when he was told he was created perfect by God, he instantly
yielded. When taken to bed last night, he told his aunt he liked
that lady. 'What lady?' says she. 'Why, Mrs. Cockburn; for I
think she is a virtuoso like myself.' 'Dear Walter,' says Aunt
Jenny, 'what is a virtuoso?' 'Don't ye know? Why, it's one who
wishes and will know everything.'[47]--Now, sir, you will think
this a very silly story. Pray, what age do you suppose this boy
to be? Name it now, before I tell you. Why, twelve or fourteen.
No such thing; he is not quite six years old.[48] He has a lame
leg, for which he was a year at Bath, and has acquired the
perfect English accent, which he has not lost since he came, and
he reads like a Garrick. You will allow this an uncommon exotic."

[Footnote 47: It may amuse my reader to recall, by the side
of Scott's early definition of "a virtuoso," the lines in
which Akenside has painted that character--lines which might
have been written for a description of the Author of
_Waverley_:--

"He knew the various modes of ancient times,
Their arts and fashions of each various guise;
Their weddings, funerals, punishments of crimes;
Their strength, their learning eke, and rarities.
Of old habiliment, each sort and size,
Male, female, high and low, to him were known;
Each gladiator's dress, and stage disguise,
With learned clerkly phrase he could have shown."]

[Footnote 48: He was, in fact, six years and three months old
before this letter was written.]

Some particulars in Mrs. Cockburn's account appear considerably at
variance with what Sir Walter has told us respecting his own boyish
proficiency--especially in the article of pronunciation. On that last
head, however, Mrs. Cockburn was not, probably, a very accurate judge;
all that can be said is, that if at this early period he had acquired
anything which could be justly described as {p.076} an English
accent, he soon lost, and never again recovered, what he had thus
gained from his short residence at Bath. In after-life his
pronunciation of words, considered separately, was seldom much
different from that of a well-educated Englishman of his time; but he
used many words in a sense which belonged to Scotland, not to England,
and the tone and accent remaine