LOCKHART,
originally Locard or Lockard, a surname of great antiquity in
Scotland, In the reigns of David I. (1124-1153) and Malcolm IV.
(1153-1165) flourished Stephen Lochard, described as “a man of rank
and distinction.” He and Simon Locard, stated to be his son, though
this is doubted by Chalmers, who supposes them to have been
contemporaries, (Caledonia, vol. i. p. 537,) possessed
lands in Lanarkshire and Ayrshire. Simon was knighted by William the
Lion. His estate in Upper Clydesdale, then called Wudekirch, was
afterwards from him called Symonstoun, now the parish of Symington.
He had also lands in Kyle, from him also called Symington, now also
a parish. Both were held under Walter the Steward of Scotland. His
name occurs ad a witness in a charter of donation to the abbey of
Kelso, in 1164, and also in one of King William to the said abbey of
a chapel on his lands.
His son, Malcolm Lochard, is witness in several charters in
the beginning of the reign of Alexander II. (1214-1249). With one
daughter, he had two sons; Sir Simon, and William, progenitor of the
Lockharts of Bar.
Sir Simon, the elder son, proprietor of Craig-Lockhart, in the
shire of Edinburgh, was knighted by Alexander III. He had two sons;
Malcolm, who swore a force fealty to Edward I. in 1296; and Sir
Stephen, who succeeded his brother, and was the first of the family
designed of Lee and Cartland. In 1306, he was compelled to swear
allegiance to Edward I. for his lands in Mid Lothian. He died about
1320. His son, Sir Simon Lockard of Lee, accompanied the good Sir
James Douglas on his expedition with the heart of Bruce to the Holy
Land, when Douglas was killed in a battle with the Moors, in Spain.
The Lockharts, in consequence, have ever since carried a heart
placed within a padlock, as part of their armorial bearings, with
the motto, Corda serata pando, “I lay open the locked
hearts.” Sir Simon went to the Holy Land, as a soldier of the Cross,
and brought home the celebrated stone called ‘the Lee penny,’ still
in possession of the family, on which Sir Walter Scott founded his
romance of ‘The Talisman’ in the ‘Tales of the Crusaders.’ The way
he became possessed of it tradition states to have been as follows:
Having taken prisoner a Saracen chief, the wife of his captive came
to ransom him, and on counting out the money, a stone or composition
of a dark red colour and triangular shape, set on a silver coin,
fell to the ground. She hastily snatched it up, which Sir Simon
observing, insisted upon having it, before giving up his prisoner.
(See Preface to the Talisman.) They also changed the spelling of
their name to Lockheart, now Lockhart. Sir Simon died in the reign
of Robert II.
Allan Lockhart of Lee, the fifth in descent from Sir Simon,
was killed at the battle of Pinkie in 1547. The third from this
Allan, Sir James Lockhart of Lee, born in 1596, was, in his youth,
appointed a gentleman of the privy chamber to Charles I., and
knighted. In 1630 and 1633, he was one of the commissioners of the
Estates for the county of Lanark, and on 20th June of the
latter year was chosen a lord of the Articles. In 1645 he was again
returned to parliament. He was appointed one of the commissioners of
exchequer, 1st February, 1645, and on 2d July 1646 was
admitted a lord of session, when he took the judicial title of Lord
Lee. Being a sincere loyalist, he zealously supported “the
Engagement” for the relief of Charles I. in 1648, and commanded a
regiment under the duke of Hamilton at the battle of Preston. He was
in consequence deprived of all his offices on 15th
February 1649, and by an act of the Estates passed on 4th
June 1650, he and others were banished from the kingdom. On 5th
December the same year, on his humble supplication, he was allowed
to return to Scotland, when he was appointed one of the committee of
Estates, chosen to superintend the levy then making for an invasion
of England under Charles II. With several others of the committee he
was unfortunately surprised at Alyth on 28th August 1651,
by a party of English soldiers, and carried first to Broughty
castle, and afterwards sent to the Tower of London, where he was
confined for several years under the Commonwealth. He at last
obtained his liberty through the intercession of his eldest son, the
celebrated Sir William Lockhart.
