Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 51.djvu/55

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under a marble monument, with a long and peculiar epitaph (Wilson, Hist. of Bromley, pp. 40–2). She was the mother of two sons—Edward, a distinguished civil servant in Bengal; and Charles, who died young—and of two daughters, the elder of whom, Anna Maria, married John Reade of Ipsden House, Oxfordshire, was mother of Charles Reade the novelist, and died 9 Aug. 1863, aged 90; the younger, Eliza Sophia, married the Rev. George Stanley Faber [q. v.] Waring's second wife was Maria, daughter and heiress of Jacob Hughes of Cashel. A portrait of Waring's second wife and two of her children was painted by J. Russell, R.A., and engraved by C. Turner, being published on 2 Jan. 1804. Waring's third wife was Mrs. Esten, a widowed actress notorious for her irregularities; on this union there was circulated an epigram concluding with the words:

    Though well known for ages past,
    She's not the worse for Waring.

His portrait, by John James Masquerier [q. v.], was engraved by C. Turner, and published on 27 Feb. 1802. It is inscribed to Warren Hastings.

Besides the pieces already mentioned, Scott wrote: 1. ‘Observations on Sheridan's pamphlet, contrasting the two bills for the better government of India,’ 1788; 3rd ed. 1789. 2. ‘Observations on Belsham's “Memoirs of the reign of George III,”’ 1796. 3. ‘Seven Letters to the People of Great Britain by a Whig,’ 1789. In this he discussed the questions arising out of the king's illness. On the subject of Christian missions in India he published: 4. ‘Observations on the present State of the East India Company’ [anon.], 1807 (four editions); and 5. ‘A Vindication of the Hindoos from the expressions of Dr. Claudius Buchanan, in two parts, by a Bengal Officer,’ 1808. A memoir of Hastings by Scott is inserted in Seward's ‘Biographiana,’ ii. 610–28.

[Burke's Landed Gentry, 6th ed. p. 1425; Gent. Mag. 1819, i. 492; Busteed's Calcutta, p. 315; Trial of Hastings, ed. Bond, i. p. xxxv, ii. pp. xxxvi–xxxvii; Cornwallis's Corresp. i. 364; Ormerod's Cheshire, ii. 12–13; Gleig's Hastings, ii. 354 et seq.; Macaulay's Essay on Hastings; Life of Charles Reade, i. 1–10; Faulkner's Fulham, p. 301; Walpole's Letters, viii. 557; Overton's English Church, 1800–33, pp. 268–71.]

W. P. C.


SCOTT, JOHN (1783–1821), editor of the ‘London Magazine,’ born at Aberdeen in 1783, and educated at the Marischal College, Aberdeen, was probably the John Scott, ‘filius Alexandri Mercatoris,’ who matriculated from that institution in 1797. His father is elsewhere described as an upholsterer. Byron was his schoolfellow, and on meeting at Venice in 1819 they compared notes on their schooldays. At a very early date in life he went to London and was employed in the war office; but the love of politics and literature soon led him into journalism.

Scott at first started a weekly paper called ‘The Censor.’ He then became the editor of the ‘Statesman,’ an evening paper, and not long afterwards was engaged by John Drakard [q. v.] as editor of the ‘Stamford News.’ Under his editorial care there appeared, on 10 Jan. 1813, the first number of ‘Drakard's Newspaper,’ a folio sheet of political and general news. With the new year its name was changed to ‘The Champion,’ and under the altered title the first number came out on Sunday, 2 Jan. 1814, it still remaining under Scott's editorship. A letter written to him by Charles Lamb in 1814 on some articles for its columns is reproduced in Dr. G. B. Hill's ‘Talks on Autographs’ (pp. 24–25). According to Horace Smith, this paper was sold in 1816 to J. Clayton Jennings, an ex-official at Demerara, who had a quarrel with Downing Street, and it belonged afterwards to John Thelwall. Between 1814 and 1819 Scott passed much time on the continent and published in 1815 ‘A Visit to Paris in 1814,’ London (4th edit. 1816), and in 1816 ‘Paris revisited in 1815 by way of Brussels, including a walk over the Field of Battle at Waterloo’ (3rd edit. 1816). On Scott and these volumes Bishop Heber wrote in 1816: ‘Who is Scott? What is his breeding and history? He is so decidedly the ablest of the weekly journalists, and has so much excelled his illustrious namesake as a French tourist, that I feel considerable curiosity about him’ (Life, i. 432). Thackeray described these books as ‘famous good reading’ (The Newcomes, ch. xxii.). Wordsworth wrote of the second of them, ‘Every one of your words tells.’

Scott made further collections for books of travel on the commission of the publishing firm of Longman, but returned to London to edit the newly established ‘London Magazine,’ the first number of which appeared in January 1820. An account of the magazine and of its contributors is given in Talfourd's ‘Final Memorials of Charles Lamb’ (ii. 1–9). Talfourd styles the editor ‘a critic of remarkable candour, eloquence, and discrimination,’ who acted with the authority which the position demanded. Many illustrious writers contributed to its columns, the most famous of the articles during Scott's lifetime being the