o'er.
The great World-victor's victor will be seen no more.
Let his great example stand
Colossal, seen of every land,
And keep the soldier firm, the statesman pure;
Till in all lands, and thro' all human story
The path of duty be the way to glory."
SCOTT (1771–1832)
Born at Edinburgh; attended the high-school there; three years at the university, an articled apprentice to his father, and his clerk till twenty-one, then admitted to the Bar; fairly successful; marrying a lady of French birth; made sheriff-deputy of Selkirkshire, with three hundred pounds a year and not much to do; at twenty-five he published a translation of Bürger's ballads, Lenore, and the Wild Huntsman, then a translation of one of Goethe's dramas; then the border minstrelsy, Sir Tristram; and in 1805 The Lay of the Last Minstrel, and "became at a bound the most popular author of his day." During the next ten years, besides a mass of miscellaneous work, he gave to the world Marmion, The Lady of the Lake, The Vision of Don Roderick, Rokeby, The Lord of the Isles, and The Field of Waterloo. Then Waverley in 1814, the first of a new and more splendid series of triumphs. Guy Mannering, The Antiquary, The Black Dwarf, Old Mortality, Rob Roy, and The Heart of Midlothian rapidly followed; and the "Great Unknown," as he was called, became the idol of the hour. He was made a Baronet as a special mark of the royal favor. Financial misfortune led him to redouble his efforts, and he literally wrote for money. He produced upwards of twenty novels in the next ten years, and the strain was terrific. In 1830 he was smitten down with paralysis, from which he never thoroughly rallied. It was hoped that the climate of Italy might benefit him, and the government placed a frigate at his disposal on which to proceed thither. But in Italy he pined for his home. Died at Abbotsford in 1832, and was buried beside his wife in the old abbey of Dryburgh.
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