“Dear Mr.
Lockhart,—In reference to one of the topics touched upon
yesterday, when I was lucky enough to come athwart your orbit for a
little,—it strikes me that I might as well have asked you if you did not
by chance possess a copy of the Covenanter
Baillie’s ‘Letters and Journals’? or perhaps
you know some charitable soul who has one, and would lend it me to read? As I
borrow
| 230 | LIFE OF J. G. LOCKHART. |
“I will ask farther, now that my hand is in, whether you have not, in defect of Baillie or not in defect, some stock of books on that period of history, in which a hungry reaver might be allowed, on occasion, to forage? I desiderate greatly the Literature of it, Songs, Pasquinades, &c &c.—so far as it had any Literature.
At lowest, perhaps you can tell me something about Jenny Geddes! I search to no purpose for any glimmering of light about Jenny. C. K. Sharpe (in Kirkton) says, she had sat on the Cutty Stool for a mistake in behaviour; but even that small fact I am unable to verify. Burns, you tell me, named his mare after her;—proper surely. In truth, she stands as a most memorable monumental figure, this poor Jenny, to me; featureless, I am afraid, for ever. Shakespeare’s is not the only lost Biography! Greedy oblivion makes haste to swallow us all.—Believe me, yours very heartily,
