# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Scott, Daniel

​SCOTT, DANIEL, LL.D. (1694–1759), theological writer and lexicographer, born on 21 March 1693–4, was son, by the second wife, of Daniel Scott, a London merchant. The family was probably a branch of the Scotts of Stapleford Tawney, Essex [for his half-brother, Thomas, see under Scott, Joseph Nicol]. Daniel was admitted to Merchant Taylors' School on 10 March 1704, but left to be educated for the ministry under Samuel Jones (1680?–1719) [q. v.] at Glou​cester (where in 1711 he was the ‘bed-fellow’ of Thomas Secker [q. v.], afterwards archbishop of Canterbury), and at Tewkesbury, where in 1712 Joseph Butler [q. v.] became his fellow-student. Secker speaks highly of his religious character. From Jones's academy Scott proceeded to the university of Leyden, which he entered on 13 Aug. 1714, aged 20, as a student in theology. He appears again as a student of medicine on 20 June 1718, aged 25. He graduated LL.D. at Leyden on 16 May 1719. He is said to have graduated LL.D. at Utrecht, but his name is not in the Utrecht ‘Album Studiosorum,’ 1886. While at Utrecht he became a baptist, and joined the Mennonite communion. He appears for some time to have exercised the ministry at Colchester, and afterwards in London, but there is no record of his ministry. His main occupations were those of the scholar and the critic. His anonymous ‘Essay’ (1725) on the doctrine of the Trinity, elaborate and undoubtedly able, attempted the impossible task of a middle way between Clarke and Waterland, and satisfied nobody except Job Orton [q. v.] The first edition of the ‘Essay’ is said to have been bought up and suppressed by Edmund Gibson [q. v.], bishop of London. The notes to his version (1741) of St. Matthew show good scholarship; he makes a point of proving that the Hebraisms of the New Testament have their parallels in classic Greek, and improves Mill's collection of various readings, especially by a more accurate citation of oriental versions [see Mill, John, (1645–1707)]; Doddridge, his personal friend, in his ‘Family Expositor,’ refers to Scott's notes as learned, ingenious, candid, and accurate. His labours as a lexicographer were encouraged by Secker and Butler, to whom he severally dedicated the two noble volumes of his appendix to Stephanus's ‘Thesaurus,’ a work of great merit, which cost him several hundred pounds and injured his health. The letter A, which fills more than half the first volume, is the only part printed as originally drawn up, the remainder being condensed.
Scott died unmarried at Cheshunt on 29 March 1759, and was buried in the churchyard on 3 April. His will, dated 21 April 1755, was proved on 12 April 1759 (P. C. C. 147 Arran; cf. Notes and Queries, 7th ser. x. 57). He published: 1. ‘Disputatio … de Patria Potestate Romana,’ &c., Leyden, 1719, 4to. 2. ‘An Essay towards a Demonstration of the Scripture-Trinity. By Philanthropus Londinensis,’ &c., 1725, 8vo; 2nd edit., enlarged, 1738, 8vo; 3rd edit. Sherborne [1778?], 12mo (abridged by Robert Goadby [q. v.], with prefixed account of the author, probably by Orton); this edition is dated 1770 in the British Museum catalogue, but the postscript refers to a book published in 1772. 3. ‘A New Version of St. Matthew's Gospel: with Select Notes … added, a Review of Dr. Mill's Notes,’ &c., 1741, 4to (the version is divided into thirty-four sections). 4. ‘Appendix ad Thesaurum Græcæ Linguæ ab Hen. Stephano constructum, et ad Lexica Constantini & Scapulæ,’ &c., 1745–6, fol. 2 vols. This appendix, reviewed in ‘Nova Acta Eruditorum’ (Leipzig, May 1749, p. 241), is incorporated in the edition of Stephanus (1816–28) by Edmund Henry Barker [q. v.], and is employed in the edition of Scapula (1820) by Bailey and Major.
The British Museum catalogue erroneously assigns to Scott a tract against Clarke, ‘The True Scripture Doctrine of the … Trinity, continued,’ 1715, 8vo. This is the sequel to ‘The Scripture Doctrine of the … Trinity vindicated’ (written before May 1713, with a recommendatory letter by Robert Nelson [q. v.]), and erroneously assigned to James Knight, D.D.
A. G.