There used to be a tradition at Cambridge to the effect that an undergraduate, being called on in examination to give some account of John the Baptist, returned the answer, 'Little or nothing is known of this extraordinary man,'—a reply which probably did not go far enough to satisfy the examiner. Scarcely more satisfying, however, must be the response of the biographer who is called on to gratify natural curiosity regarding the author of Tom Cringle's Log—scarcely more satisfying, though with apparently so much less of excuse. For it is only a little over sixty years since the death of Michael Scott. Neither was his a case of posthumous reputation, or of rehabilitation after long neglect, which might have accounted for the obscuring of biographical detail—his work, though it has lost nothing of popularity, or certainly of readableness in the interim, having been received with acclamation on its first appearance. And yet, after diligent and eager enquiry, the present writer finds himself forced to acknowledge that all but a meagre outline of the facts of Scott's life is lost. This is the more remarkable in that he was obviously no bookworm or literary recluse, and that all who know his writings will feel instinctively that one so characterised by humour and the love of good company—to say nothing of practical joking—should have strewn anecdote thick behind him wherever he went. But if this was so, his traces have been most effectually expunged. The sort of find which now rewards, or mocks, his would-be biographer is, for example, such a tradition as that which records that he was fond of whisky punch—a solitary survival in the mind of one who remembers him in Glasgow, but a trait which, considering the times and the society in which Scott lived, can scarcely be held as individual. This, however, is not the worst. The writer has reason to believe that the glorious sea masterpiece with which Scott's name is chiefly associated was written, or at least partly written, in a house now belonging to himself—namely, the secluded cottage of Birseslees, situated on the banks of Ale, in Roxburghshire. Such, at least, is the tradition which he received from his father, one constitutionally averse to random statement, who had himself occupied the cottage within ten years of Scott's decease, and who, as an enthusiastic yachtsman, familiar with the West Indies, had special reasons for being interested in his writings. Such testimony—as Mr Mowbray Morris, Scott's biographer, remarks—is at least as good as that on which rest most of the statements regarding his life, and no apology is made for adducing it here. Yet, in despite of this testimony, a careful search, recently conducted among the oldest inhabitants of the neighbourhood, has failed to bring to light any but the vaguest and most uncertain references to the author of the Log. Under these conditions, what is left for a biographer to do? He has no choice but to content himself with a recapitulation of the few facts already current. One person, indeed, there is in whose power it almost certainly lies, by enlightening our ignorance, to gratify our by no means unkindly curiosity; but it is generally understood that, for reasons which we have no right to challenge, and which at least in no wise concern the fair fame of the author, that person's lips are sealed. It therefore now only remains to consider whether the darkness which surrounds Scott's life is the result of intention or of accident, and in support of the former conclusion it may be stated that, among men-of-letters of the time, taking their cue from the author of Waverley, and the practice of Maga, there existed an undoubted taste for mystification; whilst that the younger Scott shared in it is proved by the facts that his true name was never known to his publisher otherwise than by hearsay, and that in his own family circle and that of his immediate acquaintances the identity of Tom Cringle was unknown. One suggestion is that these measures were taken from a prudential point of view, in the interest of his business as a merchant, which might possibly have suffered had it been known to receive but divided attention. But as he avoided publicity in authorship, he may also have chosen to do so in other things. Otherwise, if internal evidence counts for anything, we should certainly suppose him to have been the least self-conscious of men, and one of the last in the world to trouble his head—unless he did it as a joke—as to what might be known, or not known, about himself.

Under existing circumstances, to write the life of Scott is to reproduce the narrative of Mr Mowbray Morris. Born at Cowlairs, near Glasgow, on the 30th October 1789, he was his father's fifth and youngest son. To that father, Allan Scott by name, the estate of Cowlairs had come from an elder brother, Robert, described as a Glasgow merchant of good family, who had purchased it in 1778,—at which time the house stood in the country, though its site has long since been swallowed up by the encroachments of the town. Young Scott was sent first to the Grammar School, as the High School of Glasgow was then called, and afterwards to the University, where he matriculated when just twelve years of age. Aird states that he was at school with John Wilson. At the University he remained four years, during the latter part of which he had as his inseparable companion the future author of Cyril Thornton, a fellow-student of tastes akin to his own, who has furnished in that novel a picture of the college life of the time. At the University Scott does not appear to have gained distinction. Perhaps, like many another author in embryo, he preferred miscellaneous reading to the college course; at any rate, the few literary allusions scattered over the pages of his books are generally apt and appreciative. However his taste seems to have been for active life, spiced if possible by adventure, and accordingly, in 1806, we find him leaving Scotland for the West Indies.

At this point Mr Morris, our authority, makes a digression in order to describe the magnitude and antiquity of the Clyde shipping-trade, and the effect exercised upon it by the revolt of our American colonies, which, by diverting it from Virginia to the West Indies, had changed its staple from tobacco to sugar. It happened that a family friend of the Scotts, Bogle by name—a Glasgow merchant and the descendant of Glasgow merchants—had at that time a nephew resident in Jamaica, where he was occupied as an estate-agent, and on his own account as a trader. To the care of this gentleman young Scott is now supposed to have been consigned, that he might be taught an estate-agent's duties. The agent's name was George William Hamilton, and one feels sure that no admirer of the Log will hear with indifference that in him Scott found the original of the most individual of his many droll planter portraits—the portrait of Aaron Bang.

