The life of the Editor of a Quarterly Review is not, even in the best times, one of poignant excitement. Many persons appear to believe that the archives of such a periodical are full of dark and deadly secrets, which would shake the Republic of Letters, and destroy the peace of families. To the best of my knowledge this belief in the existence of picturesque but gloomy histories about “the rampageous past” of the Quarterly Review is a popular delusion. One of the first articles which appeared under Lockhart’s rule dealt with the Man in the Iron Mask.

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LIFE OF J. G. LOCKHART.

He was not Louis XIV., nor a brother of Louis XIV., nor the Duke of Monmouth, said the author; l’Homme au Masque de Fer was merely the Italian agent of a small Italian prince. The Quarterly mystery is not more thrilling or momentous than that of le Masque de Fer.

The veiled adyta of Albemarle Street, as far as I have entered them by the way of letters to Lockhart, do not in the least resemble the Secret Chamber in Castle Perilous; they contain no horror, no weird inmate, calculated to blanch the locks and sadden the dispositions of new young editors and proprietors through all generations. I find no Castle Spectre, no skeleton old literary iniquity, but merely an energetic and deeply interested publisher; an industrious but intellectually rather disengaged man of letters; an unofficial but very busy coadjutor, Mr. Croker; and a “chorus of indolent reviewers.”

A devotee of the faith in old Quarterly mysteries “more than Eleusinian,” was the son-in-law of Southey, the editor of his Correspondence, the Rev. John Wood Warter1 (London, 1856). Mr.

1 I cannot resist the pleasure of making a quotation from Mr. Warter. He says— “For the few footnotes I am responsible, and they are as few as possible, not being myself a convert to the system of overlaying an author with unnecessary disquisitions, or be-Germanised Excursuses, albeit long ago not unread in German literature of all sorts, especially theological, and from my long residence in Copenhagen, as Chaplain to the Embassy, not unversed in Danish and Swedish lore, and in the exquisitely curious Icelandic Sagas.”

MR. WARTER

3

Warter suffered from that malady of fierceness, and that general sense of injury, which, in a biographer, are natural, if not becoming. He could not get all the letters of his father-in-law that he wanted to get, and he was particularly angry because no notice was taken of his demand for Southey’s letters to Lockhart. Mr. Murray, also, would only lend copies of Southey’s letters to him. “Yet,” says Mr. Warter, “I have been able” (from Lockhart’s letters) “to draw up a most remarkable history of the Quarterly Review. . . . It would fall like a shell from a mortar of the newest construction.”1

Now, I have not access to Lockhart’s letters to Mr. Murray, nor to Lockhart’s letters to Southey (which seem to have vanished into the autograph market); finally, I have not access to Lockhart’s letters to Mr. Croker. But I have read (as far as Lockhart preserved them) Mr. Murray’s letters to Lockhart, Southey’s letters to Lockhart, and much in two huge volumes of Croker’s letters to Lockhart. To a mind eager for news about dark literary combinations, these epistles would appear of the most disappointing innocence. Lockhart and Croker, in the fancy of Miss Martineau, meet over an author like two ogres in a fairy tale over a strayed child. They discuss his points, they cut him up, and cook him (like Perrault’s cruel step-mother) au sauce Robert. It may have been so, but these cruel facts do not appear in Mr. Croker’s letters. On the

1 “Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey,” i. p. 13.

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LIFE OF J. G. LOCKHART.

other hand, I do detect these bad men in a conspiracy to do good by stealth to poor authors, including a poor Whig author. As to Southey’s epistles, had Mr. Warter obtained them, he would have been disappointed. They are brief, they are business-like, and they seldom diverge from the suggestion of a topic for an article, except when Southey cannot restrain an outburst of true-blue Protestant sentiment. Thus, though in possession of much the same materials as Mr. Warter had, I could not, if I would, threaten society, like him, with the same explosive results. No “strange disclosures” or “terrible revelations” are to be expected.

In the early part of 1826, as in the later part of 1825, Southey’s letters to Lockhart are of no interest or importance. Once he had vowed that no editor should ever again curtail his articles, though he very well knew that, in his own Oriental phrase, “the Peri steed of his eloquence loved to expatiate on the plain of prolixity.” In his unpublished letters he merely hopes that if Lockhart is obliged to shorten his articles, he will send him the proofs in their original condition. Mr. Cyrus Redding writes, in his “Fifty Years’ Recollections” (iii. 323), “Southey declared that if he wrote for the Quarterly, his papers should not be cut or altered by Lockhart. The result was, that what Southey wrote, Lockhart would not read in any shape.” This is sheer nonsense.

