questions. I think his first publication was an article on heraldry, in the "Edinburgh Encyclopædia." County histories were favourite reading with him. I remember his telling me of his being placed at dinner by an American lady, who explained to him that her husband (a gentleman of good position in the States) was descended from an ancient Scotch family of great distinction. "Little," said he, "did the worthy lady suspect that I was a good enough Scotch genealogist to know that her husband's name was never borne by any gentleman's family in Scotland."

'But though Lockhart was an excellent scholar and a man of great and various knowledge, he was not, I apprehend, what would be called "a learned man." We had only one learned man in our (in those days) small college: I mean the late Sir William Hamilton. He was already pursuing those studies which ultimately gave him a high place among those who dwell in the higher regions of learned speculation.

Those who never knew Lockhart personally, or knew him but slightly, will never appreciate him justly. He had a sort of magnanimous carelessness, which allowed him to say things and to write things which gave a handle to those who were indisposed to him. Those only who knew him intimately could understand what the man really was. If his best friend or his nearest relation had been mortified in his self-love by anything touching his vanity, it is not to be denied that Lockhart was not the man to heal the wound. If resorted to for sympathy, he would most probably make it smart afresh by a thousand unpleasing gibes. But had any real sorrow or anxiety come upon you, such as the loss or sickness of those dear to you, or any calamity touching the fortunes or life of yourself or your family, John Lockhart was, of all men, he to whom you might most safely resort for sympathy and consolation-for help, if within his power to give it.

"The love of children was stronger in Lockhart than I have ever known it in any other man-it was womanly love. He delighted to dandle and play with an infant in arms. It was an early characteristic, and he never lost it. A little girl of four or five years of age, the child of one of the college servants, used to be his companion in his rooms for hours at a time, and when in after years he heard of ill having befallen her, I remember that he was deeply moved. I never saw so happy a father as he was while dancing his first-born child in his arms. His first sorrow in life was the breaking of the health and ultimate death of this child, the Hugh Littlejohn of the "Tales of a Grandfather." It was from that time that an expression of deep melancholy not unfrequently overspread his face, and in his later years habitually settled there.

'As a member of society, Lockhart was an exact observer of all its requirements. He always kept his engagements, and was always punctual as to time. He dressed well and carefully, but never too well. His manners were good-perfectly calm, manly, and selfrelying, without the slightest obtrusiveness, arrogance, or attempt at display. His conversation was excellent, piquant, and to the purpose; but he never sought more than his share, and readily gave way to more ambitious

ambitious talkers. He was wholly without pedantries; but his extensive knowledge often enabled him to settle doubtful questions and to give the matter in hand a new aspect. This was always done briefly and quietly; but in a tête-à-tête, or with a few friends, literature was, I think, his favourite topic, and his conversation on books or literary subjects was always singularly agreeable. He was never a rich man, and had a strong sense of the duty of prudence in money matters, and was at all times anxiously careful to keep his own expenses within his means; yet, in proportion to his means, he was the largest giver, both in the shape of avowed gifts and of loans-the non-payment of which was a moral certainty-that I have ever known.'

To this sketch, admirable as far as it goes, a few, and only a few not very important additions may be made.

There was a brief space in his academical career when Lockhart seemed more disposed than prudence warranted to fall into habits which clever men with moderate means will do well to avoid. He hunted frequently, besides becoming a member of a boat club, a much less perilous amusement. Sir William Hamilton observed this with regret; and partly through his own judicious counsel, partly by communicating in a wise and friendly spirit with the young man's father, he succeeded in diverting Lockhart from pursuits which might have spoiled such a nature as his. In other respects Lockhart ran the common course of college life, getting into scrapes like undergraduates in general, and getting out of them again with a tact peculiar to himself. Our correspondent has spoken of the sort of terror with which Mr. Lockhart's tutor contemplated his mercurial pupil; and that he had some reason to be afraid of him may be gathered from the following anecdote. The gentleman in question was an accurate classical scholar, and even for his day a superior man; but his literary acquirements were moderate. It was his pleasure, however, to be regarded by his pupils as a man of extensive erudition; and when lecturing on the Greek Testament, he would pause from time to time to point out what he considered to be Hebraisms in the style of one or other of the Evangelists. Lockhart, who mistrusted his tutor's acquaintance with Hebrew, and who, in his own thirst for knowledge, had already mastered the Hebrew alphabet, ventured upon the following bold trick. One day, to the great surprise and apparent delight of the tutor, he handed in, instead of a Latin exercise, a paper covered with Hebrew characters. He was complimented on his acquirements, and desired to persevere; which he did for several days, till at last the tutor, to whom the glory of the college was everything, unable any longer to restrain his delight, carried a bundle of these

exercises

exercises to Dr. Parsons. The Doctor (who was really a good Hebrew scholar) read, or appeared to read, Lockhart's essays, the tutor dilating all the while on what might be expected from such an extraordinary young man, when the form of the master's visage suddenly changed, and, after vainly attempting to look grave, he burst into a roar of laughter. Lockhart had written in the Hebrew character, but in the English language, a series of good-natured lampoons upon his tutor, for each of which, as he handed it in, he had received the public thanks of the person lampooned. We need scarcely add that Hebrew exercises were thenceforth discouraged, though nothing was said. to make Lockhart or the class aware that the real merits of these particular specimens had been discovered. Lockhart wrote Latin with great facility and elegance. His skill in this respect was sometimes exercised on impositions to which, for boyish pranks (never once for any grave offence), he was subjected. Upon one of these occasions he and others found themselves confined to college till one of the longest papers in the 'Spectator should have been rendered into Latin. Lockhart, without missing a single lecture, gave in his imposition a little after noon, and took his walk, and was back a free man to dinner at what was then the usual hour, four o'clock.

