by no means reduced his general literary activity. Whether he continued
to contribute to _Blackwood_ I am not sure; some phrases in the _Noctes_
seem to argue the contrary. But he not only, as has been said, wrote for
the _Quarterly_ assiduously, but after a short time joined the new
venture of _Fraser_, and showed in that rollicking periodical that the
sting of the "scorpion" had by no means been extracted. He produced,
moreover, in 1828, his _Life of Burns_, and in 1836-37 his _Life of
Scott_. These, with the sketch of Theodore Hook written for the
_Quarterly_ in 1843, and separately published later, make three very
remarkable examples of literary biography on very different scales,
dealing with very different subjects, and, by comparison of their
uniform excellence, showing that the author had an almost unique genius
for this kind of composition. The _Life of Scott_ fills seven capacious
volumes; the _Life of Burns_ goes easily into one; the _Life of Hook_
does not reach a hundred smallish pages. But they are all equally
well-proportioned in themselves and to their subjects; they all exhibit
the same complete grasp of the secret of biography; and they all have
the peculiarity of being full of facts without presenting an undigested
appearance. They thus stand at an equal distance from biography of the
fashion of the old academic _Eloge_ of the last century, which makes an
elegant discourse about a man, but either deliberately or by accident
gives precise information about hardly any of the facts of the man's
life; and from modern biography, which tumbles upon the devoted reader a
cataract of letters, documents, and facts of all sorts, uncombined and
undigested by any exercise of narrative or critical skill on the part of
the author. Lockhart's biographies, therefore, belong equally (to borrow
De Quincey's useful, though, as far as terminology goes, not very happy
distinction) to the literature of knowledge and the literature of
power. They are storehouses of information; but they are, at the same
time, works of art, and of very great art. The earliest of the three,
the _Life of Burns_, is to this day by far the best book on the subject;
indeed, with its few errors and defects of fact corrected and
supplemented as they have been by the late Mr. Douglas, it makes all
other Lives quite superfluous. Yet it was much more difficult,
especially for a Scotchman, to write a good book about Burns then than
now; though I am told that, for a Scotchman, there is still a
considerable difficulty in the matter. Lockhart was familiar with
Edinburgh society--indeed, he had long formed a part of it--and
Edinburgh society was still, when he wrote, very sore at the charge of
having by turns patronised and neglected Burns. Lockhart was a decided
Tory, and Burns, during the later part of his life at any rate, had
permitted himself manifestations of political opinion which Whigs
themselves admitted to be imprudent freaks, and which even a
good-natured Tory might be excused for regarding as something very much
worse. But the biographer's treatment of both these subjects is
perfectly tolerant, judicious, and fair, and the same may be said of his
whole account of Burns. Indeed, the main characteristic of Lockhart's
criticism, a robust and quiet sanity, fitted him admirably for the task
of biography. He is never in extremes, and he never avoids extremes by
the common expedient of see-sawing between two sides, two parties, or
two views of a man's character. He holds aloof equally from _engouement_
and from depreciation, and if, as a necessary consequence, he failed,
and fails, to please fanatics on either side, he cannot fail to please
those who know what criticism really means.
These good qualities were shown even to better advantage in a pleasanter
but, at the same time, far more difficult task, the famous _Life of
Scott_. The extraordinary interest of the subject, and the fashion, no
less skilful than modest, in which the biographer keeps himself in the
background, and seems constantly to be merely editing Scott's words,
have perhaps obscured the literary value of the book to some readers. Of
the perpetual comparison with Boswell, it may be said, once for all,
that it is a comparison of matter merely; and that from the properly
literary point of view, the point of view of workmanship and form, it
does not exist. Perhaps the most surprising thing is that, even in
moments of personal irritation, any one should have been found to accuse
Lockhart of softening Scott's faults. The other charge, of malice to
Scott, is indeed more extraordinary still in a certain way; but, being
merely imbecile, it need not be taken into account. A delightful
document informs us that, in the opinion of the Hon. Charles Sumner,
Fenimore Cooper (who, stung by some references to him in the book,
attacked it) administered "a proper castigation to the vulgar minds of
Scott and Lockhart." This is a jest so pleasing that it almost puts one
in good temper with the whole affair. But, in fact, Lockhart,
considering his relationship to Scott, and considering Scott's
greatness, could hardly have spoken more plainly as to the grave fault
of judgment which made a man of letters and a member of a learned
profession mix himself up secretly, and almost clandestinely, with
