of Prussia, who ordered him to be conducted to Wesel, and afterwards to Magdeburg, where he remained a year in a dungeon. When this monarch made peace with France in 1795, he transferred his prisoner to the Austrians, who removed him to Olmutz, where he was treated with still more severity, and was attacked by a lingering malady. His physicians demanded some mitigation of his rigorous confinement: and it was on that occasion that Doctor Bollman, and a youth of the name of Huger, whose father had been well treated by La Fayette in America, formed a plan for his escape while he was taking the air; but he was retaken at a distance of eight leagues from Olmutz, and more strictly confined than before. His complaint grew worse; he was left without relief, without linen, and without light. At the close of 1796, his amiable consort and his daughter obtained permission to share his confinement, and by their affectionate conduct they paid the highest compliment to his domestic virtues, as a husband and a father. At last, the events of the war procured his enlargement; Bonaparte, 'pursuing his successes against Austria in 1797, compelled the emperor to release him. La

Fayette did not immediately return to France upon his deliverance, but took up his abode at Hamburg, till the overthrow of the Directory, and the establishment of the consular government. Napoleon offered him a seat in the Senate, but he declined it, and retired to a small estate which had escaped confiscation, where he abstained entirely from politics. He did not re-appear on the political theatre till March the 20th, 1815, when he was elected to the Chamber of Representatives by the department of the Seine and Marne; obtained fifty votes for the presidentship of that Assembly, and was nominated vice president. After the battle of Waterloo, when it was believed that Napoleon was disposed to assume the dictatorship, La Fayette prevailed on the Chamber to declare its sittings permanent, and he insisted strongly on the abdication of the emperor. The latter measure was undoubtedly an impolitic act. Under the circumstances of the case, Napoleon alone was capable of making head against the invaders. To dethrone him, was to neutralize the military force of the French empire, and thus leave France at the mercy of foreigners. On the second restoration of the Bourbons, the

marquis retired again into private life. In 1818, however, he came forward as candidate for the department of the Seine and Marne. The royalists and the ministry exerted all their arts and strength against him, and he failed; but he was elected by the department of La Sarthe. Since that period he has held a seat in the Chamber, and, as might be expected, has been an ardent defender of the liberty of his country.

Η

WALTER SCOTT.

SIR WALTER SCOTT was born on the 15th of August, 1771; and is the eldest son of Walter Scott, Esq. writer to the Signet in Edinburgh. His mother was the daughter of David Rutherford, Esq. who was a very able and popular practitioner of the same profession. His mother was author of several poems, possessing some merit, and was intimate with Burns, Blacklock, and Allan Ramsay. Her poetry, if it did not gain a wreath for herself, certainly had a considerable share in procuring one for her son, by eliciting and cherishing the germ of poetry which existed in his bosom. This lady died in 1789, equally esteemed and respected for her talents, her accomplishments, and her virtues.

There are some verses extant (certainly none of the very best that ever were penned), written by a Walter Scott, Esq. an ancestor of the subject of this memoir, eulogizing the ancestry of the family. It is no wonder, then, that with these examples before him, young

Walter should have discovered an early propensity to poetry, and to which his having been born lame, and consequently incapacitated from the general amusements of youth, probably conduced in no small degree. Dr. Adam of the High School of Edinburgh, was his first tutor; and the celebrated Professor Stewart, at the university of that city, completed his education.

After Mr Scott had served a clerkship to a writer of the Signet, he was, on the 11th of July, 1792, regularly called to the bar; and through the interest of the Buccleugh family, to whom he was related, after being appointed Deputy Sheriff of Selkirkshire, obtained the situation of one of the principal Clerks of the Session in Scotland, in March, 1806. In 1798 he married Miss Carpenter, by whom he has a family of four children.

The late Mr Pitt intended to confer on Mr Scott the valuable appointment of Clerk of the Sessions; but his death by dissolving the then administration before the warrant had passed the Seals, annulled all that had been done, as well as all that had been intended. But, fortunately for Mr Scott, the new administration consisted of such men as the late Mr Fox, H2