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The Life and Letters of John Gibson Lockhart
Chapter 21: 1842-50
John Gibson Lockhart to Patrick Robertson, 23 September 1849
INTRODUCTION & INDEXES
DOCUMENT INFORMATION
GO TO PAGE NUMBER:
Vol. I. Preface
Vol. I Contents.
Chapter 1: 1794-1808
Chapter 2: 1808-13
Chapter 3: 1813-15
Chapter 4: 1815-17
Chapter 5: 1817-18
Chapter 6: 1817-19
Chapter 7: 1818-20
Chapter 8: 1819-20
Chapter 9: 1820-21
Chapter 10: 1821-24
Chapter 11: 1817-24
Chapter 12: 1821-25
Chapter 13: 1826
Vol. II Contents
Chapter 14: 1826-32
Chapter 15: 1828-32
Chapter 16: 1832-36
Chapter 17: 1837-39
Chapter 18: 1837-43
Chapter 19: 1828-48
Chapter 20: 1826-52
Chapter 21: 1842-50
Chapter 22: 1850-53
Chapter 23: 1853-54
Chapter 24: Conclusion
Vol. II Index
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“Sussex Place, September 23, 1849.

“Dear Robertson,—Since you bid me, I write a line, but have only to say that I go on as favourably as could well be wished, and have good hope of being quite myself in another week. I have now got Croker for my guest, and he will abide the week
FRANCE327
—after which the Quarterly Review will be dropt and only health thought of. Brougham writes that he will leave his castle on the 10th, sleep at Walmer the 12th, and the 13th cross sea en route for his château. I have asked him to dine here the 11th. Guizot writes that he has finished a discourse, ‘Why was the English Revolution (1688) successful?’ and is to publish it, both separately and as preface to a new edition of his ‘History of Charles I.’ He is to winter in Paris. He says France is well aware that she is in an auberge, and must by-and-by start again; but there is such disagreement as to the road she should take, and her ultimate point of rest, that she hesitates, and will for some time hesitate, to terminate her halt. This is well said. Meanwhile, he goes on—Two great movements halt not—one good, one evil—1. The slow but decided amalgamation of all Monarchist parties; 2. The corruption of the peasantry by the Socialist teachers. Who can prophesy, he asks, which will have made the greater progress when the moment for action arrives? He says of Louis Napoleon, ‘This small person must be greater ere he returns to nothing,’ so I suppose he anticipates either Presidency for life or Empire as the next considerable step. I rather wonder at his going to winter at the focus of disturbance—but a Frenchman out of Paris thinks himself in the grave. Old Louis Philippe is in a rage about a history of his house by one Dr. Cook Taylor,
328 LIFE OF J. G. LOCKHART.  
a Whig protégé, who died the other day just after appointment to a Professorship in one of these new Irish Colleges. He was cleverish—but a wild, unconscientious, ignorant, scrambling Paddy, and his line forsooth is to defend Égalité throughout or nearly so, but give Louis Philippe bones and body to the Devil, as the most consistent of scoundrels, unredeemed by a single honest quality from his cradle to Claremont. “Mr. Smith”1 is angry enough, and talks of prosecuting Bentley! What a descent—but Guizot will be sure to stop him. Croker was in Ireland when Queen Victoria was there, and has little doubt everything is arranged for something like a formal establishment of Popery in that country. If so, there is an end of J. R. and Co. for a season, or I am no prophet. This will be to him and his at least as costly as Corn Law was to Peel of sonnet fame. Your sonnets on Kilbryde quite revived my childish memory. Very good they are.—Yours affectionately,

J. G. Lockhart.”