Southey, of course, grumbled about the curtail

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ment of his first article, on the Sœur Nativite.1 His essay has “been much injured, at the beginning, at the head, in the middle, and all through.” Southey was prolix, and knew it, yet he for ever harped on that inevitable grievance, the cutting down of an expansive writer. On this occasion he poured his wail into the ears of Mrs. Hughes, whose own son had been the earliest victim of the ferocious Lockhart—in the matter of Mr. Pepys. Mrs. Hughes, good lady, took the Lockharts to her bosom, but Southey nursed his wrath. “The change of administration in the Quarterly is an affair in which I believe all parties were pretty equally ill-used. . . . Sir Walter tells me, in an emphatic manner, that he is certain that I shall like Lockhart when I know him. I wish to do so for Sir Walter’s sake, but I have misgivings upon that score. Nothing can be more courteous and apparently respectful than his letters to me; but in that courteousness, which reminds you of a Spaniard, there is an expression which forbids confidence.”2

Southey had seen Lockhart, knew his “melancholy Spanish head,” knew his courtesy, and “combined his information” into a good British prejudice. Southey was less useful to the Quarterly than the Quarterly to Southey. For thirty years (1809-1839)

1 A disputable miracle-worker, about whom an indiscreet book had been written. 2 Selections, &c, iv. 2.

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LIFE OF J. G. LOCKHART.

he, like Pistol, “ate and swore” at the source of his provender.

A distrust entertained by a person of greater political importance than Southey, now taught Lockhart, once more, how little he had to expect from his party. In Scott’s Journal, for April 16, 1827, occur the words (after recording Lockhart’s account of the break-up of the Ministry),—“Mr. Canning has declared himself fully satisfied with J. L., and sent Barrow to tell him so. His suspicions were indeed most erroneous, but they were repelled with no little spirit both by L. and myself, and Canning has not been like another Great Man I know, to whom I showed demonstrably that he had suspected an individual unjustly. ‘It may be so,’ he said, ‘but his mode of defending himself was offensive.’”

Now, at the moment when Scott was recording Canning’s suspicions of Lockhart, and their removal, the Quarterly (according to Blackwood) was “meek and mum as a mouse, . . . afraid to lose the countenance and occasional assistance of Mr. Canning.”1 Canning himself, though disliked by the great Tory houses, was about to form a Ministry, which partly leaned, or was expected to lean, on hopes of Whig assistance. If, then, the Quarterly was courting Canning, of what misdeed did Canning suspect the Editor of the Quarterly? Simply of attacking him in Blackwood, in the very periodical

1 See “Noctes Ambrosianæ,” iii. 183, 184.

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where Christopher North was, as he says, “defending the principles of the British Constitution, bearding its enemies, and administering to them the knout.” Canning, in short, accused the Editor of the Quarterly of doing what Christopher North blamed the Quarterly for not having done.

Nobody might have known that Canning entertained these injurious suspicions, if Mrs. Lockhart had not done a little piece of domestic diplomacy. Early in January 1827 she wrote to Sir Walter from their house on Wimbledon Common. She says: “Mrs. —— has written to me in confidence, by the desire of her husband, to tell me (as he knows Lockhart himself will make no use of the information) that”—to be brief, a piece of preferment would presently be open. The work was genuine work, in which Lockhart was especially fitted to excel. Could “our great friend” (Mr. Canning) “be of any help?”

“I received this information,” Mrs. Lockhart adds, “unknown to Lockhart, and write it to you unknown to him, as he would only shake his head and say, ‘What post would ever come his way?’ and would rest patiently till honours are thrown upon him.”

On this hint of Mrs. Lockhart’s, Sir Walter acted. He wrote about the vacant post to Canning, who (Feb. 17, 1827) replied with perfect candour, with “all the frankness of old friendship,” as he himself said. For official reasons he could not oblige

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LIFE OF J. G. LOCKHART.

Sir Walter. Moreover, Lockhart, as he understood, “was invited from Scotland for the very purpose of attacking, with a fury unknown till lately to modern political controversy” (pretty well for the old Anti-Jacobin), “the measures to which I am supposed to be favourable, and, personally, myself.” Yet Wright and Scott believed that Canning himself brought Lockhart to London.