After profiting for three or four years by the instructions of Hamilton, who combined with his humorous propensities a very decided talent for business, in the year 1810 Scott entered a mercantile house at Kingston, in the employment of which he continued for seven years more. 'These years,' says Mr Morris, 'were the making of the Log. His business, coupled with Hamilton's friendship, not only brought him into contact with every phase of society in Jamaica, but sent him on frequent voyages among the islands and to the Spanish Main; and certainly few travellers can have carried a more curious pair of eyes with them than Michael Scott, or entered more heartily into the spirit of the passing hour.' In 1817 he returned to Scotland, and in the year following married Margaret, daughter of the Mr Bogle previously referred to, and consequently first cousin to Hamilton. He was soon back in Jamaica, however, and it was presumably at this time that he occupied the house—situated high up among the Blue Mountains, in midst of some of the finest scenery in the world—which is still shown to visitors as his. He remained in Jamaica till 1822, when he finally returned to his native land to start business on his own account. This he seems to have combined with a share in other mercantile concerns, being at the time of his death a partner in a commission-house in Glasgow, as well as in a Scottish commercial house in Maracaybo, on the Spanish Main.

It was in 1829 that he first appeared as an author, in which year—again to quote Mr Morris—'the Log began to make its appearance in Blackwood's Magazine as a disconnected series of sketches, published intermittently as the author supplied them, or as the editor found it convenient to print them. The first five, for instance, appeared in September and November, 1829, and in June, July and October, 1830, under the titles of "A Scene off Bermuda," "The Cruise of H.M.S. Torch," "Heat and Thirst—a Scene in Jamaica," "Davy Jones and the Yankee Privateer," and the "Quenching of the Torch"; and these five papers now constitute the third chapter.' But shrewd Mr Blackwood, who greatly admired the sketches, persuaded the author to give them some sort of connecting link, 'which, without binding him to the strict rules of narrative composition, would add a strain of personal and continuous interest in the movement of the story. The young midshipman accordingly began to cut a more conspicuous figure; and in July, 1832, the title of "Tom Cringle's Log" was prefixed to what is now the eighth, but was then called the eleventh chapter. Henceforward the Log proceeded regularly each month, with but one intermission, to its conclusion in August, 1833'; and a few months later, after some final touches, it made its appearance as a book. Its success was immediate. It was hailed with applause in particular by Coleridge, Christopher North, and Albany Fonblanque—the first-named of whom pronounced it 'most excellent.' Lockhart in the Quarterly Review, in an article on 'Monk' Lewis's West Indian travels, also speaks of it as the most brilliant series of magazine papers of the time; whilst the Scottish Literary Gazette for November 1833 concludes a glowing notice by adjuring the writer, whatever he may undertake next, to remember that he is the author of Tom Cringle's Log.

Its successor, The Cruise of the Midge, made a more regular progress, from its commencement in March 1834, to its conclusion in June of the following year, though it also required some final overhauling before its appearance as a volume. These two books constitute the literary output of their author, and the completion of the Cruise of the Midge brings us within a short distance of his death, which occurred at his house in Glasgow[9] on the 7th November 1835, when he had just completed his forty-sixth year. A large family survived to mourn his loss. He is buried in the Necropolis, where an unpretending monument marks his resting-place and that of his wife and several of their children. In the inscription which it bears, no allusion whatever is made to his literary achievements. I have been told that in private life Scott was a quiet easy-going man, of modest and retiring disposition, and also, on the authority of an old lady who remembers his death, that great was the surprise in Glasgow when it became known that he had been the author of thrilling tales of adventure by sea and land. It is said, by the way, that certain of Cringle's adventures were drawn from the experiences of a Captain Hobson, father of the Arctic explorer of that name, who when a lieutenant, about the year 1821, was engaged in putting down piracy in the West Indies. The character of Paul Gelid can likewise be traced to an original.

Here ends what is to be known about Scott's life, and if it is with regret that we accept this fact as inevitable, there is at least a certain consolation to be derived from reflecting that, in this prying age, at least one gallant literary figure stands secure from the mishandling of meddlers. But—the author himself having evaded the biographer—it is scarcely less remarkable that the popularity of his works seems to have won them no adequate eulogy. For, so far as I know, we may search in vain among critical essays for an appreciation of these masterpieces. Possibly their character as books of adventure relegated to the boys' shelf may be in part accountable for this; whilst doubtless the frequent roughness and homeliness of their style—whether casual, or introduced for the purpose of fitting the speech to the speaker—may have scared off many such pedants and wiseacres as have yet to learn that mere correctness is one of the very humblest of literary qualities, or at least that genius—so it be genius—is like King Sigismund, above the grammar-books. At an age when most boys are still puzzling over syntax and orthography, Mr Thomas Cringle and Lieutenant Benjamin Brail had already brought stout hearts and ready hands to bear upon the work of men, and it is quite true that in the records of their experiences not only do we find foreigners talking their own languages very imperfectly, but also the authors themselves from time to time making use of faulty constructions and of novel spelling. Now had their business been mainly an affair of words and phrases, this had been serious indeed; but as, instead, it happens to be one of thoughts, feelings, sensations, and the art of communicating them, the case is very different. And we may add that had any man composed ten times as loosely as Cringle sometimes chose to do, whilst still retaining Cringle's power to make us see and feel with him, that man had still remained a most remarkable writer. However already more than enough has been said on the subject of these few and very trifling errors, which in fact interfere not at all with a style which is usually clear, nervous and straightforward.