It was about this time that Lockhart began the study of the Spanish language, of which he never ceased to be a passionate admirer. His English version of some of their most popular ballads shows likewise how he could enter into the chivalrous character of the Spaniards themselves, whose resistance to the power of the first Napoleon was then at its height, and interested him greatly. Like many of his contemporaries, destined as well as himself for peaceful pursuits, Lockhart yearned to go out and join the patriots in their struggle. Unlike some of them, however, he was restrained by the known wishes of his father from indulging that inclination. At the same time a memorandum, kindly supplied by his brother, shows that he endeavoured to make a compromise between his own wishes and what he accepted as a duty. He offered to take orders in the Church of England provided Dr. Lockhart would consent to his joining Lord Wellington's army as a chaplain. But the Doctor, whose eldest son was then serving with his regiment in India, wholly condemned the romantic scheme; and John, abandoning all idea of fighting for the Spaniards, resigned himself, not perhaps without a murmur, to his fate.

The same distaste for rough play which had distinguished Lockhart when a student at Glasgow College, remained with him throughout the whole of his Oxford career. Genial he was,

and

and light-hearted-glad to receive his friends in his own rooms, or to visit them in theirs; and, though gifted with no genius for music, exceedingly fond of simple ballads, which some of his friends sang with skill and taste. But boxing, single-stick,

fencing, &c., though they were then much in vogue, he never approached. His great delight of all in the way of relaxation was a quiet row on the river, and a fish dinner at Godstow. Of the knot of intimate associates who used to join him in these excursions, originally very small, probably few now survive ; but there is not one among them, we will venture to say, who fails to look back at this moment with melancholy pleasure on the brilliant wit, the merry song, and from time to time the grave and interesting discussion, which on such occasions gave to the sanded parlour of the village ale-house the air of the Palæstra at Tusculum, or the Amaltheum of Cuma.

Lockhart went up into the schools in the Easter term of 1813, before he had completed his nineteenth year; and, notwithstanding that he with unparalleled audacity devoted part of his time to caricaturing the examining masters, came out in the first class in Classics. For Mathematics he never had the smallest taste. The name which stood next to his in the alphabetical arrangement of the first class was, like his own, destined to become celebrated. It was that of Dr. Milman, the present Dean of St. Paul's-his friend through life. Can anything stronger be said in his favour than that he gained and kept the friendship of such men? Lockhart's success gave great satisfaction, not only to his personal friends, but to the master and the tutor of the college. The latter, a man of most kindly and amiable disposition, forgot, in a triumph which he accepted as reflecting honour upon himself, whatever soreness the little incident of the Hebrew exercises might have occasioned. He wrote to Lockhart's father a letter of congratulation, in terms so warm and generous that they gladdened the old man's heart.

Having obtained from Oxford all that she was likely to give -for even in Balliol, fellowships were not in those days as they are now, open to competition-Lockhart quitted college, and turned his attention to the study of Scottish law. This imposed upon him the necessity of residing for a certain portion of the

* Neither did he ever become a sportsman. In an article on the Life of one who was eminent in that capacity as well as in others, Sir Fowell Buxton, Lockhart thus expresses himself (Quarterly Review,' vol. lxxxiii. p. 143):- We are less surprised than distressed to see a child blowing up a frog or impaling a butterfly; but of all this world's wonders none is to us more incomprehensible than the fact that there have been deep philosophers, solemn divines, nay, tender, thoughtful, meditative poets, who could wander from morn to dewy eve among woods and waters, torturing fish and massacring birds.'

year

year in Edinburgh; and there he accordingly settled himself in bachelor's lodgings, though not till he had indulged a desire which had long been present with him, of visiting Germany and becoming personally acquainted with Goethe. For already he was so far master of the German language that he could appreciate the merits of that band of poets and scholars who, in a single generation, had won for the literature of their country the high place which it still holds among the nations of Europe; and among that band there was none whom he more passionately admired than Goethe. The noteworthy point in the adventure is, however, this-Lockhart wished to visit Germany, but the means were wanting. He could not afford the outlay incident to what was then a toilsome and expensive journey. But his reputation as a scholar had preceded him to Edinburgh; the article on Heraldry, elsewhere referred to, showed that he could write; and Mr. Blackwood, already rising into eminence as a shrewd and enterprising publisher, accepted without hesitation his proposal to translate into English Frederick Schlegel's Lectures on the Study of History. Before a line of the translation had been written, the sum agreed upon as the price of the copyright was handed over to Lockhart. Though seldom communicative on such subjects, he more than once alluded to the circumstance in afterlife, and always in the same terms. 'It was a generous act on Ebony's part, and a bold one too; for he had only my word for it that I had any acquaintance at all with the German language.' Mr. Blackwood knew, however, what he was about. His sagacity showed him that in Lockhart's hands he was perfectly safe; and Lockhart and he became fast friends, and so continued ever after.

*

The translation of Schlegel's Lectures, of which the merits have long been recognised, was, we believe, the first of Lockhart's avowed works. It did not come out, however, till after his connexion with the friendly bookseller had by other means been confirmed. Meanwhile he paid his visit to Germany, saw and conversed with Goethe in Weimar, traversed France, and what was then the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and returned to Edinburgh. There in 1816 he became an advocate, or, we in the South should express ourselves, was called to the bar; and day by day in session-time duly showed himself in the Parliament House. But Lockhart had no friends in those days among the writers or attorneys, and few briefs came in. We doubt whether his own tastes ever led him in reality to desire that they should come in. Full of knowledge as he was,

as

* A play upon Mr. Blackwood's name.

and