It is impossible, perhaps, to discover the source of Canning’s extraordinary suspicion. Scott, of course, and Lockhart, not only denied the truth of the charge, but were able to bring such evidence as convinced Canning of his error. Of Lockhart’s reply no copy is known to exist; Sir Walter’s is spirited. In Lockhart’s interest, he says, he makes no answer; it is enough to have been suspected by a man in power. For himself, whom Canning greets as “an old friend,” he is hurt by being believed to have recommended to the Minister a person supposed to have been sent to London to injure the Minister. Scott adds that he knows all that occurred on the removal of Lockhart to town, and no such motive as enmity to Canning existed. Again, as to the Blackwood article referred to by Canning, he has heard the author’s name, and does not believe he is even an acquaintance of Lockhart’s.1 Scott repeats that he writes in his own cause, not in Lockhart’s, and thanks Canning for his candour.

1 Scott preserved a copy of his letter to Mr. Canning. Abbotsford MSS. The assailant of Canning was a very obscure person.

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On March 24 he writes to Lockhart, thanking him for his “perfectly satisfactory letter. . . . I think I can guess who has put the suspicion in his head.” I think I can guess at whom Sir Walter guessed. On April 14, when announcing the new Ministry, Lockhart writes from Wimbledon, “Barrow has this day made to me a communication from Mr. Canning that he is perfectly satisfied with the explanation given in my letter to you, and that he will be very happy to do me any kindness whenever the opportunity offers; adding, that nothing has delayed this message but the pressure of these arrangements:” (the making of a new Cabinet). “I of course answered that I was much gratified at finding myself relieved from the unjust suspicions of Mr. Canning, and much obliged by his openness, which had given me the opportunity of being so.”

There are probably few reviewers who have not been accused, by authors among their acquaintance, of “attacking” books by these authors which the accused has never read, and of which he has never even seen the review. Canning’s theory, that Lockhart was “invited to London for the very purpose” of spiting him, resembles the suspicions of these men of letters, but it certainly makes it unlikely that Canning had any great part in Lockhart’s appointment to the Quarterly. The Minister was ill—dying, in fact—and was greatly harassed. On all sides were half-estranged friends and half-recon-

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LIFE OF J. G. LOCKHART.

ciled enemies. Distrusted by others, he was himself distrustful; nor did Canning live long enough to show how much of his profession of renewed confidence was genuine.

“The timing of this thing” (Canning’s civil message) “was so barefaced that I wish I could have afforded to resent it as an insult,” Lockhart wrote to his brother William—“but we must take the world as it goes. If Canning’s Government turns out a Whig one, I will not be a Whig. . . . My impression is that the Tories are no more, and that the Quarterly can hardly hope to survive them. What should you say to hearing of my being in Chiefswood, installed for life? I should not wonder, for if Murray wishes to turn Whig, I shall let him take his own course.”

Mr. Murray, of course, did not dream of “turning Whig.”

The incident shows that Lockhart was little in sympathy with that unabashed place-hunting which was part of the manners of the age. Whether these manners are improved or not, can only be decided by persons within the possible range of public honours and emoluments, not by men of letters.

At this time Scott was still working on his “Napoleon.” Lockhart wrote to him on February 9, 1827, asking when the book would appear, that he might arrange for a review. In words which cannot but have cheered Sir Walter, he said,—“I

SCOTT’S “NAPOLEON”

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have devoured the first six volumes—the two preliminary ones for a second time—and feel quite confident that you are about to make as great and strong an impression on the public mind as you have ever done by any two books put together, by ‘Waverley’ and ‘Guy Mannering,’ for example, or by ‘The Lay of the Last Minstrel’ and ‘Marmion.’ I do not know by what magic you have continued to enrich your language with such an overflow of new and bold imagery—much more of it, I think, than you have ever displayed before, and all this in the midst of, to my mind, the most historical tone of anything that has been written since Hume.”

Modern criticism may not re-echo this note, but assuredly this, and not the lamentable wail of James Ballantyne, was the right note to strike. Scott could and would make allowance for the exaggerations of loving-kindness, and yet some cheerful warmth from the praise would remain, and would comfort him in his weary task-work. Lockhart’s remarks on “Napoleon,” in the “Life,” scarcely fall below the brief letter to Scott, in the warmth of their admiration.

