Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 34.djvu/55

 impressed, however, by Lockhart, and ever afterwards ‘spoke of him as he seldom spoke of any man’ (, Carlyle in London, i. 164, 172, 288; cf. letter from Lockhart in, Memoirs, 1884, ii. 409). While editing the ‘Quarterly’ Lockhart wrote his admirable life of Burns for ‘Constable's Miscellany’ in 1828, and superintended Murray's ‘Family Library,’ for which he wrote in 1829, the first volume, a life of Napoleon. His greatest book, however, was ‘The Life of Scott,’ published in seven volumes, the last of which appeared in 1838. He had admirable materials in Scott's letters and journals, but he turned them to such account that the biography may safely be described as, next to Boswell's ‘Johnson,’ the best in the language. He handed over all the profits to Sir Walter Scott's creditors.

Lockhart was proud and reserved, and gave an impression of coldness in general society. But he could relax among intimate friends, and had the rare charm which accompanies the occasional revelation under such circumstances of a fine mind and character. He suffered severe family sorrows. His eldest boy, John Hugh (the Hugh Little John of Scott's ‘Tales of a Grandfather’), was always sickly, and died in 1831. His love of children, as his college friend Christie says (Quarterly Review, cxvi. 448), was like the love of a woman. He was never happier than with this child in his arms, and from the time of his loss an expression of melancholy became habitual with him. He lost his wife in 1837. He was strongly attached to his daughter Charlotte, who on 19 Aug. 1847 married James Robert Hope-Scott [q. v.] Though he was grieved by the conversion of the Hopes to catholicism, the mutual affection was not diminished. Another son, Walter Scott Lockhart, entered the army in 1846, and was estranged by his own conduct from his father, though they were reconciled shortly before the son's death on 10 Jan. 1853. Lockhart's last years were saddened by his isolation. He withdrew from society, and injured his health by excessive abstinence. He revived a little when, under medical orders, he took more nourishment. But he became prematurely old; his sight failed, and in the spring of 1853 he finally retired from the ‘Quarterly.’ He spent the winter of 1853–4 in Italy, and read Dante with enthusiasm. He returned in the summer of 1854, and, after visiting his brother William at Milton Lockhart, went to Abbotsford to be under the care of his daughter and her husband. He gradually sank, and died on 25 Nov. 1854, in the room next to that in which Scott had died.

Lockhart was made auditor of the duchy of Lancaster in 1843, a post worth about 400l. a year, by his friend Lord Granville Somerset, chancellor of the duchy. This was his only public appointment. He was a strikingly handsome man, tall and slight, with masses of black hair, which suddenly became grey shortly before his death (see description by Griffin in Murray, ii. 235). A picture in ‘Maclise's Portrait Gallery’ probably gives a good impression of his appearance. A portrait by Pickersgill is engraved as frontispiece to the 1856 edition of the ‘Spanish Ballads.’

Lockhart's works (besides contributions to ‘Blackwood’ and the ‘Quarterly Review’) are: 1. ‘Peter's Letters to his Kinsfolk, by Peter Morris the Odontist’ (pseudonym), 1819. 2. ‘Valerius, a Roman Story,’ 1821. 3. ‘Some passages in the Life of Mr. Adam Blair,’ 1822. 4. ‘Reginald Dalton, a Story of English University Life,’ 1823. 5. ‘Ancient Spanish Ballads, Historical and Romantic, translated, with Notes,’ 1823. 6. ‘Matthew Wald,’ a Novel, 1824. 7. ‘Life of Robert Burns,’ 1828. 8. ‘History of Napoleon Buonaparte,’ 1829. 9. ‘History of the late War, with Sketches of Nelson, Wellington, and Napoleon,’ 1832. 10. ‘Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott,’ 1836–8. 11. ‘The Ballantyne Humbug handled,’ 1839 [see under ]. Lockhart also edited, with notes, Motteux's translation of ‘Don Quixote,’ 5 vols. 8vo, 1822. 

LOCKHART, LAURENCE WILLIAM MAXWELL (1831–1882), novelist, born in 1831, was son of the Rev. Laurence Lockhart of Milton Lockhart, Lanarkshire, by his wife Louisa, daughter of David Blair, an East India merchant, of Glasgow. He was nephew of John Gibson Lockhart [q. v.] In 1841 he was sent to the school of Mr. Broughton at Newington House, near Edinburgh, where he made some lifelong friendships. After two or three years he returned home to be educated by a private tutor, and in 1845 he entered Glasgow University. He stayed there, with a year's interval, till in 1850 he entered Caius College, Cambridge. He graduated B.A. in 1855, and M.A. in 1861, and on 9 Feb. 1855 he received a commission as ensign in the 92nd regiment (Gordon highlanders). He joined his regiment at Edinburgh, went with it to Gibraltar,