The Life and Letters of John Gibson Lockhart
Chapter 16: 1832-36
John Gibson Lockhart to Henry Hart Milman, [Spring 1830]
“The Rev. H. H. M1lman, St. Mary’s, Reading.
“Athenæum, Tuesday.
“My dear
Milman,—I fully expected to have had slips of your Ægyptiaca by this
time—but am disappointed one post more. The Indian poetry will, I am sure (and I hope
soon), form the subject of a not less delightful paper.
“I have just read to Murray what you say about Christianity and Dr. Lardner. He is confined with something in
his foot—he denies gout—and is in great pain; but asked me to say
that he is most ready to engage for Christianity, no matter how many
volumes—that he will moreover pledge himself to accept as many books as
you like to write for the ‘Family
Library,’ as long as that work goes on, and to pay for them at the
highest rate which any such work can offer—in short, that he hopes you
will not lend your aid to Dr. Lardner, as Scott and Southey have both done through sheer misapprehension, and
as neither of them, accordingly, will do
again. If you could give the ‘Family
Library’ three vols. per annum—tant mieux for that concern.—Ever truly yours,
Dionysius Lardner (1793-1859)
Lecturer on science and contributor to the
Edinburgh Review; he
published the
Cabinet Cyclopaedia (1829-1846).
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).
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.
John Murray II (1778-1843)
The second John Murray began the
Quarterly Review in 1809 and
published works by Scott, Byron, Austen, Crabbe, and other literary notables.
Robert Southey (1774-1843)
Poet laureate and man of letters whose contemporary reputation depended upon his prose
works, among them the
Life of Nelson, 2 vols (1813),
History of the Peninsular War, 3 vols (1823-32) and
The Doctor, 7 vols (1834-47).