In the midst of the correspondence with Mr. Canning, Lockhart wrote to Scott, on March 6, about the Catholic question. A kind of compromise had been aimed at: there were “negotiations between Norfolk House and the Churchmen (I know it from having revised some of the letters),”

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LIFE OF J. G. LOCKHART.

but no result came of these efforts. “I shall make an exact minute, it may be curious some day,” says Lockhart. “I understand, from Croker, that Canning’s moderation in the business of Lord Liverpool’s illness has been admirable; and he has disclaimed all idea of being Premier in the sense in which Lord Liverpool was, and is perfectly satisfied to let things go on in their late divided, balanced, and, I think, uncomfortable manner. Crokey trembled sorely for his place while things were hanging in equilibrio. . . .” The rest of the letter is concerned with R. P. Gillies, the Bore, whom Lockhart had invited to stay at Wimbledon. “He continues in one of the most fashionable hotels in London. God help him, for man cannot!” Mr. Gillies managed his affairs badly, but his “Recollections of Sir Walter Scott” is a valuable book, written in an admirable spirit. Scott replied with two anecdotes of Burns received from a son of Mr. Millar of Dalswinton. These might be useful to Lockhart, who was working at his “Life of Burns.” Concerning the first anecdote Scott suggests, “this perhaps it may be invidious to mention,” nor is it mentioned by Lockhart. Though the second tale is known, it may be given in Scott’s version:—

“Perry, of the Morning Chronicle, through my informer Mr. Millar, offered Burns five guineas a week as an occasional correspondent—also guerdon as a reporter and as a general contributor

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if he would settle in London. He declined it, alleging his excise situation was a certain provision which he did not like to part with. Mr. Millar seemed to think his refusal was rather to be imputed to his reluctance to part with his associates in Dumfries. I think it must have been a natural dislike of regular labour of a literary kind. I think the famous ‘Scots wha hae wi’ Wallace bled’ first appeared in the Morning Chronicle. I remember reading it in that paper, announced as being either a song of ancient times, or an imitation by the first of our living poets.”

Now and again, as on March 24, Scott recurs to the question of the edition of Shakespeare: “Cadell, I can see, is very desirous it should go on.” This does not seem to tally with Mr. Thomas Constable’s belief, that the book was sold for waste paper in 1826.

In April (no date or day) Scott sends his review of John Home’s works. “You know you can dumple it as you like. I hope you talk over your own prospects in this new world with that worthy, trusty, and true old English bull-dog, Wright. He is like to give you good advice, for, look you here, you must stir a little. Croker, I think, will be of service if he can.” But Lockhart did not stir, or there is no evidence of his activity.

On April 5, he announces to Sir Walter that the Royal Society of Literature wished to send him a gold medal. Sir Walter had no belief in

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LIFE OF J. G. LOCKHART.

Royal Societies of Literature; but Lockhart writes: “The medals are worth fifty guineas, and you can make a very pretty salver or tureen thereof, with the inscription of the Royal Humbug duly transferred. I am glad of this, for, after all, it would be a fine thing to get one of their pensions for James Hogg, and a little interchange of civilities between them and you may facilitate our operations.”1

Lockhart was always serving, or trying to serve, Hogg; in the Memorials of the Shepherd, by his daughter, Mrs. Garden, Lockhart’s kindness meets with its usual reward. Scott did what he could about the pension.2 He wrote to Lockhart, as his Journal records:—

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LIFE OF J. G. LOCKHART.

On April 16 (after the passages given in the “Life,” ix. 99), Scott writes,—“I have little to tell you in reply to so much curious and interesting news” (“the Duke of Wellington out”), “save that Napoleon hurries me like a bottle tied to a cur’s tail. We live here as in a cloister, only Mr. Bainbridge means to give a fête and fireworks to-morrow night. The fireworks by Captain Burrard, a well-triable sort of fishing friend of his. I shall take care to keep my distance, remembering an exhibition of my own when, in early youth, I meddled with such kickshaws. My fireworks went off with great applause, till an unhappy and ill-compounded rocket took a lateral and congreve sort of direction, did some hurt, and spread so much alarm, that I never after could collect a company of spectators, the folks growing timbersome, so gave up my trade of fire-worker in ordinary for George’s Square.’

“My kindest love to Sophia, little Johnnie whom I long to see, and baby.—Always yours,

The unhappy Lockhart passed through the Thyestean banquet of claptrap of the Royal Society of Literature, survived, and bore Sir Walter’s gold medal away. “Such twaddle as their proceedings, the whole of which I was fain to hear, I really did not believe could exist in

DEATH OF RICHARD LOCKHART

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any Christian land.” He bore it for Scott’s sake, and in hopes of serving Hogg.1

Misfortune was not weary of pursuing Lockhart and his house; hence the following letter of Sir Walter’s, on an occasion when custom demands speech, and speech is of no avail. His brother Richard had been drowned in India:—

