The Life and Letters of John Gibson Lockhart
Chapter 15: 1828-32
Sir Walter Scott to John Gibson Lockhart, 8 July 1829
[Postmark, July 8, 1829.]
“My dear Lockhart,—I
have a regular official letter from Lord
Aberdeen, intimating that the King has named Dodo
Gooch, yourself, and me to succeed the late Commission in the
duty of arranging and reporting the Stuart papers. . . . I
hope before you come down you will make yourself in some degree master of the
general state in which the papers are, that we may converse about the measures
to be taken. The Invisible1 has proved true of promise,
but I have heard nothing from him directly.
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“I can send you no news of Sophia and the children. Johnnie made out his journey to Abbotsford
pretty well, and by a letter from Anne
this morning, I learn he is in his usual state of health. I never saw so
engaging a child as Walter. I understand
he runs about the woods like a guinea-fowl, and is lost twice or thrice a day.
I hope to see them all on Saturday, when I will be at Abbotsford, setting out
so soon as the Court rises. I should be glad to have a few lines from you about
the Stuart Commission with which we are invested. I hope
they propose to remunerate our trouble, meaning yours,
by some means or other. . . . —Yours ever,
Robert Gooch (1784-1830)
Educated at Edinburgh University, he was obstetric physician and lecturer in midwifery at
St Bartholomew's Hospital, a friend of Robert Southey and contributor to
Blackwood's and the
Quarterly Review.
George Hamilton- Gordon, fourth earl of Aberdeen (1784-1860)
Harrow-educated Scottish philhellene who founded the Athenian Society and was elected to
the Society of Dilettanti (1805); he was foreign secretary (1841-1846) and prime minister
(1852-55).
John Gibson Lockhart (1794-1854)
Editor of the
Quarterly Review (1825-1853); son-in-law of Walter
Scott and author of the
Life of Scott 5 vols (1838).
John Hugh Lockhart (1821-1831)
The first child of John Gibson Lockhart and his wife Sophia, for whom Sir Walter Scott
wrote
Tales of a Grandfather (1828-1831).
Walter Scott Lockhart (1826-1853)
The younger son of John Gibson Lockhart and his wife Sophia; a military officer, he
inherited Abbotsford in 1847.
Anne Scott (1803-1833)
Walter Scott's younger daughter who cared for him in his old age and died
unmarried.
