Scott, William Bell

(1811-1890)

   Scottish poet and painter, who was born at St. Leonard's, Edinburgh, the son of Robert Scott the engraver (1777-1841). Educated at Edinburgh High School and at the Trustees' Academy, he then did some drawing at the British Museum, London. Thereafter he assisted his father's business in Parliament House Square, Edinburgh. In 1837 he moved to London and supported himself by etching, engraving, and painting. The Old English Ballad Singer was exhibited in 1838 at the British Institution. Down to his last appearance at the academy in 1869, he exhibited twenty pictures in London. From 1844 to 1864 he worked in Newcastle-on-Tyne teaching design and organizing art schools under the department of science and art. He spent his latter years in London, where he died. His poetry is mystical and metaphysical rather than romantic. "Of Poetry" is an extensive work, where he addresses poets from ancient times to Burns, Byron, Dante, Shakespeare, Shelley, and many more. Some of his other poems: "A Lowland Witch Ballad," "Apple Gathering," "Before Marriage," "Continuity of Life," "End of Harvest," "Glenkindie," "The Apple Tree," "The Sickle; an Autumnal Ode."

   Sources: A Poet's Harvest Home: Poems of William Bell Scott. Elkin Mathews and John Lane, 1893. Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The Home Book of Verse. Burton Egbert Stevenson, ed. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1953. The Oxford Book of Sonnets. John Fuller, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000.