NINETEENTH CENTURY LITERARY MANUSCRIPTS

Part 4: The Correspondence and Papers of John Gibson Lockhart (1794-1854), Editor of the Quarterly Review, from the National Library of Scotland

Publisher's Note

John Gibson Lockhart (1794-1854) desrves our attention for many reasons:

• He was one of the most important critics of the 19th century
• He was Editor of The Quarterly Review
• He became Scott’s Boswell, writing an acknowledged masterpiece of biography
• He played an important part in the rise of the novel as a literary form
• His letters provide a detailed account of literary society in Edinburgh and London

His papers are now opened to a wider audience through the publication of this microform edition.  They include: 14 volumes of correspondence received by Lockhart as Editor of  The Quarterly Review, 1825-1854 (NLS MSS.923-936);  3 volumes of letters from Lockhart to Whitwell Elwin, his successor as Editor (NLS MSS.145, 341 & 2262); 3 volumes of correspondence between Lockhart and Scott, 1818-1832 (NLS.MSS.142-143, & 859); 7 volumes of family letters, 1820-1854 (NLS.MSS.1552-1558); 1 volume of letters from Lockhart to Allan Cunningham about the Lives of British Painters (NLS.MS.820); and 10 volumes of literary manuscripts by Lockhart (NLS.MSS.1623-1626, 3995 & 4817-4822).

The Editorial correspondence is especially rich and includes letters from Byron, Coleridge, Croker, Disraeli, Edgeworth (one entire volume and numerous other letters besides), Murray, Norton, Southey (“a willing and ready assistant in your new undertaking”), and Wordsworth.

Other figures represented are  Joanna Baillie, James Ballantyne, John Barrow, William Blackwood,  Henry Brougham, Thomas De Quincey, Aubrey De Vere, Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Gaskell, William Gladstone, George Gleig, John Frederick Herschel, James Hogg, Mary Howitt, Bulwer Lytton, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Thomas Moore, Lady Sydney Morgan, Louisa Stuart, William Watson, and Arthur Wellesley.

John Gibson Lockhart was born on 14 June 1794 in the Manse of Cambusnethen in Lanarkshire. He was the son of the Rev Dr John Lockhart who held the family living of Cambusnethan and was appointed to the College Kirk of Blackfriars in Glasgow in 1796.  John Gibson Lockhart’s mother, Elizabeth (née Gibson), was also from a clerical family, as her father was the minister of St Cuthbert’s in Edinburgh.  The Rev Dr John Lockhart had previously been married to Elizabeth Dinwiddie of Germiston.  She provided him with his first son, William, and, through inheritance,  with a country house and estate outside Glasgow.  John Gibson Lockhart spent his childhood years in Glasgow, Cambusnethan, and Germiston with his brothers and with Violet, his only sister.  He spent much time reading Pope, which fuelled his love of satire, and was well educated in Latin and Greek.

John Gibson Lockhart went to Glasgow University in 1805, aged 11, which was not uncommon at the time.  He was marked out from an early date as a fine scholar, winning the medal for Greek and numerous prizes.  He won a Snell Exhibition to Balliol College, Oxford and went up in 1808, aged 14, to read Greats.

He maintained a keen interest in contemporary literature and read widely in French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese.  He formed a lifelong friendship with Jonathan Christie  and gained a reputation as a caricaturist and a caustic wit. After gaining a First he returned to Glasgow in 1813, aged 19, to consider his future.  He chose a legal career, but did not give up his intellectual pursuits.  He read Waverley (1814) with great interest, wrote a little, and learned German.  From the first he was a champion of Byron and Wordsworth.  Of the latter, for instance, he said : “He strikes me as having more about him of that sober, mild, sunset kind of gentleness, which is so dear to me from the recollections of Euripides and the tender parts of the Odyssey, than any English poet ever possessed save Shakespeare, possessor of all.”

In 1815 he moved to Edinburgh to be part of the busy literary scene. If David Hume (1711-1776), Adam Smith (1723-1790) and James Thomson (1700-1748) had made Edinburgh’s reputation as an intellectual centre, then the continuing success of the work of  Robert Burns (1759-1796), and the flourishing careers of Thomas Campbell (1777-1844), James Hogg (1770-1835) and Walter Scott (1771-1832) consolidated the city’s fine traditions.  The New Town was now well established, graced with fine buildings such as the Register House, designed by Edinburgh architect Robert Adam (1728-1792).  William Blackwood (1776-1834) had opened his business on the South Bridge in 1804 and book-shops and clubs provided places for discussing the latest news and literary trends.

The dominant literary journal in Edinburgh at this time was The Edinburgh Review (1802-1929), founded by Francis Jeffrey (1773-1850), Sydney Smith (1771-1845) and Henry Brougham (1778-1868).  Whiggish in politics and outlook, this stood in clear opposition to the London based Quarterly Review (1809-1967), a Tory journal founded by John Murray (1778-1843) with the encouragement of Walter Scott.