After the Restoration, Lord Lee was appointed a member of the
privy council, and a commissioner of exchequer. He was also restored
to his seat on the bench. In 1661, 1665, and 1669 he was elected
commissioner to the Estates for the shire of Lanark, and in all
these years he was a lord of the Articles. On 28th July
1671, he was appointed lord-justice-clerk, and a pension was settled
on him by the king of £400 sterling yearly for life. (Douglas’
Baronage, p. 326.) He died in 1674, in his 78th year.
by a first wife he had no surviving issue. By a second wife, Martha,
daughter of Sir George Douglas of Mordington, and maid of honour to
the queen of Charles I., he had, with two daughters, four sons,
namely, Sir William, a distinguished statesman and soldier, of whom
a memoir is given below; Sir George, lord president of the court of
session, the first of the Lockharts of Carnwath, of whom a memoir is
also given below; Sir John, of Castlehill, a lord of session (1665)
and of justiciary (1671), whose male line failed; and Captain Robert
Lockhart, who was slain in the civil wars.
Sir William, the eldest son, was twice married, By his first
wife, a daughter of Sir John Hamilton of Orbiestoun, a lord of
session, he had a son, James, who died young. By his second wife,
Robina Shouster, niece by her mother of Oliver Cromwell, the lord
protector, he had, with two daughters, five sons, namely, Cromwell,
his heir; Julius, killed at Tangiers, named after Cardinal Mazarine;
Richard; John, and James, who were all successively inheritors of
Lee.
Cromwell Lockhart of Lee, the eldest son, succeeded his father
in 1675. He married, first, a daughter of Sir Daniel Harvie,
ambassador extraordinary from England to Constantinople, without
issue; secondly, his cousin Martha, daughter and heiress of Sir John
Lockhart of Castlehill, also without issue. After his death she took
for her second husband, Sir John Sinclair of Stevenston, and the
estate of Castlehill descended to a younger branch of the Sinclair
family, who assumed the name of Sinclair.
James Lockhart of Lee, who succeeded his three elder brothers
in the estate and the representation of the family, was M.P. for
Lanarkshire and one of the commissioners of equivalent. John, his
son, inherited the estate in 1718, but though twice married, he died
in 1777 without issue, when the succession to Lee devolved on Court
Lockhart-Wishart of Carnwath, the descendant of Sir George Lockhart,
lord president of the court of session, the founder of the Carnwath
branch. Sir George purchased the extensive estates of the earls of
Carnwath in Lanarkshire. With a daughter, he had two sons, George,
of whom a memoir is given below, and Philip, who was shot as a rebel
at Preston in 1715. Philip’s second son, Alexander, of Craighouse,
was a lord of session, under the title of Lord Covington. He had
distinguished himself as an advocate at the trial of several of the
unfortunate persons taken at Carlisle after the rebellion of 1745,
and previous to being raised to the bench was dean of the faculty of
advocates.
The eldest son, George, born in 1700, succeeded to the
Carnwath estate in December 1731. Like his father he was a strong
partisan of the Stuarts. He married Fergusia Wishart, daughter and
coheir of Sir George Wishart of Cliftonhill, Mid Lothian, and with a
daughter, had three sons, namely, 1. George, who was so strenuous a
supporter of the cause of the Pretender, that he was specially
exempt from every act of amnesty issued by the government. He died
abroad before his father. 2. James, who succeeded. And 3. Charles,
who married Elizabeth, only child of John Macdonald, Esq. of Largie,
on whose death he assumed the name and arms of Macdonald of Largie.
