The Life and Letters of John Gibson Lockhart
Chapter 16: 1832-36
John Gibson Lockhart to Henry Hart Milman, 1 July 1832
“My dear
Milman,—What think you of an idea that has come into my
head? It is to have an extra number of the Quarterly Review this
autumn entirely biographical. We have just lost Cuvier, Goethe,
Mackintosh, Crabbe, and Bentham. Would you, if you approve the notion, make one of the
articles—and would ‘Goethe’ please your
hand? If so, the materials are abundant, and by interweaving original
translations you could make a most charming paper. I think of asking Herschell to do
Cuvier—Croker, Mackintosh, and of assaulting
Crabbe myself. But I want before going further to
ascertain your opinion of the scheme, and whether I might rely on your
co-operation. (Should there be prints?) Sir Walter
Scott continues to linger on in a hopeless stupor—how much
longer he might do so none can guess, but I suspect the end will be hastened by
a fresh attack.—Ever yours,
Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832)
The founder of Utilitarianism; author of
Principles of Morals and
Legislation (1789).
George Crabbe (1754-1832)
English poet renowned for his couplet verse and gloomy depictions of country persons and
places; author of the
The Village (1783),
The
Parish Register (1807),
The Borough (1810), and
Tales of the Hall (1819).
John Wilson Croker (1780-1857)
Secretary of the Admiralty (1810) and writer for the
Quarterly
Review; he edited an elaborate edition of Boswell's
Life of
Johnson (1831).
Georges Cuvier (1769-1832)
French biologist whose comparative study of fossils led him to believe in the
immutability of species.
Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749-1832)
German poet, playwright, and novelist; author of
The Sorrows of Young
Werther (1774) and
Faust (1808, 1832).
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).
Sir James Mackintosh (1765-1832)
Scottish philosopher and man of letters who defended the French Revolution in
Vindiciae Gallicae (1791); he was Recorder of Bombay (1803-1812) and
MP for Knaresborough (1819-32).
Henry Hart Milman (1791-1868)
Educated at Eton and Brasenose College, Oxford, he was a poet, historian and dean of St
Paul's (1849) who wrote for the
Quarterly Review.
The Quarterly Review. (1809-1967). Published by John Murray, the
Quarterly was instigated by Walter
Scott as a Tory rival to the
Edinburgh Review. It was edited by
William Gifford to 1824, and by John Gibson Lockhart from 1826 to 1853.