William Blackwood gained the rights to distribute Murray’s books in Scotland, as well as acting as the Scottish agent for the Quarterly Review.  It was not long before he thought of establishing his own journal, as a genuinely Scottish Tory rival to The Edinburgh Magazine, and with this in mind he founded The Edinburgh Monthly Magazine in April 1817.  Initial sales of the journal were poor.

Lockhart qualified as an advocate in 1816, but maintained a strong interest in European literature.  He  became friendly with Blackwood and was commissioned to undertake a translation of Schlegel’s History of Literature as well as a series of articles on the literature and philosophy of Germany.  As a result he toured Germany in 1817, meeting up with Goethe. His thoughts and impressions were gathered in Foreign Scenes and Manners which appeared in the “Maga” or Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine (as The Edinburgh Monthly Magazine was renamed). The re-titling of the magazine in October 1817 was accompanied by a new Editorial Team comprising James Hogg, the eminent poet, John Wilson (1785-1854), a friend of Wordsworth and Coleridge, and the 23 year old Lockhart. Like Lockhart, Wilson was a graduate of Glasgow and Oxford and was known as a ferocious critic. 

The new triumvirate raised the profile of the Maga, making it a cause célèbre from the outset, publishing the so-called “Chaldee Manuscript” which gave a mock biblical account of the editorial revolution.  Readers were attracted by Wilson and Lockhart’s artfully written biting reviews. Noctes Ambrosianae, a series of dialogues begun by Lockhart in 1822, with Hogg as “the Shepherd” and Wilson as “Christopher North” also became extremely popular for their depiction of life in Scotland.

Lockhart revelled as “the Scorpion which delighteth to sting the faces of men” and joined Wilson in attacking Leigh Hunt, Keats and the “Cockney School of Poetry.” This should come as no surprise as Francis Jeffrey, their rival at The Edinburgh Review, was one of Keats’ most ardent supporters. Leigh Hunt was also despised for his radical political agenda.  Lockhart has gained much notoriety for his attack on Keats, especially his assault on “the calm, settled, imperturbable drivelling idiocy of Endymion” which deeply wounded the poet, who was experiencing the onset of  tuberculosis. Immediately after the attack Keats was driven to write some of his greatest work, including The Eve of St Agnes, La Belle Dame sans Merci and Ode to a Nightingale.  He also declared to Reynolds “If I die you must ruin Lockhart.” The text of the review is included at the end of this guide and corrected proofs appear in NLS MS.4822 on Reel 18.  Lockhart’s attacks are very much in the style of Pope, flinging acid and invective from a great height, mixing savagery with wit,. Yet it should also be noted that Lockhart did not always appreciate the wit of such reviews himself.  When Wilson lambasted Coleridge’s Biographia Literaria, Lockhart was incensed, declaring “If there be any man of grand and original genius alive at this moment in Europe, such a man is Mr Coleridge.”

Lockhart’s sketches of life in Edinburgh and Glasgow show his more whimsical side and were published in book form in 1819 as Peter’s Letters to his Kinfolk.

In 1818 Lockhart met Walter Scott for the first time at the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland and the two got on well.  So much so that Scott invited Lockhart to visit him at Abbotsford, where Lockhart first met Charlotte Sophia Scott (1799-1837). Sophia was Scott’s favourite daughter and quickly formed an attachment with Lockhart. They were married in April 1820. Their first child,  John Hugh Lockhart, or “Johnny” was born on 14 February 1821, but was sickly owing to a spinal condition.

At this point, Lockhart’s reviews finally caught up with him.  John Scott (Editor The London Magazine, and no relation to Sophia’s family) defamed Lockhart in print accusing him of forging testimonials and for being responsible for the attacks on Coleridge.  Lockhart denied both and sought an explanation for the attacks, using his old college friend, Jonathan Christie, as his intermediary in London. John Scott failed to provide an explanation, causing Lockhart to come to London intent on calling Scott out for a duel to settle the matter.  That a literary dispute should lead to such an eventuality was not unknown, indeed Thomas Moore once challenged Francis Jeffrey to a duel over a review, but John Scott did not appear to want to take the challenge, so Lockhart returned home.  In his absence, John Scott continued the quarrel with Christie, leading to a duel between Lockhart’s adversary and his close friend.  In the encounter, John Scott was shot through the body and later died of his wounds.

Even though he was not present, the duel was a turning point in Lockhart’s life. He terminated his involvement with the Maga at the promptings of Scott, his family, and Christie and spent more time with Sophia at  Abbotsford, at their home at Chiefswood (which Walter Scott had given them and was nearby), and at his family home in Germiston. He also served as an advocate on the Highland circuit and wrote a series of novels including Valerius (1821), Some Passages in the Life of Adam Blair (1822), Reginald Dalton (1823) and Matthew Wald (1824). These were modestly successful, but he drew wider praise and appreciation for his translations of Ancient Spanish Ballads (also in 1823).