James, the eldest surviving son, assumed, in right of his
mother, the name of Wishart in addition to his own. He was one of
the lords of the bedchamber to the king of Hungary, count of the
holy Roman empire, knight of the order of Maria Theresa, and general
of the imperial forces. On the death of John Lockhart, last of Lee,
in 1777, he succeeded to that estate. The celebrated Lee penny, to
which a small silver chain is attached, is preserved in a gold box,
the gift of the empress Maria Theresa, His son Charles, of Lee and
Carnwath, and Count Lockhart Wishart, dying in 1802, without issue,
the foreign honours became extinct, the Cliftonhill property
descended to his half-sister, Maria Theresa, while the Lee and
Carnwath estates devolved on his cousin, Alexander Macdonald, eldest
surviving son of Charles Lockhart and Elizabeth Macdonald of Largie.
On inheriting the estates and representation of the family he
resumed the name of Lockhart, and was created a baronet of Great
Britain, 24th May, 1806. With two daughters, he had three
sons, namely, Sir Charles, second baronet; sir Norman, third
baronet; and Alexander, M.P. for Lanarkshire from 1837 to 1841.
The eldest son, Sir Charles Macdonald Lockhart, married Emilia
Olivia, daughter of Sir Charles Ross, sixth baronet of Balnagowan,
and had two daughters. On his death, 8th December 1832,
he was succeeded by his brother, Sir Norman Macdonald Lockhart, who
died in 1849, when his son, Sir Norman Macdonald Lockhart, born in
1845, became the fourth baronet.
_____
The Lockharts of Milton-Lockhart are descended from Stephen,
second son of Sir Stephen Lockhart of Cleghorn, armour-bearer to
James III., and had of the principal branch of the house of Lee.
Stephen Lockhart of Wicketshaw, or Waygateshaw, Stirlingshire,
great-grandson of the first Stephen, married Grizel, daughter of
Walter Carmichael of Hyndford, by whom he had three sons. William,
the eldest, who succeeded him, in the reign of Charles II., was a
leader of the Lanarkshire Covenanters, and one of the first to join
the rising which terminated in the defeat at Rullion Green (Kirkton’s
church History, p. 234), on which account his estate was
forfeited. This branch became extinct in 1776, by the death, without
issue, of his grandson, Sir William Lockhart Denham, baronet. The
second son, Robert of Birkhill, had a horse shot under him at
Bothwell Bridge, and while in concealment after the battle, with
other Covenanters, some of them proposed to join in a psalm of
praise, from which Birkhill tried to dissuade them, ad the enemy was
in close pursuit. Finding his remonstrances vain, he took refuge on
the top of a tree, and the soldiers of Claverhouse having come upon
his friends, they shortly afterwards ended their career on the
scaffold. He himself, worn out by fatigue and privations, was soon
after found dead in a moss, and secretly buried after nightfall
within the church of Carluke. The sword and pistols he wore at his
death are preserved by his family. (New Stat. Account of
Scotland, vol. vi. p. 579, note.) The third son, Walter Lockhart
of Kirkton, a cadet of the family of Wicketshaw, at first held a
commission in the royal forces, but afterwards espoused the cause of
the Covenant. He was paymaster of the forces in Scotland, and died
in Edinburgh castle in 1743, aged 87.
William Lockhart of Milton-Lockhart and Germinstown, eldest
son of the Rev. Dr. Lockhart, and half brother of John Gibson
Lockhart, son-in-law of Sir Walter Scott, and grandson of William
Lockhart of Birkhill, was chosen M.P. for Lanarkshire in 1841. He
died Nov. 21, 1857, when he was succeeded by his younger brother,
Lawrence Lockhart, D.D., minister of Inchinnan. He resigned that
charge in 1860.
For the Lockharts of Cleghorn see SUPPLEMENT. Allan Elliott
Lockhart of Cleghorn, Lanarkshire, and Borthwickbrae, Selkirkshire,
admitted an advocate at the Scotch bar in 1824, was elected M.P. for
Selkirkshire in 1846.