As has been already indicated, Scott's principal literary gift lay in his power of presentation—his power, that is, of putting simply, sufficingly, and without redundancy, a scene or person before the reader, so that he shall see the one and hear the other speak. From the days of Homer to those of the world-wide success of the youngest of our distinguished novelists, this gift has been recognised as quintessential in the story-teller. In the two broad classes of temperaments, it is wont to assume two separate forms, which differ from one another—in class-room terms—as the objective from the subjective. Of the latter of these—by virtue of which a reader is compelled so completely to identify himself with scenes depicted that he not only seems to witness them, but actually for the time being to participate and play the leading part in them—the works of Currer Bell, and perhaps especially Villette, the most highly-finished of her novels, afford notable examples. The converse side of the gift is displayed by the virile and active temperament of Michael Scott; and, of this particular quality, many a writer of far higher reputation has possessed greatly less than he. In illustration of this, the example of his greater namesake may be quoted, for with all his many other excellences, Sir Walter's pictorial or mimetic effects are seldom, or never, perfectly 'clean'—direct, and free from surplusage or alloy. Michael Scott's, on the other hand, are about as direct as it is possible to be. Illustrations might be quoted at will, for if there is one thing more surprising than the gift itself, it is the lavish use made of it by its possessor on page after page of his writings. The following characteristic scene may serve as an example, and it must be borne in mind that all Scott's fine scenes are incidental: he never, so to speak, makes a point of them.

Or this—

'The anchorage was one unbroken mirror, except where its glass-like surface was shivered into sparkling ripples by the gambols of a skipjack, or the flashing stoop of his enemy the pelican; and the reflection of the vessel was so clear and steady, that at the distance of a cable's length you could not distinguish the water-line, nor tell where the substance ended and shadow began, until the casual dashing of a bucket overboard for a few moments broke up the phantom ship; but the wavering fragments soon reunited, and she again floated double, like the swan of the poet. The heat was so intense, that the iron stancheons of the awning could not be grasped with the hand, and where the decks were not screened by it, the pitch boiled out from the seams. The swell rolled in from the offing in long shining undulations, like a sea of quicksilver, whilst every now and then a flying-fish would spark out from the unruffled bosom of the heaving water, and shoot away like a silver arrow, until it dropped with a flash into the sea again. There was not a cloud in the heavens, but a quivering blue haze hung over the land, through which the white sugar-works and overseers' houses on the distant estates appeared to twinkle like objects seen through a thin smoke, whilst each of the tall stems of the cocoa-nut trees on the beach, when looked at steadfastly, seemed to be turning round with a small spiral motion, like so many endless screws. There was a dreamy indistinctness about the outlines of the hills, even in the immediate vicinity, which increased as they receded, until the Blue Mountains in the horizon melted into sky. The crew were listlessly spinning oakum, and mending sails, under the shade of the awning; the only exceptions to the general languor were John Crow, the black, and Jacko the monkey. The former (who was an improvisatore of a rough stamp) sat out on the bowsprit, through choice, beyond the shade of the canvas, without hat or shirt, like a bronze bust, busy with his task, whatever that might be, singing at the top of his pipe, and between whiles confabulating with his hairy ally, as if he had been a messmate. The monkey was hanging by the tail from the dolphin-striker, admiring what John Crow called "his own dam ogly face in the water."

'Tail like yours would be good ting for a sailor, Jacko; it would leave his two hands free aloft—more use, more hornament, too, I'm sure, den de piece of greasy junk dat hangs from de captain's taffril.—Now I shall sing to you, how dat Corromantee rascal, my fader, was sell me on de Gold Coast—

'"Chocko, chocko," chattered the monkey, as if in answer.

'"Ah, you tink so—sensible hominal!—What is dat! shark?—Jacko, come up, sir: don't you see dat big shovel-nosed fis looking at you? Pull your hand out of the water—Garamighty!"

'The negro threw himself on the gammoning of the bowsprit to take hold of the poor ape, who, mistaking his kind intention, and ignorant of his danger, shrunk from him, lost his hold, and fell into the sea. The shark instantly sank to have a run, then dashed at his prey, raising his snout over him, and shooting his head and shoulders three or four feet out of the water, with poor Jacko shrieking in his jaws, whilst his small bones crackled and crunched under the monster's triple row of teeth.'