commercial speculations. On this point the biographer does not attempt
to mince matters; and on no other point was it necessary for him to be
equally candid, for this, grave as it is, is almost the only fault to be
found with Scott's character. This candour, however, is only one of the
merits of the book. The wonderfully skilful arrangement of so vast and
heterogeneous a mass of materials, the way in which the writer's own
work and his quoted matter dovetail into one another, the completeness
of the picture given of Scott's character and life, have never been
equalled in any similar book. Not a few minor touches, moreover, which
are very apt to escape notice, enhance its merit. Lockhart was a man of
all men least given to wear his heart upon his sleeve, yet no one has
dealt with such pitiful subjects as his later volumes involve, at once
with such total absence of "gush" and with such noble and pathetic
appreciation. For Scott's misfortunes were by no means the only matters
which touched him nearly, in and in connection with the chronicle. The
constant illness and sufferings of his own child form part of it; his
wife died during its composition and publication, and all these things
are mentioned with as little parade of stoicism as of sentiment. I do
not think that, as an example of absolute and perfect good taste, the
account of Scott's death can be surpassed in literature. The same
quality exhibits itself in another matter. No biographer can be less
anxious to display his own personality than Lockhart; and though for six
years he was a constant, and for much longer an occasional, spectator of
the events he describes, he never introduces himself except when it is
necessary. Yet, on the other hand, when Scott himself makes
complimentary references to him (as when he speaks of his party "having
Lockhart to say clever things"), he neither omits the passage nor stoops
to the missish _minauderie_, too common in such cases, of translating
"spare my blushes" into some kind of annotation. Lockhart will not talk
about Lockhart; but if others, whom the public likes to hear, talk about
him, Lockhart does not put his fan before his face.
This admirable book, however, is both well enough known (if not so well
known as it deserves) and large enough to make it both unnecessary and
impossible to criticise it at length here. The third work noticed
above, the sketch of the life of Theodore Hook, though it has been
reprinted more than once, and is still, I believe, kept in print and on
sale, is probably less familiar to most readers. It is, however, almost
as striking an example, though of course an example in miniature only,
of Lockhart's aptitude for the great and difficult art of literary
biography as either of the two books just mentioned. Here the difficulty
was of a different kind. A great many people liked Theodore Hook, but it
was nearly impossible for any one to respect him; yet it was quite
impossible for Lockhart, a political sympathiser and a personal friend,
to treat him harshly in an obituary notice. There was no danger of his
setting down aught in malice; but there might be thought to be a
considerable danger of over-extenuation. The danger was the greater,
inasmuch as Lockhart himself had certainly not escaped, and had perhaps
to some extent deserved, one of Hook's reproaches. No man questioned his
integrity; he was not a reckless spendthrift; he was not given to
excesses in living, or to hanging about great houses; nor was he
careless of moral and social rules. But the scorpion which had delighted
to sting the faces of men might have had some awkwardness in dealing
with the editor of _John Bull_. The result, however, victoriously
surmounts all difficulties without evading one. Nothing that is the
truth about Hook is omitted, or even blinked; and from reading Lockhart
alone, any intelligent reader might know the worst that is to be said
about him. Neither are any of his faults, in the unfair sense,
extenuated. His malicious and vulgar practical jokes; his carelessness
at Mauritius; the worse than carelessness which allowed him to shirk,
when he had ample means of discharging it by degrees, a debt which he
acknowledged that he justly owed; the folly and vanity which led him to
waste his time, his wit, and his money in playing the hanger-on at
country houses and town dinner-tables; his hard living, and the laxity
which induced him not merely to form irregular connections, but
prevented him from taking the only step which could, in some measure,
repair his fault, are all fairly put, and blamed frankly. Even in that
more delicate matter of the personal journalism, Lockhart's procedure is
as ingenuous as it is ingenious; and the passage of the sketch which
deals with "the blazing audacity of invective, the curious delicacy of
persiflage, the strong caustic satire" (expressions, by the way, which
suit Lockhart himself much better than Hook, though Lockhart had not
Hook's broad humour), in fact, admits that the application of these
things was not justifiable, nor to be justified. Yet with all this, the
impression left by the sketch is distinctly favourable on the whole,
which, in the circumstances, must be admitted to be a triumph of
advocacy obtained not at the expense of truth, but by the art of the
advocate in making the best of it.