The Lockharts passed the summer at Portobello, then a little town of seaside lodgings, though now it is almost part of Edinburgh. Scott conceived the idea of his “Tales of a Grandfather,” “stories for little Johnnie Lockhart, from the History of Scotland,” on May 24: a lucky day for the children of two or three generations. On June 7, Sir Walter welcomed his son-in-law and his family at Portobello, whither he journeyed with “a bottle of champagne and a flask of Maraschino, making buirdly cheer for the rest of the day.” Johnnie’s general health was better, and the spinal disorder “no worse.” Sir Walter dined at Portobello “regularly every other day,” says Lockhart. During the autumn he and his family were with Scott in the country; his industry was mainly given to the “Life of Burns,” and, of course, to the Quarterly. A little flutter of expectation may have been caused by a friendly message from Canning to Lockhart, sent through Sir William Knighton, on July 25. But in a few days Canning was dead. There was to be no patent place for Lockhart. By October 25 he had returned to London (to 24 Sussex Place,

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Regent’s Park), and was sending to Sir Walter a hundred-pound note for an article in the Quarterly. Rates had risen again to Southey’s favourite level. Peel and Croker had “soldered their quarrel,” the causes of which are stated in Mr. Croker’s Correspondence. On November 20, Scott sent to Hugh Littlejohn the first copy of the “Tales of a Grandfather” (three volumes), and promised a prettily bound example at Christmas. A few anecdotes of this engaging child were sent to Sir Walter, on December 19, by Mrs. Hughes:—

“Johnnie’s governess, Mrs. M’Ghie, leaves a written character of his daily progress, and this character he eagerly greets me with as soon as I come in. ‘Good,’ ‘indifferent,’ ‘very careless,’ were the reports of last month, and Johnnie faithfully repeated the words, however they might tell against himself. I could plainly read in his little, expressive face what he was about to tell me, but for the last ten days he has been radiant with pleasure. ‘Improving, still improving,’ and Mrs. M’Ghie’s mental bulletin may be fairly applied to his corporeal state. . . . It is difficult to recollect in the animated, blooming creature who runs to meet me, and springs up on the sofa behind me, the little, languid invalid whose looks betrayed such patient suffering. Walter is a lovely, intelligent, and engaging creature, and I delight in him, but Johnnie is my first love. . . .”

Master John sends his own letter:—

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Lockhart wrote to Sir Walter on the same day (December 19). His letter, on the political games of “Puss in the Corner,” played by Goderichs, Huskissons, Peels, Hollands, and the like, is now, by the irony of fate, less interesting than little Johnnie’s remarks on the death of Jacob. Lady Conyngham was the real fountain of honour and of patronage. “No wonder the King likes the system: he has more power now than ever Charles I. had. And the Duke of Clarence is giving the navy a new uniform.” Sir Walter’s reply shows him much pleased at possessing such rare and valuable information; much cheered, too, by the news of Johnnie, and the acquisition of the “Waverley” copyrights.

Lockhart’s Quarterly work went on in good times or bad. To No. LXXIII. (January 1828) he contributed three articles; the best is on Tooke’s

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Translation of Lucian. Concerning the Samosatene humourist, that astonishingly modern type of man, illuminating a long dead age, which, in all but name, is modern, there is probably no adequate book, or even essay, in our language. Lockhart’s paper is too brief to supply the vacant place, yet is excellent in quality and vivacity. The old Platonist Nigrinus in Lucian, describes and satirises Roman life, out of which he has dropped, and he praises Athens, where he had studied long ago. “One feels, in reading the passage, in every line of which we recognise the sadness wherewith disappointed age looks back to the season of youth and hope, as if we were listening to some hoary unbeneficed Oxonian unburthening his heart in a garret of St. James’s.” Lucian’s picture of heathen belief and superstition in the second century after Christ is drawn with especial skill. But Lockhart’s space was too scant for his subject. He also wrote on a number of forgotten books of belles lettres, and, with deep sympathy, on the posthumous “Narrative of a Journey through the Upper Provinces of India,” by Bishop Heber.

With such a theme as Lucian, Lockhart could do himself justice; but then the wise world cares very little for such a theme. For partisan attacks on contemporaries the world has, or then had, a readier ear, and Leigh Hunt provided Lockhart with one of these opportunities, which he would have done well to neglect. Satire may have been his foible; as a rule it was not his forte.

