Daniel was admitted to Merchant Taylors' School on 10 March 1704,[1] but left to be educated for the ministry under Samuel Jones at Gloucester (where in 1711 he shared a bed with Thomas Secker, the future archbishop of Canterbury), and at Tewkesbury Academy, where in 1712 Joseph Butler.
His anonymous ‘Essay’ (1725) on the doctrine of the Trinity attempted a middle way between Samuel Clarke and Daniel Waterland, but may have satisfied nobody except Job Orton.
In notes to his version (1741) of St. Matthew, he makes a point of proving that Hebraisms of the New Testament have their parallels in classical Greek, and improved John Mill's collection of various readings, especially by a more accurate citation of oriental versions; Doddridge, his personal friend, in his ‘Family Expositor,’ refers to Scott's notes.
His labours as a lexicographer were encouraged by Secker and Butler, to whom he dedicated the two volumes of his appendix to Henricus Stephanus's ‘Thesaurus’.
The letter A, which fills more than half the first volume, is the only part printed as originally drawn up, the remainder being condensed.