The facts of Lockhart's life between his removal to London and his death
may be rapidly summarised, the purpose of this notice being rather
critical than biographical. He had hardly settled in town when, as he
himself tells, he had to attempt, fruitlessly enough, the task of
mediator in the financial disasters of Constable and Scott; and his own
share of domestic troubles began early. His eldest son, after repeated
escapes, died in 1831; Scott followed shortly; Miss Anne Scott, after
her father's death, came in broken health to Lockhart's house, and died
there only a year later; and in the spring of 1837 his wife likewise
died. Then Fortune let him alone for a little, to return in no better
humour some years later.
It is, however, from the early "thirties" that one of the best known
memorials of Lockhart dates; that is to say, the portrait, or rather the
two portraits, in the Fraser Gallery. In the general group of the
Fraserians he sits between Fraser himself and Theodore Hook, with the
diminutive figure of Crofton Croker half intercepted beyond him; and his
image forms the third plate in Mr. Bates's republication of the gallery.
It is said to be the most faithful of the whole series, and it is
certainly the handsomest, giving even a more flattering representation
than the full-face portrait by Pickersgill which serves as frontispiece
to the modern editions of the _Ballads_. In this latter the curious
towzled mop of hair, in which our fathers delighted, rather mars the
effect; while in Maclise's sketch (which is in profile) it is less
obtrusive. In this latter, too, there is clearly perceivable what the
Shepherd in the _Noctes_ calls "a sort of laugh aboot the screwed-up
mouth of him that fules ca'd no canny, for they couldna thole the
meaning o't." There is not much doubt that Lockhart aided and abetted
Maginn in much of the mischief that distinguished the early days of
_Fraser_, though his fastidious taste is never likely to have stooped to
the coarseness which was too natural to Maginn. It is believed that to
him is due the wicked wresting of Alaric Watts' second initial into
"Attila," which gave the victim so much grief, and he probably did many
other things of the same kind. But Lockhart was never vulgar, and
_Fraser_ in those days very often was.
In 1843 Lockhart received his first and last piece of political
preferment, being appointed, says one of the authorities before me,
Chancellor of the Duchy of Cornwall, and (says another) Chancellor of
the Duchy of Lancaster. Such are biographers; but the matter is not of
the slightest importance, though I do not myself quite see how it could
have been Lancaster. A third and more trustworthy writer gives the post
as "Auditorship" of the Duchy of Lancaster, which is possible enough.
In 1847, the death of Sir Walter Scott's last surviving son brought the
title and estate to Lockhart's son Walter, but he died in 1853.
Lockhart's only other child had married Mr. Hope--called, after his
brother-in-law's death, Mr. Hope Scott, of whom an elaborate biography
has been published. Little in it concerns Lockhart, but the admirable
letter which he wrote to Mr. Hope on his conversion to the Roman Church.
This step, followed as it was by Mrs. Hope, could not but be, and in
this letter is delicately hinted to be, no small grief to Lockhart, who
saw Abbotsford fall under influences for which certainly neither he nor
its founder had any respect. His repeated domestic losses, and many
years of constant work and excitement, appear to have told on him, and
very shortly after his son's death in April 1853 he resigned the
editorship of the _Quarterly_. He then visited Italy, a visit from
which, if he had been a superstitious man, the ominous precedent of
Scott might have deterred him. His journey did him no good, and he died
at Abbotsford on the 25th of November. December, says another authority,
for so it is that history gets written, even in thirty years.
The comparatively brief notices which are all that have been published
about Lockhart, uniformly mention the unpopularity (to use a mild word)
which pursued him, and which, as I have remarked, does not seem to have
exhausted itself even yet. It is not very difficult to account for the
origin of this; and the neglect to supply any collection of his work,
and any authoritative account of his life and character, will quite
explain its continuance. In the first place, Lockhart was well known as
a most sarcastic writer; in the second, he was for nearly a lifetime
editor of one of the chief organs of party politics and literary
criticism in England. He might have survived the _Chaldee Manuscript_,
and _Peter's Letters_, and the lampoons in _Fraser_: he might even have
got the better of the youthful imprudence which led him to fix upon
himself a description which was sure to be used and abused against him
by the "fules," if he had not succeeded to the chair of the _Quarterly_.
Individual and, to a great extent, anonymous indulgence of the luxury of
scorn never gave any man a very bad character, even if he were, as
Lockhart was, personally shy and reserved, unable to make up for written
sarcasm with verbal flummery, and, in virtue of an incapacity for
gushing, deprived of the easiest and, by public personages, most
commonly practised means of proving that a man has "a good heart after
all." But when he complicated his sins by editing the _Quarterly_ at a
time when everybody attacked everybody else in exactly such terms as
pleased them, the sins of his youth were pretty sure to be visited on
him. In the first place, there was the great army of the criticised, who
always consider that the editor of the paper which dissects them is
really responsible. The luckless Harriet Martineau, who, if I remember
rightly, gives in her autobiography a lurid picture of Lockhart "going
down at night to the printer's" and inserting dreadful things about her,
and who, I believe, took the feminine plan of revenging herself in an
obituary article, was only one of a great multitude.