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Scott wrote to him:—

Leigh Hunt, in his “Lord Byron and Some of his Contemporaries,” had gone out of his way to insult Sir Walter, and to make the most baseless insinuations against him. Scott probably never mentioned Leigh Hunt’s name publicly in his life, and he refers to the insults neither in his correspondence nor in his Journal. Lockhart was of a mood less mild. Leigh Hunt, characteristically, wrote at least twice as much about one contemporary of Byron—namely, Leigh Hunt—as he did about the author of “Childe Harold.” In later life he “burned his faggot,” and confessed his dissatisfaction with an indefensible book, to which (if that be any excuse) his poverty rather than his will consented. “Had I been rich enough,” he said in his original preface, “and could have repaid the handsome conduct of Mr. Colburn with its proper interest, my first impulse on finishing the work would have been to put it into the fire.” Habemus reum confitentem! “It is the miserable book of a miserable man,” said the reviewer, and indeed the author was in no sort to be congratulated. To Lockhart’s remarks Leigh Hunt replied with per-

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sonalities, and by observing that his book is disliked, not at all for its real demerits, but because “it is full of a sincerity and speculation equally hateful to the rottenness in the state of Denmark.” He added to all that he had already said against Byron, a sentence which is best left in its proper place—the Preface to the Second Edition of “Lord Byron and his Contemporaries.”

Lockhart, meanwhile, was engaged on better work than the defence of Byron or the attack on Leigh Hunt. He finished his “Life of Burns,” for “Constable’s Miscellany.” Scott writes, March 4, 1828, after acknowledging Moore’s dedication of his “Life of Byron”:—

Lockhart’s “Burns” (dedicated to Hogg and Allan Cunningham) was his first essay in a field peculiarly his own, that of Biography. The immense difficulty of writing on the great Scottish poet is, no doubt, best known to Scotchmen. To avoid mere fulsome rhetoric; to keep within due limits the patriotic

1 A meeting at Sunderland in October 1827. “Life,” ix. 164.

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Muse; to shun engouement and the Bacchic dithyramb on one side, and the temptation to moralise on the other; to beware of right-hand political bias, and of left-hand literary fastidiousness—these are only a few of the duties of the biographer of Burns. Taste, tact, tolerance in its best sense, sympathy national and personal, are all required. The slips and stumbles of writers on the darling of the Scottish people recur to the memory as one pens these lines. Of all Burns’s biographers, Lockhart is he who “divides us least.” The most learned, probably, of modern Burnsians, Mr. Scott Douglas, says, in a preface to a recent edition of Lockhart’s book, “On all hands the performance is admitted to be a masterly one of its class; kind, yet impartial; animated with a refined spirit of criticism; and, on the whole, a graceful treatment of the subject.”1

There have been, of course, fresh discoveries in the details of the poet’s biography since Lockhart wrote; these Mr. Scott Douglas has added in notes, and he has corrected some chronological errors. But on the whole story of Highland Mary, Lockhart, obviously from delicacy, was reticent, and he did by no means explore the penetralia of “this very inviting theme,” as Mr. Scott Douglas calls it. While Mrs. Burns lived, while the kinsfolk of

1 Mr. Scott Douglas edited the book, “revised and corrected, with new Annotations and Appendices,” London, 1892. These remarks were written before the appearance of Messrs. Henley and Henderson’s edition of Burns.

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Highland Mary lived, close scrutiny was undesirable: now, everything has been scrutinised, but not by Lockhart. New Lives of Burns follow fast on each other, but Lockhart’s is never likely to be superseded.

On April 3, Scott set forth with Miss Anne Scott, on a visit to London. There had been good news of Hugh Littlejohn in February. “I do not know what to do with Johnnie,” Mrs. Lockhart wrote; “he has gone quite mad about knights, and bravery, and war, and, when he gets into a passion, talks about dirking the offender: he has been in terrible disgrace for wounding poor Watty with a pair of scissors: in short, you must write an antidote to your book, which he studies constantly. We had a party of little girls for his birthday, and for a week before we prepared wooden dirks, that he might arm them to make something like a field of battle. He certainly is much stronger this winter.”

Alas, Sir Walter found the child greatly fallen off in health when he arrived in London, or rather, not long after his arrival.

“I fear, I fear, but we must hope the best,” Scott wrote on April 22, when Mrs. Lockhart carried Johnnie to Brighton. Sir Walter and Lockhart dined at Rogers’ with Coleridge, who prosed about the Samothracian Mysteries; and, to Mr. Morritt’s horror, attacked the unity of Homer. Sir Walter, who did not take a part in the Homeric controversy, “was never so bethumped with words.” It was not

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till 1833 that Coleridge became acquainted with Mrs. Lockhart and her children. “I feel that it has done my heart good,” he writes, “and that in my remembrance of Mrs. Lockhart I shall have one more affection to be glad of. God bless her, and you, and yours.” This was years after Coleridge “rose with the aspect of a benignant patriarch, and threw his wine-glass through the window at a Highgate revel,” where Lockhart and Theodore Hook were guests; Coleridge declaring Hook to be “as true a genius as Dante.”1

There was a gloom over Scott’s London visit. All the Lockharts were obliged to follow Johnnie to Brighton. Scott himself went thither, and obviously despaired of the child’s recovery. In London he put Lockhart into communication with the Duke of Wellington, mainly for the political guidance of the Quarterly. From Edinburgh, whither he returned at the end of May, Scott wrote thus:—

Later references to this topic occur, but, on July 4, Scott’s epistle to Lockhart was more concerned with the Biography of Burns:—

“Edinburgh, 4th July 1828.