LOCKHART, SIR WILLIAM,
of Lee, a distinguished statesman and soldier, eldest son of Sir
James Lockhart, Lord Lee, was born in 1621. He received the
principal part of his education in Holland, and afterwards entered
the French army as a volunteer, when the queen-mother procured for
him an ensign’s commission. Subsequently he accompanied Lord William
Hamilton to Scotland, and was appointed lieutenant-colonel of his
regiment. Having been introduced to Charles I., after his surrender
to the Scots army before Newark, he received the honour of
knighthood from the king. He joined in the “Engagement,” under the
duke of Hamilton, but being captured at Preston, he remained for a
year a prisoner at Newcastle, and only regained his liberty by the
payment of one thousand pounds. After the arrival of Charles II. in
Scotland, Lockhart held a commission in the royalist army; but
having been treated, on one or two occasions, with disrespect by
that prince, he is said to have haughtily exclaimed, that “No king
on earth should use him in that manner.” He was present at the
battle of Worcester, where his regiment fought bravely on the king’s
side. After living two years in retirement, he went to London, and
was induced to accept of employment under the commonwealth. On May
18, 1652, he was appointed by Cromwell one of the commissioners for
the administration of justice in Scotland; and he recommended
himself so highly to the Protector, that in 1654 the latter gave him
his niece in marriage, though some writers think that the lady was a
daughter of General Desborough. IN the latter year, and in 1656,
Lockhart represented the county of Lanark in the Scots parliament.
He was also nominated one of the trustees for disposing of the
forfeited estates of the royalists, and sworn a member of the
Protector’s privy council for Scotland.
In December 1655 Sir William was appointed ambassador to
France, and set out for Paris in the succeeding April. At the siege
of Dunkirk, in 1658, he commanded the British foot, with which he
attacked and defeated the troops of Spain. On obtaining possession
of that important place he was appointed its governor, in which
capacity he refused to open the gates to Charles II., after the
death of Cromwell, even at the critical period when Monk was
scheming with the king for the restoration of the monarchy. though
the request to receive the king was accompanied with the most
brilliant promises of reward and promotion, his answer was decided,
“That he was trusted by the Commonwealth, and could not betray it.”
Clarendon says, that at that very time “he refused to accept the
great offers made to him by the Cardinal (Mazarine), who had a high
esteem of him, and offered to make him marshal of France, with great
appointments of pensions, and other emoluments, if he would deliver
Dunkirk and Mardyke into the hands of France; all which overtures he
rejected; so that his majesty (Charles II.) Had no place to resort
to preferable to Breda.”
On the Restoration, sir William was deprived of the government
of Dunkirk, which was conferred on Sir Edward Harley. By the
intercession of Middleton he was allowed to return to Scotland,
where he spent some years on his estate, chiefly employed in
agricultural pursuits. He subsequently went to reside with his
wife’s relations in Huntingdonshire. In 1671, through the influence
of the earl of Lauderdale, he was appointed ambassador from King
Charles to the courts of Brandenburg and Lunenburg, when, according
to Burnet, “he found he had nothing of that regard that was paid him
in Cromwell’s time.” He died in the Netherlands, March 21, 1675,
supposed to have been poisoned by a pair of gloves. Subjoined is his
portrait:
[portrait of Sir William Lockhart]
LOCKHART, SIR GEORGE,
of Carnwath, a distinguished lawyer, second son of Sir James
Lockhart, Lord Lee, one of the judges of the court of session, was
admitted advocate, Jan. 8, 1656, during the protectorate of
Cromwell. He was appointed lord advocate, May 14, 1658, having then
been named advocate to the Protector during his life, “or so long as
he demean himself well therein.” On the Restoration he was obliged
to take the oath of allegiance to Charles II. and to express his
regret at having accepted office under the usurper, and he was
knighted by Charles in 1663. In 1672 he was elected dean of the
faculty of advocates. Having, in 1674, rendered himself obnoxious to
government for his share in appealing a suit from the court of law
to the parliament, he was, with Sir John Lauder, Sir Robert
Sinclair, and others, debarred from pleading at the pleasure of the
king, on which fifty of the younger advocates, to resent the insult
offered to the bar, also voluntarily withdrew from practice. Most of
them were afterwards prevailed upon by Sir George Mackenzie to give
in their submission, but Lockhart was not restored to the privileges
of his profession till January 28, 1676. Two years afterwards he
made a bold and eloquent defence as counsel for Mitchell, tried on
his own confession, on the promise of pardon, for an attempt to
shoot Archbishop Sharpe; and, in 1681, he was one of the advocates
employed by the earl of Argyle at his memorable trial. In the
Estates of that year he took his seat as one of the commissioners
for Lanarkshire, which he represented till his death. In 1685 he
succeeded Sir David Falconer of Newton as president of the court of
session, and was soon afterwards made a privy councillor and a
commissioner of the exchequer. He joined in the opposition against
Lauderdale, and attached himself to the party of the duke of York.
