



Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team








THE FORTUNES OF NIGEL

By Sir Walter Scott



A Tale Which Holdeth Children From Play & Old Men From The Chimney
Corner --Sir Philip Sidney




INTRODUCTION

  But why should lordlings all our praise engross?
  Rise, honest man, and sing the Man of Ross.

                                        Pope

Having, in the tale of the Heart of Mid-Lothian, succeeded in some
degree in awakening an interest in behalf of one devoid of those
accomplishments which belong to a heroine almost by right, I was next
tempted to choose a hero upon the same unpromising plan; and as worth of
character, goodness of heart, and rectitude of principle, were necessary
to one who laid no claim to high birth, romantic sensibility, or any of
the usual accomplishments of those who strut through the pages of this
sort of composition, I made free with the name of a person who has left
the most magnificent proofs of his benevolence and charity that the
capital of Scotland has to display.

To the Scottish reader little more need be said than that the man
alluded to is George Heriot. But for those south of the Tweed, it may
be necessary to add, that the person so named was a wealthy citizen of
Edinburgh, and the King's goldsmith, who followed James to the English
capital, and was so successful in his profession, as to die, in 1624,
extremely wealthy for that period. He had no children; and after making
a full provision for such relations as might have claims upon him, he
left the residue of his fortune to establish an hospital, in which the
sons of Edinburgh freemen are gratuitously brought up and educated for
the station to which their talents may recommend them