“My dear Lockhart,—On the subject of Burns, I think it fair to a very good man to say, that Lord Sidmouth entertained the purpose of attending to his promotion. This I learned from George Ellis, to whom Lord Sidmouth spoke on the subject as they happened to meet on a morning ride. I have also understood it from the old statesman himself. It was a piece of justice which Ellis rendered a Minister to whom (as being himself an intimate friend of Canning) he was not at the period very partial.

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“I think it a curious point of Burns’s character which should not be suppressed, that he copied over the very same letters, or great part of them, and sent them to different individuals.”

In this letter Sir Walter expresses an opinion, to which he was always wedded, “that no schoolmaster whatsoever has existed, without his having some private reserve of extreme absurdity.” This was written à propos of a scholastic quandary into which “Taffey Williams” had picked his way, thereby causing a good deal of trouble to Lockhart and Scott.

On July 9, Lockhart replied, conveying very bad news of his sick child. There had been a consultation of physicians. “They bid us not despair.” Southey, “who lives much with the lawn-sleeved,” had been breakfasting with Lockhart. The weary affair of Taffey Williams (who had been off with one scholastic appointment before being on with another) desolates the correspondence between Lockhart and Scott. The former laboured stoutly for his old Balliol friend, who ultimately remained as head master of the Edinburgh Academy, where he was, as Scott’s letters show, most highly esteemed and admired, even by the boys. In the warmth of their affection they called him “Punch Williams.” Lockhart was also consulting Scott about one of these series of cheap books, like “Constable’s Miscellany,” which Mr. Murray was

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publishing. But Sir Walter was indisposed to write a brief biography of anybody. Lockhart had no political news, except that “the Duke of Clarence is giving infinite botheration.” Scott, on his part, consented to review Sir Humphrey Davy’s “Salmonia,” if he might have Tom Purdie as a collaborator! Sir Walter was never a great salmon fisher, being more inclined to trout.

In October 1828, a correspondence passed between Scott and Lockhart, which curiously illustrates Sir Walter’s attitude of juste milieu in politics, and Lockhart’s difficulties with Southey in the Quarterly Review.

Lockhart writes on October 23:—

“You will find Southey at the Catholic question, totis viribus, in the Quarterly, which may not please some of our friends. . . . Blanco White is setting up an opposition Review, and Southey would have left us had I not suffered him to unburthen himself at this time—so, in fact, I had little choice.”

Now, Southey’s argument in this article is, that the Catholics cannot be emancipated till a Council pronounces, and the Pope ratifies, a condemnation of whatsoever is “un-Christian and pernicious” in the doctrines of the Church—in fact, till the Church is reformed on Southey’s principles. “Better the condition of the Irish poor, educate the people, execute justice and maintain peace, and Catholic Emancipation will then become as vain and feeble

A PURPLE ARTICLE

33

a cry in Ireland as Parliamentary Reform has become in England.”1

O pectora caeca!

Sir Walter answered thus:—

All readers of the Waverley Novels must remember that Scott’s heroes are, or aim at being, juste milieu, like Henry Morton in “Old Mortality.” Sir Walter had, and has, a name to be a violent Tory. In fact, he could be almost an opportunist; and, above all, he had a Carlylean belief in his hero, the Duke.

Lockhart replied on November 3:—

“I received your very kind letter about Southey several days after his anti-Catholic paper had been published, and consequently to no purpose, except that it filled me with many painful apprehensions. I believe you may now assure yourself that no harm is done. . . . I fear the Duke has still darker questions to solve.”1

On Nov. 20, Sir Walter answered: he had not even yet received his copy of the Quarterly. His advice, “as Mr. Worldly Wiseman,” was, “Keep in relations with the only man in Britain who can save this poor country. . . . As you have been so docile a little boy of late, you must take this hint also.

“Pray who writes ‘Pelham’? I read it only yesterday and found it very interesting: the light is

1 The nature of these questions is such that, even after the lapse of two generations, it would be unjustifiable to publish Lockhart’s communication.