After that prince’s accession to the throne, Lockhart was called up
to London to be consulted as to the design of freeing the Roman
Catholics from the penal statutes, which the king had then so much
at heart. According to the account of his friends, he went along
with the king, because he considered that he could be more useful to
the Protestant religion by continuing in office than by retiring,
and expected to moderate the designs which he durst not openly
oppose. This great lawyer, whom Burnet describes as “the best
pleader he had ever yet known in any nation,” was murdered on
Sunday, March 31, 1689, on his way from church, by John Chiesley of
Dalry, in consequence of having, as one of the arbiters in a suit
for aliment raised by Chiesley’s wife against her husband, given a
decision in her favour. Chiesley, for the crime, was hanged on the
Wednesday following, and his body hung in chains between Leith and
Edinburgh.
LOCKHART, GEORGE,
a zealous adherent of the Stuart family, and an able political
writer, eldest son of the preceding, by Philadelphia, daughter of
the fourth Lord Wharton, was born in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh
in 1673. He was educated for the bar, but having succeeded to a
plentiful fortune, he did not enter upon practice. In 1703 he
obtained a seat in the Scottish parliament, and made himself
conspicuous by his uniform opposition to the measures of the
government. Although adverse to the Union, he was nominated by Queen
Anne one of the commissioners to that memorable treaty, and attended
their meetings for the sole purpose of reporting the proceedings to
his party. He corresponded regularly with the exiled court on that
and other public subjects, and engaged in all the intrigues which
had for their object the placing the Pretender on the throne. After
the ratification of the Union he represented the county of Edinburgh
in the first imperial parliament. At the next election he was also
returned, after a keen contest, and it was mainly by his exertions,
joined to those of a small knot of Jacobite Scots members, that the
obnoxious act of 1711, restoring lay patronage in the Church of
Scotland, and other measures avowedly intended to be prejudicial to
the Presbyterian interest, were passed in parliament. Indeed, some
of his proceedings, designed for the advancement of the Pretender’s
cause, were so violent, that even his own friends procured an order
from the court of St. Germains, recommending him to be more moderate
in his conduct.
On the attempt to extend the malt-tax to Scotland in 1713, he
and the earls of Mar, Eglinton, and Ilay, and others, thought that
occasion a favourable opportunity to endeavour to obtain a repeal of
the Union, a project in which they nearly succeeded. He also
zealously opposed the subsequent proposal to assimilate the Scottish
to the English militia, and his conduct regarding that measure
recommended him to the duke of Argyle, who, when he was arrested in
August 1715, on suspicion of being a party to the designs in favour
of the Pretender, procured his liberation, after fifteen days’
imprisonment in the castle of Edinburgh. Having, on obtaining his
liberty, made some preparations for joining the earl of Mar, he was
shortly after apprehended a second time, and again committed to
Edinburgh castle, where he endured a long imprisonment; but, in the
intercession of his friends, there not being sufficient evidence to
connect him actively with the rebellion, he was at last set at
liberty.