Lockhart does not seem to have taken over from Gifford quite such a
troublesome crew of helpers as Macvey Napier inherited from Jeffrey, and
he was also free from the monitions of his predecessor. But in Croker he
had a first lieutenant who could not very well be checked, and who
(though he, too, has had rather hard measure) had no equal in the art of
making himself offensive. Besides, those were the days when the famous
"Scum condensed of Irish bog" lines appeared in a great daily newspaper
about O'Connell. Imagine the _Times_ addressing Mr. Parnell as "Scum
condensed of Irish bog," with the other amenities that follow, in this
year of grace!
But Lockhart had not only his authors, he had his contributors. "A'
contributors," says the before-quoted Shepherd, in a moment of such
preternatural wisdom that he must have been "fou," "are in a manner
fierce." They are--it is the nature and essence of the animal to be so.
The contributor who is not allowed to contribute is fierce, as a matter
of course; but not less fierce is the contributor who thinks himself too
much edited, and the contributor who imperatively insists that his
article on Chinese metaphysics shall go in at once, and the contributor
who, being an excellent hand at articles on the currency, wants to be
allowed to write on dancing; and, in short, as the Shepherd says, all
contributors. Now it does not appear (for, as I must repeat, I have no
kind of private information on the subject) that Lockhart was by any
means an easy-going editor, or one of that kind which allows a certain
number of privileged writers to send in what they like. We are told in
many places that he "greatly improved" his contributors' articles; and I
should say that if there is one thing which drives a contributor to the
verge of madness, it is to have his articles "greatly improved." A hint
in the _Noctes_ (and it may be observed that though the references to
Lockhart in the _Noctes_ are not very numerous, they are valuable, for
Wilson's friendship seems to have been mixed with a small grain of
jealousy which preserves them from being commonplace) suggests that his
friends did not consider him as by any means too ready to accept their
papers. All this, added to his early character of scoffer at Whig
dignities, and his position as leader _en titre_ of Tory journalism, was
quite sufficient to create a reputation partly exaggerated, partly quite
false, which has endured simply because no trouble has been taken to
sift and prove it.
The head and front of Lockhart's offending, in a purely literary view,
seems to be the famous _Quarterly_ article on Lord Tennyson's volume of
1832. That article is sometimes spoken of as Croker's, but there can be
no manner of doubt that it is Lockhart's; and, indeed, it is quoted as
his by Professor Ferrier, who, through Wilson, must have known the
facts. Now I do not think I yield to any man living in admiration of the
Laureate, but I am unable to think much the worse, or, indeed, any the
worse, of Lockhart because of this article. In the first place, it is
extremely clever, being, perhaps, the very best example of politely
cruel criticism in existence. In the second, most, if not all, of the
criticism is perfectly just. If Lord Tennyson himself, at this safe
distance of time, can think of the famous strawberry story and its
application without laughing, he must be an extremely sensitive Peer.
And nobody, I suppose, would now defend the wondrous stanza which was
paralleled from the _Groves of Blarney_. The fact is that criticism of
criticism after some time is apt to be doubly unjust. It is wont to
assume, or rather to imagine, that the critic must have known what the
author was going to do, as well as what he had actually done; and it is
wont to forget that the work criticised was very often, as it presented
itself to the critic, very different from what it is when it presents
itself to the critic's critic. The best justification of Lockhart's
verdict on the volume of 1832 is what Lord Tennyson himself has done
with the volume of 1832. Far more than half the passages objected to
have since been excised or altered. But there are other excuses. In the
first place, Mr. Tennyson, as he then was, represented a further
development of schools of poetry against which the _Quarterly_ had
always, rightly or wrongly, set its face, and a certain loyalty to the
principles of his paper is, after all, not the worst fault of a critic.
In the second, no one can fairly deny that some points in Mr. Tennyson's
early, if not in his later, manner must have been highly and rightly
disgustful to a critic who, like Lockhart, was above all things
masculine and abhorrent of "gush." In the third, it is, unfortunately,
not given to all critics to admire all styles alike. Let those to whom
it is given thank God therefor; but let them, at the same time, remember
that they are as much bound to accept whatever is good in all kinds of
critics as whatever is good in all kinds of poets.