biographies in our language, the last volume of which made its appearance in 1838. The constitution of Lockhart had never been robust, and as early as 1850, his health began to break.
"Over-worked, over-hurried,
Over-Croker'd, over-Murray'd,"
—as he himself has it,[1]—in the spring of 1853, he felt compelled to resign the management of the Quarterly; and acted on the advice of his friends to try the effect of a winter in Italy. In the summer of the following year he returned; but he had within the seeds of dissolution. In the succeeding autumn he was seized with paralysis, and died at Abbotsford, in his sixtieth year, in the month of December, 1854, in a small room adjoining that in which Sir Walter himself had breathed his last. He was buried in Dryburgh Abbey, where a monument, erected at the cost of some among the most intimate of his surviving friends, marks his resting-place, at the feet of his illustrious father-in-law.
An article in the Review which he conducted so long and so well does ample justice alike to his literary abilities and his moral character. In regard to the former, the writer says: "His contributions to this journal were upwards of one hundred in number, and devoted to a great variety of subjects, such as only a versatile and powerful mind could have treated with success. He could write on Greek literature,—on the origin of the Latin language—on novels—on any subject from poetry to dry-rot; but his biographical articles bear the palm. Many of them contain the liveliest and truest sketches that exist of the characters to which they are devoted," etc. As to the latter, the same hand writes: "We shall not trust ourselves elaborately to paint the moral and intellectual character of one over whom the heart yearns with the deepest and most affectionate regret. The world neither knew Lockhart's real worth, nor appreciated him to the full measure of what it did know. His failings, if so we must call them, lay entirely within view; his noble and generous qualities were visible only to such as took the trouble to pierce the crust of reserve with which, on common occasions, he was apt to surround himself. There never lived a man more high-minded and truthful;—more willing to make sacrifices for the benefit of others;—more faithful to old ties of friendship and affection;—more ready to help even strangers in their hour of need. Those who knew him best loved him best,—a sure proof that he was deserving of their love."[2]
Who wrote the admirable article on Lockhart in the Times,—subsequently prefixed to the illustrated edition of the Spanish Ballads, 1856, 4to? It was attributed at the time to his friend, Lord Robertson; but Sir G. C. Lewis, who, one would think, had good grounds for his statement, ascribes it, in a letter to Sir Edmund Head, to Mr. Elwin (the present editor of the Quarterly), Lady Eastlake, and Milman.[3] In this, which Sir George says was "an éloge, rather than a biography, or an impartial character," the following passage occurs:—
"It was characteristic of Lockhart's peculiar individuality, that, whereever he was at all known, whether by man or woman, by poet, man of
- ↑ Poems and Prose Remains of Arthur Hugh Clough, 1869, vol. i. p. 215.
- ↑ Quarterly Review, vol. cxvi. p. 480.
- ↑ Letters of the Right Hon. Sir George Cornewall Lewis, Bart., to various Friends. London, 1870, 8vo, p. 289.