After this period, Lockhart acted as a sort of confidential
agent between the Pretender and his Scottish adherents, and
displayed astonishing ardour in the cause he supported. A
correspondence between him and the exiled prince, which had been
continued from 1718 to 1727, having been intercepted by the
government, a warrant was issued for his apprehension, on which he
escaped into England. He remained in concealment at Durham for some
time, and then retired to Holland. In April 1728 he was allowed to
return home, and having made a reluctant submission to the reigning
monarch, he lived unmolested on his estate in Scotland till 1732,
when he was unfortunately killed in a duel. By his wife, Euphemia,
daughter of the ninth earl of Eglinton, whom he married in 1697, he
had seven sons and eight daughters.
His principal work, the ‘Memoirs of Scotland, from the
Accession of Queen Anne till the Union,’ was first published,
although without his consent, in 1714. His ‘Papers on the Affairs of
Scotland, from 1720 to 1725,’ were not printed till 1817, when they
appeared in 2 volumes 4to.
LOCKHART-ROSS, SIR JOHN,
an eminent naval commander, was born in the parish of Carstairs,
Lanarkshire, November 11, 1721. From his earliest years he
discovered a strong predilection for a seafaring life, and in 1735
entered as a midshipman in the navy. Having, while first lieutenant
to Sir Peter Warren and Lord Anson, shown proofs of uncommon
ability, diligence, and valour, he was in 1747 appointed to the
command of the Vulcan fireship. In 1755, upon the appearance of a
rupture with France, he was nominated to the Savage sloop of war,
and in March 1756 to the Tartar frigate. In the latter ship he
performed many bold actions, which raised his name in the navy. In
November 1758, he was appointed to the Chatham of 50 guns, under the
orders of Admiral Hawke; and in the action between the British and
French fleets in July 1778, he commanded the Shrewsbury, 74. In 1779
he was promoted to the rank of rear-admiral of the Blue, when he
hoisted his flag on board of the Royal George, and sailed under the
orders of Admiral Rodney. The fleet fell in with eleven Spanish
ships of the line, and having engaged them, they took the Spanish
admiral and six of his ships, besides one blown up in the action. He
afterwards superintended, amidst a tremendous fire, the landing of
the stores for the relief of Gibraltar. In April 1782 he was
appointed to the command of a squadron in the North Seas. His health
declining, he returned to England; but the conclusion of hostilities
rendered his re-appointment unnecessary. Upon succeeding to the
estate of his maternal uncle, General Ross, he assumed that name in
addition to his own. In 1768 he was elected M.P. for Lanark; and in
1780, on the death of his elder brother, he became a baronet of Nova
Scotia. He died June 9, 1790. He married Elizabeth, daughter of
Robert Dundas of Arniston, lord president of the court of session,
by whom he had five sons and five daughters; and was succeeded by
his eldest son. (See ROSS.)
LOCKHART, JOHN GIBSON, LL.D.,
an eminent critic and novelist, was born in Glasgow in 1793. He was
the son of the Rev. Dr. John Lockhart, at one time minister of
Cambusnethan, and afterwards of the College or Blackfriar’s church,
Glasgow, by his second marriage with a daughter of the Rev. Dr.
Gibson, one of the ministers of Edinburgh. The eldest son of Dr.
Lockhart, by his first marriage, William Lockhart, Esq. of Milton
Lockhart and Germistown, representative of the Lockharts of
Waygateshaw and Birkhill, was elected M.P. for Lanarkshire in 1841.
The subject of this notice received his education in his native
city. He distinguished himself at the university, and was elected to
one of the Snell exhibitions or bursaries at Baliol college, Oxford.
Having chosen the law for his profession, he was admitted an
advocate before the Scotch courts in 1816. He made, however, but few
appearances at the bar, and soon turned his attention to the more
congenial pursuits of literature. In 1817 blackwood’s Magazine was
established, and he soon became a regular contributor to its pages.