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easy and gentleman-like, the dark very grand and sombrous. There are great improbabilities, but what can a poor devil do? There is, I am sorry to say, a slang tone of morality which is immoral, and of policy void of everything like sound wisdom. I am sorry if these should be the serious opinions of so powerful an author.”

As a result of Southey’s being permitted to sound his Protestant pibroch, he wrote to Mrs. Hughes: “I am in the best understanding with Lockhart, of whom I am disposed to think as Sir Walter told me I should. I should become intimate if we were thrown in each other’s way.” So Mrs. Hughes wrote to Scott, adding: “I am always delighted to have Mr. Lockhart well understood, for few people better deserve the study. I flatter myself I am one of those who read him fluently.” Now, Mrs. Hughes was not subtle, but a kind, good, motherly woman.

Lockhart, replying, again entered into la haute politique. His information was derived from Sir William Knighton, the King’s secretary. From another source he learned that “the Duke has 40,000 troops so posted, and steamboats to suit, that in half a day they could all be in Ireland, and this has been so arranged that the newspapers have no suspicion, or at least none but a very vague one.”

To Sir Walter’s query about “Pelham,” Lockhart replied:—

BULWER

37

“‘Pelham’ is writ by a Mr. Bulwer, a Norfolk squire, and horrid puppy. I have not read the book, from disliking the author, but shall do so since you approve it.”

Long afterwards Bulwer, now “E. B. Lytton,” wrote:—

The “act of petulance” is here unrecorded; in fact, Lytton behaved coldly to Lockhart (whom he suspected of reviewing him) at a dinner given by Sir Roderick Murchison. Chantrey kept the peace.

At this time Lockhart was suggesting to Scott the idea of a “Scottish Plutarch,” which was never achieved. The ex-King of Holland had written, as Lockhart told Sir Walter, a pamphlet against him and his “Life of Napoleon.” Sir Walter’s comments are characteristic

“I have the ex-King Louis’s diatribe. He is a little unreasonably sorry, but I don’t wonder at it. All men cannot be so cool as the equal-minded

1 No date of year.

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LIFE OF J. G. LOCKHART.

slater who fell from the top of James’s Court. Some one, seeing a man sitting on a dunghill which happily intervened to break the fall, and not having witnessed (it may be well supposed) the nature of his descent, asked him ‘What o’clock it was?’—to which he replied, ‘He supposed about three, for as he was passing the seventh story he observed them setting the table for dinner.’ Now, Nick Frog, having been filliped with a three-man beetle, has scarce had time in his transit to make such accurate observations; and for my part I would freely forgive him all that he has said of me (though he complains as much when I excuse his brother from the accusations as when I inculpate him myself), provided he could give me, in reality, the advantage of having seen Italy in 1814, which he says I did.

Still later Sir Walter writes:—

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LIFE OF J. G. LOCKHART.

These letters illustrate the relations between Sir Walter and his son-in-law. It is possible that Lockhart did not often overcome his diffidence as to interviews with the Duke of Wellington. Scott justly noted in Lockhart a disinclination to make, as it were, the most of himself, and to be profoundly impressed by the importance of “getting on in the world.” These defects he never overcame.

Part of January 1829, Lockhart passed with Sir Walter at Abbotsford and in Edinburgh. They also visited Milton Lockhart, where Lockhart introduced Scott to Mr. Greenshields, a native of the place, and a sculptor then credited with some untrained genius. Lockhart, with Scott, was anxious to get him opportunities of work and of artistic education, as indeed Lockhart was always eager to aid struggling merit.

“I could increase the interest,” he says, “with which both Sir James Stuart and Sir Walter had examined Greenshields’ work, by bearing testimony to the purity and modesty of his character and manners.” In a similar spirit Lockhart did his best for certain ingenious though half-trained writers who were recommended to him by Southey, when he became Editor of the Quarterly Review. A

1 The rest of the letter is cut away.

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tendency to make unpleasant allusions to the social rank of opponents was to be regretted occasionally in Lockhart’s polemics. On the other hand, his “Life of Burns,” and his conduct whenever he had an opportunity to befriend men of less fortunate social standing, supply a pleasant practical contrast to what he said in his wrath. This contrast was part of his complex nature, of which the less excellent was public, while the better, the actual and active goodwill, was concealed.

About the day at Milton Lockhart, Scott remarks in his Journal, “I walked very ill—with more pains, in fact, than I ever remember to have felt—and, even leaning on John Lockhart, could scarce get on.”1 He leaned more and more on the younger man as life drew nearer to its close.

At the end of January 1829, Lockhart left Sir Walter, and returned to work in London.