When Mr. Barclay left the Doctor, it was agreed that he should call on him again; but when he returned to London, he learned from his faithful black fervant, Francis Barber, that the Doctor's diforder was too much increased for him to admit company. From that time he faw him no more; but the Doctor, a few days before his decease, sent, by a gentleman who paid him a vifit, a meffage to Mr. Barclay, to inform him

that he had not forgot his engage"ment; and that, if it should please "God to restore him, he would cer"tainly perform it, for he loved Mr. "Scott."

The death of this great and good man, which happened in the evening of the 13th of December, having fruftrated the kind intentions of Mr. Barclay, and put an end to his flattering expectations of procuring fo honourable a teftimony to the merits of our deceased friend; he

was pleased to exprefs fome defire that I would take upon myself the task, which from my great friendship for, and knowledge of the deceased, I have been induced to attempt; though I hope the reader will believe, that it is with becoming diffidence I now ftep forth, to fupply the place of such a biographer.

JOH

OHN SCOTT was born on the 9th of January 1730, of Samuel and Martha Scott, in the Grange-Walk, in the Parish of St. Mary Bermondfey, Southwark, being the youngest of two fons, their only children that lived to be brought up, the reft dying very foon: his elder brother was named Samuel, and his mother's maiden name was Wilkins. He was defcended from two ancient and refpectable families of the counties of York and Warwick. His father was a draper and citizen of London, a man of plain and irreproachable manners, and one of

the

the fociety of the people called Quakers, whom he was esteemed an emiamong nent preacher.

Samuel Scott, the elder brother, lived for fome time with an aunt in the neighbourhood, where he received the first rudiments of his education. John, at about seven years of age, was put under the tuition of one John Clarke, who kept a little fchool in BarnabyStreet: he is faid to have been well fkilled in the languages, and used to come home to the houfe of Mr. Scott, to inftruct his fon in the rudiments of the Latin tongue. John Scott himself gives the following account of his tutor.

My Caledonian tutor's name was John "Clarke; he was, I believe, a native of "the Shetland-Iflands; he was ingeni"ous and learned, but rather a fevere "pedagogue; yet, fpite of the domi"nation which he exercifed over his "pupils, I respected him, and there was "fomething

"fomething in the man, and in his manner, that I even now faintly re"collect with pleasure."

But whatever might be the scholastic abilities of this man, he feems to have lived in a state of great penury and obfcurity, and probably would not have been long remembered, but from the circumftance of his having prefided over the first leffons of young Scott, who does not however appear to have given any early promises of genius or ability; nor are we told what progress he made under the inftructions of his tutor, who attended him for three years.

In the year 1740, John being then only ten years of age, his father withdrew himself wholly from business in town, and retired with his family, Mrs. Scott, and his two fons, into the country, where he settled at a village called Amwell, in Hertfordshire, and for fome time carried on the malting trade. Thus

was

was our young ftudent deprived of the benefit that might have arisen to him, from the attention of so able a master as Clarke, who continued to teach school in the fame place till death carried him off, probably as little known as he had lived.

The family being now fettled at Amwell, Mr. Scott fent his fon to a private day school, kept in the neighbourhood at Ware, the mafter of which was named Hall, who is faid to have been an admirable penman, but does not appear to have poffeffed any knowledge of language, or to have afforded in his school any opportunities for claffical improvement. John Scott continued with him but a fhort time, for he and his father not having had the smallpox, the fon was frequently kept at home, through fear of that distemper, and never perfifted in any regular system of education.

He