He had previously tried his hand on the ‘Lacunar Strivilenense,’ and
one or two other pieces of task-work for the booksellers.
In 1818 Mr. Lockhart made the acquaintance of his future
father-in-law, Sir (then Mr.) Walter Scott, in his Memoirs of whom
he thus states the circumstance: “It was during the sitting of the
General Assembly of the Kirk in May 1818 that I first had the honour
of meeting Scott in private society; the party was not a large one,
at the house of a much valued common friend, Mr. Home Drummond of
Blair-Drummond, the grandson of Lord Kames. Mr. Scott, ever apt to
consider too favourably the literary efforts of others, and more
especially of very young persons, received me, when I was presented
to him, with a cordiality which I had not been prepared to expect
from one filling a station so exalted. This, however, is the same
story that every individual, who ever met him under similar
circumstances, has had to tell. When the ladies retired from the
dinner-table, I happened to sit next (to) him; and he, having heard
that I had lately returned from a tour in Germany, made that country
and its recent literature the subject of some conversation.” A few
days after this, Mr. Lockhart received a communication from the
Messrs. Ballantyne, to the effect that Mr. Scott’s various
avocations had prevented him from fulfilling his agreement with them
as to the historical department of the Edinburgh Annual Register for
1816, and that it would be acceptable to him as well as them, if he
could undertake to supply it. This Mr. Lockhart agreed to do, and he
had, in consequence, occasion to meet Scott pretty often afterwards.
In October of the same year he visited Abbotsford for the first
time, when he and Professor Wilson, the Christopher North of
Blackwood’s Magazine, were invited there together, on their return
from an excursion to Wilson’s villa of Ellerslie on the lake of
Windermere. In 1819 Mr. Lockhart published what he calls himself “a
sort of mock tour in Scotland,” entitled ‘Peter’s Letters to his
Kinsfolk,’ which gave rise to much angry feeling at the time. The
literary portraits therein contained are remarkable for their
substantial truth, and their never-failing force and vivacity. Soon
after its publication Sir Walter Scott wrote him a letter, in which
he says: “What an acquisition it would have been to our general
information to have had such a work written, I do not say fifty, but
even five and twenty years ago, and how much of grave and gay might
then have been preserved, as it were, in amber, which have now
mouldered away. When I think that at an age not much younger than
yours, I knew Black, Ferguson, Robertson, Erskine, Adam Smith, John
Home, &c. &c., and at least saw Burns, I can appreciate better than
any one the value of a work which, like this, would have handed them
down to posterity in their living colours.”
Besides, month after month, contributing some of its most
biting and most brilliant papers to Blackwood’s Magazine, Mr.
Lockhart published four admirable fictions, which took a high place
among similar works of the time. These were ‘Valerius,’ the finest
classic story in English literature; ‘Adam Blair,’ considered the
most impressive production of its author’s versatile pen; ‘Reginald
Dalton,’ a graceful and vigorous tale; and the deeply interesting
chapters of ‘Matthew Wald.’ His translations from the Spanish
Ballads appeared soon after the publication of the last of these
works. To ‘constable’s Miscellany,’ he contributed the ‘Life of
Burns,’ and to ‘Murray’s Family Library’ the ‘Life of Napoleon
Bonaparte.’ On the 29th April 1820 he married Sophia
Scott, the eldest daughter of the great novelist.
While on a visit to London, in 1821, having in the course of
some severe remarks been styled in the London Magazine, editor of
Blackwood’s Magazine, then distinguished for its venom and
scurrility, a hostile correspondence ensued between Mr. Lockhart and
Mr. John Scott, the editor of the former periodical, author of ‘A
Visit to Paris in 1814,’ and other works, which ended in Mr.
Lockhart posting him. Statements were published by both parties on
the subject. After Mr. Lockhart’s return to Scotland, Mr. Christie,
his friend, fought a duel with Mr. Scott, who was mortally wounded,
and died a few days after.
