Life

Born at Hanover in May 1708, he was the eldest son of George Scott of Bristo in Scotland, and Marion Stewart, daughter of Sir James Stewart of Coltness, Lord Advocate

Lord Advocate

Her Majesty's Advocate , known as the Lord Advocate , is the chief legal officer of the Scottish Government and the Crown in Scotland for both civil and criminal matters that fall within the devolved powers of the Scottish Parliament...

 of Scotland. George Scott held diplomatic posts at various German courts, and was envoy-extraordinary to Augustus II the Strong

Augustus II the Strong

Frederick Augustus I or Augustus II the Strong was Elector of Saxony and King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania ....

, king of Poland, in 1712. He was a close friend of the Elector of Hanover (who became George I of England), whose names were given to the boy George Lewis at baptism, and the Princess Sophia was his godmother. At the end of 1726, after his father's death, his mother moved to Leyden for the education of her children.

George Lewis was called to the bar at the Middle Temple

Middle Temple

The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, commonly known as Middle Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court exclusively entitled to call their members to the English Bar as barristers; the others being the Inner Temple, Gray's Inn and Lincoln's Inn...

, became Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries on 3 June 1736, and Fellow of the Royal Society on 5 May 1737; and was a member in 1736 of the Society for Encouragement of Learning. At this period James Thomson was one of his friends. In November 1750 Scott was made sub-preceptor to Prince George and his younger brothers, on the recommendation of Viscount Bolingbroke

Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke

Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke was an English politician, government official and political philosopher. He was a leader of the Tories, and supported the Church of England politically despite his atheism. In 1715 he supported the Jacobite rebellion of 1715 which sought to overthrow the...

 through Earl Bathurst

Allen Bathurst, 1st Earl Bathurst

Allen Bathurst, 1st Earl Bathurst PC , known as the Lord Bathurst from 1712 to 1772, was a British politician....

. Scott was considered to be a Jacobite

Jacobitism

Jacobitism was the political movement in Britain dedicated to the restoration of the Stuart kings to the thrones of England, Scotland, later the Kingdom of Great Britain, and the Kingdom of Ireland...

, and his appointment caused a stir. By July 1752 the tutors were divided into factions, and the quarrel lasted all year. In February 1758 Scott was made a commissioner of excise, and he held that post until his death.

Scott died on 7 December 1780. He married Sarah Scott

Sarah Scott

Sarah Scott was an English novelist, translator, and social reformer. Her father, Matthew Robinson, and her mother, Elizabeth Robinson, were both from distinguished families, and Sarah was one of nine children who survived to adulthood...

, but the marriage which was one of convenience and failed, and they separated.

Reputation

Scott was a pupil of Abraham De Moivre

Abraham de Moivre

Abraham de Moivre was a French mathematician famous for de Moivre's formula, which links complex numbers and trigonometry, and for his work on the normal distribution and probability theory. He was a friend of Isaac Newton, Edmund Halley, and James Stirling...

, and was known for his knowledge of mathematics. On 7 May 1762 he sent a long letter to Edward Gibbon

Edward Gibbon

Edward Gibbon was an English historian and Member of Parliament...

 on the mathematical books which he should study; and Gibbon, on 19 October 1767, asked him to supply a paper ‘on the present state of the physical and mathematical sciences’ in England, for insertion in the Mémoires Littéraires de la Grande-Bretagne of Jacques Georges Deyverdun

Jacques Georges Deyverdun

Jacques Georges Deyverdun was a Swiss classical scholar and translator. He translated Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther into French. He met Edward Gibbon in Lausanne and the two became friends...

 and himself. In December 1775 Gibbon sent Scott a part of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Letters from Scott to Robert Simson

Robert Simson

Robert Simson was a Scottish mathematician and professor of mathematics at the University of Glasgow. The pedal line of a triangle is sometimes called the "Simson line" after him.-Life:...

, with those which he received in reply, are given in William Trail's Life of Simson. Charles Burney

Charles Burney

Charles Burney FRS was an English music historian and father of authors Frances Burney and Sarah Burney.-Life and career:...

 speaks of him as an excellent musician, and as performing on the harpsichord

Harpsichord

A harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It produces sound by plucking a string when a key is pressed.In the narrow sense, "harpsichord" designates only the large wing-shaped instruments in which the strings are perpendicular to the keyboard...

. He was a close friend of Johann Christoph Pepusch

Johann Christoph Pepusch

Johann Christoph Pepusch , also known as John Christopher Pepusch and Dr Pepusch, was a German-born composer who spent most of his working life in England....

, whom he helped with a paper for the Royal Society on ancient Greek music. Fanny Burney

Fanny Burney

Frances Burney , also known as Fanny Burney and, after her marriage, as Madame d’Arblay, was an English novelist, diarist and playwright. She was born in Lynn Regis, now King’s Lynn, England, on 13 June 1752, to musical historian Dr Charles Burney and Mrs Esther Sleepe Burney...

, who met Scott in 1769, described him as ‘very sociable and facetious. He entertained me extremely with droll anecdotes and stories among the Great and about the Court.’ George Rose

George Rose

The Right Honourable George Rose was a British politician.Born at Woodside near Brechin, Scotland, Rose was the son of the Reverend David Rose of Lethnot, by Margaret, daughter of Donald Rose of Wester Clune...

 knew him ‘long and very intimately,’ and praised him as ‘amiable, honorable, temperate, and one of the sweetest dispositions I ever knew.’ And it was Scott who introduced Thomas Paine to Benjamin Franklin, an act of networking with profound results for the history of revolutionary America and Europe. He was tall and big. Samuel Johnson

Samuel Johnson

Samuel Johnson , often referred to as Dr. Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer...

 was one day giving way to tears, when Scott, who was present, clapped him on the back and said, ‘What's all this, my dear sir? Why, you and I and Hercules, you know, were all troubled with melancholy.’ The doctor was ‘so delighted at his odd sally that he suddenly embraced him’.

Works

The materials which Ephraim Chambers

Ephraim Chambers

Ephraim Chambers was an English writer and encyclopaedist, who is primarily known for producing the Cyclopaedia, or a Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences.-Early life:...

 left for a supplement to his Dictionary of Arts and Sciences were committed to Scott's care for selection, revision, and expansion. The two volumes appeared in 1753, and he is said to have received £1,500 for his services.