In 1824 Sophia gave birth to a daughter, who sadly died after two days. 

Lockhart travelled extensively during the year, visiting Christie in Bristol and sampling life in Bath and London.  He returned to London in 1825 and at the entreaty of Benjamin and Isaac Disraeli (friends of John Murray, the publisher)  he was appointed the Editor of The Quarterly Review. It is noteworthy that Lockhart had to promise to shed his image as ‘the Scorpion.’  Scott had been involved in the creation of The Quarterly Review and contributed many important reviews (for instance, praising Emma in 1815) and doubtless exerted his own influence to secure the appointment.

Lockhart moved to London, living first at Pall Mall, then in Wimbledon and later at 24 Sussex Place in Regent’s Park.  Sophia spent a lot of time in Brighton (or ‘Dr Brighton’ as it was known) for the sake of Johnny’s health. 

Anne Scott took Sophia’s place as Walter Scott’s help and support, which was necessary because Constable, Scott’s publishers, went under early in 1826, following the crash of Ballantyne and Hurst and Robinson.  This left Scott with debts of over £120,000, prompting him to let Chiefswood, sell other properties and  start writing furiously to clear the debt.  Those wishing to explore this episode are prompted to explore the papers of Archibald Constable and Robert Cadell, published as parts 6 and 7 of this series.  Charlotte, Scott’s wife of 29 years, died in May 1826.

Better news in 1826 was the birth of Walter Scott Lockhart, a healthy baby, in April.

The first issue of The Quarterly Review under Lockhart’s editorship appeared in March 1826 and contained Scott’s review of Pepys’ diary.  In the June issue Lockhart reviewed Shelley’s poetry, praising his writings, which perhaps shows that he had revised his former opinions and learned some lessons. In the September issue Lockhart reviewed Scott’s Lives of the Novelists, incorporating a lengthy discourse on the importance of novels, which, he argued, had replaced plays and poems as the modern form of expression.

January 1828 saw the birth of another healthy child, Charlotte Lockhart, and later in the year Lockhart’s Life of Burns appeared.   The next few years were not so happy.  Sir Walter Scott suffered strokes in 1830 and 1831 and Johnny died at the end of 1831 while Sir Walter Scott was in Naples with Anne seeking rest and recuperation.  Unfortunately Sir Walter Scott suffered a further stroke on his way home and he died at Abbotsford in July 1832.  Anne died shortly after in June 1833.  Lockhart immersed himself in his work at The Quarterly Review and in writing his masterpiece, Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott which appeared in 1837-1838.  This received widespread acclaim and allowed the public to discover more about ‘the Great Unknown’, as Sir Walter was known to his family.  Lockhart continued his championing of new novelists and helped to clear the remaining debts left by Sir Walter Scott.

Sophia became ill in early 1837 and died in May of that year, prompting Lockhart to write “When youthful faith has fled” which is also reproduced at the end of this guide.  This moving elegy is a poem of real quality and was a favourite of Thomas and Jane Carlyle.

Lockhart continued his work at The Quarterly Review, praising Caroline Norton as “the Byron of our modern poetesses” and he gave the Oxford Movement received a broad welcome. Charles and Walter Scott, Sir Walter’s surviving sons, died in October 1841 and April 1847 respectively, with the result that Abbotsford passed to Walter Scott Lockhart, now renamed as Walter Lockhart Scott.

Lockhart had taken his son on a tour of the Continent in 1843, and was present in Paris in 1848 to see the revolution at first hand.  Charlotte also travelled abroad with her friend, Miss Watkins, and in August 1847 she married James Robert Hope.  Mary, their daughter, was born in October 1852.

Lockhart’s son, Walter, died in January 1853 and Abbotsford passed to James and Charlotte Hope, now known as the Hope-Scotts.

John Murray was shocked when Lockhart handed in his resignation in 1853 after 28 years as Editor of The Quarterly Review. At Lockhart’s suggestion, the Rev Whitwell Elwin succeeded him in the post.  Lockhart ended the year by touring Italy for a final time, meeting Adelaide Sartoris, Fanny Kemble and the Brownings in Rome. He returned to Abbotsford and died there on 25 November 1854. He was buried at the feet of Sir Walter Scott at Dryburgh Abbey.

These papers do much to illuminate Lockhart’s life and passions.  His relations with Sophia and Sir Walter Scott are uppermost in the family correspondence, whilst his letters as Editor of The Quarterly Review, 1825-1853,  reveal the duties and difficulties of a major review editor and describe 19th century literary society in detail.  We also feature a variety of literary manuscripts by Lockhart and some of his sketch books.  The only section of Lockhart material that we have not included are the diaries (NLS MSS.1585-1613) which are extensive but offer very little evidence for the researcher.  They mention occasional dinner parties and other engagements, but they provide no details of the company or the conversations that ensued.

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