In July 1825 he accompanied his illustrious father-in-law in
his excursion to Ireland. Up to the close of that year, he resided
in Edinburgh, having his summer residence at Chiefswood, in the
neighbourhood of Abbotsford, but, on being then, on the death of the
celebrated William Gifford, appointed editor of the Quarterly
Review, he went to reside in Regent’s Park, London. That great
literary journal he edited for the long period of twenty-eight
years. Often a severe judge of men of known name or established
reputation, he was indulgent, kind, and encouraging to rising merit.
Where more substantial aid was required, his purse was freely
opened, and many an unfortunate man of letters has felt, in the hour
of need, how liberal and considerate was the bounty of him who had
been regarded only as the stern and unsparing critic.
On the death of Sir Walter Scott in 1832, he became his sole
literary executor, and in 1837-8 he published the Life of his
father-in-law, in 7 vols., which is one of the most interesting
biographies in the English language. His Memoirs of the Life of his
father-in-law led to the publication by the Trustees and son of the
late Mr. James Ballantyne, of a pamphlet, entitled ‘Refutation of
the Mis-statements and Calumnies contained in Mr. Lockhart’s Life of
Sir Walter Scott, Baronet, respecting Messrs. Ballantyne.’ London,
1838, 12mo. Mr. Lockhart soon after published an answer, under the
title given below, and to this his opponents rejoined with ‘A
Reply.’ London, 1839, 12mo.
Mrs. Lockhart died in May 1837, having survived by five years
her first-born son, John Hugh Lockhart – the “Hugh Littlejohn” of
the ‘Tales of a Grandfather.’ Her other son, Walter Scott Lockhart
Scott, died in January 1853. Her daughter, Charlotte, married in
August, 1847, James Robert Hope, Esq., who, on obtaining Abbotsford,
in her right, assumed the additional name of Scott.
Mr. Lockhart’s health had begun to decline some years before
1853, in the summer of which year he quitted the charge of the
Quarterly Review. He spend the subsequent winter in Italy, and
shortly before his death he retired from London to the quiet
seclusion of Abbotsford, where he died August 25, 1854, and was
buried at Dryburgh Abbey. Those who saw him in his daily walk in
London, his handsome countenance – always with a lowering and
sardonic expression – now darkened with sadness, and the thin lips
compressed more than ever, as by pain of mind, forgave, in
respectful compassion for one so visited, all causes of quarrel,
however just, and threw themselves, as it were, into his mind,
seeing again the early pranks with Christopher North, the dinings by
the brook at Chiefswood, the glories of the Abbotsford sporting
parties, the travels with Scott, so like an ovation, in Ireland, and
the home in Regent’s Park, with the gentle Sophia presiding. These
scenes formed a marked contrast with the actual forlorness of his
last years.
Mr. Lockhart’s works are:
Peter’s Letters to his Kinsfolk (ascribed to J.G. Lockhart and
Professor Wilson.) Edin. 1819. 3 vols. 8vo.
Valerius. A Roman Story. Edin. 1821, 3 vols. 12mo.
Statement made by J. G. Lockhart in relation to his dispute
with J. Scott. London, 1821. Pamphlet.
Adam Blair. A Tale. Edin. 1822, 12mo.
Reginald Dalton. Edin. 1823, 12mo.
Matthew Wald. A Tale, Edin, 1824, 12mo.
Ancient Spanish Ballads, Historical and Romantic. Edin. 1823,
4to. The same. London, 1841, 4to.
Life of Robert Burns. Edin. 1828, 18mo. Const. Misc. vol. 23.
History of Napoleon Bonaparte. Lond. 1830, 2 vols. 18mo.
Murray’s Family Library.
Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Baronet. Edin.
1837-8, 7 vols. 12mo. In one vol. Imperial 8vo. 1845.
The Ballantyne Humbug Handled; in a Letter to Sir Adam
Fergusson. Edin. 1839, 12mo.
Narrative of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Baronet. Edin.
1848, 2 vols. 12mo.
