John Scott of Amwell

John Scott (January 9, 1731 – December 12, 1783), known as Scott of Amwell, was a poet and writer on the alleviation of poverty.

He was a wealthy Quaker who lived at Amwell near Ware in Hertfordshire, England. He is now remembered mainly for his shell grotto, which was restored by the Ware Society in 1991 and is now open to the public, and for his pastoral verse – his Poetical Works were published in 1782. The grotto and the man were both admired by Samuel Johnson, who intended to write his life but died before he could do so. The biography was then done by John Hoole, another of Johnson's circle and a translator and dramatist. Scott was a friend of David Barclay and one of William Blake's patrons.

In his time he was celebrated as an expert on the turnpike roads and a critic of the Poor Law. He was an active member of three Hertfordshire turnpike trusts and his Digests of the General Highway and Turnpike Laws (1778) was praised by Sidney and Beatrice Webb who called him "the ablest Turnpike Trustee of his time". The Webbs also admired his Observations on the Present State of the Parochial and Vagrant Poor (1773). Despite their friendship, Scott took issue with Dr. Johnson on the rights of the American colonies and his Lives of the Poets.

The Drum^[1]

• • I hate that drum's discordant sound,
  • Parading round, and round, and round:
  • To thoughtless youth it pleasure yields,
  • And lures from cities and from fields,
  • To sell their liberty for charms
  • Of tawdry lace, and glittering arms;
  • And when Ambition's voice commands,
• To march, and fight, and fall, in foreign lands.

• • I hate that drum's discordant sound,
  • Parading round, and round, and round;
  • To me it talks of ravag'd plains,
  • And burning towns, and ruin'd swains,
  • And mangled limbs, and dying groans,
  • And widows' tears, and orphans' moans;
  • And all that Misery's hand bestows,
• To fill the catalogue of human woes.

The ode is sometimes referred to as a Retort on Mordaunt's "The Call" but there is no evidence that Scott knew of Thomas Osbert Mordaunt or his poem. The second verse of the poem adorns the display panel in the [English] Civil War at Pendennis Castle Museum, Falmouth, Cornwall, UK.

In the finale of the first season of the television series Tour of Duty, the character Roger Horn temporarily deserts his platoon and is heard reciting the first verse of John Scott's strongly pacifist Ode Against Recruiting - "I hate that Drum's discordant sound ..."

References

• John Scott of Amwell (1956) Lawrence D. Stewart
• Scott of Amwell, Dr. Johnson's Quaker Critic (2001) David Perman

Sources

• New General Catalog of Old Books and Authors
• Poets' Corner
• Scott's letters at the Friends' Library, London (Dimsdale MSS)

Further reading

ODNB article by Anne McWhir, ‘Scott, John (1730–1783)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 , accessed 17 April 2009