John Gibson Lockhart

John Gibson Lockhart , born the July 14th 1794 with Cambusnethan House, in the Lanarkshire, dead the November 25th 1854 with Abbotsford, is a writer and Scottish editor .

His/her father, Dr. John Lockhart, is a Pasteur of Glasgow, named in the Lanarkshire in 1796. His/her mother, girl of the reverend John Gibson, Edinburgh, is a woman with the considerable intellectual gifts.

Studies

Lockhart studies with the High School of Glasgow, where it appears more intelligent than hard-working. It is victim of a disease and must be withdrawn of the school, before its twelve years; but, during its re-establishment, it enters at an early age to the Université of Glasgow and reveals an early scholarship, particularly in Greek. It is not fourteen years old when it enters to the Balliol College, with Oxford, where it acquires deep seas of knowledge apart from the regular program of studies. It reads the French, the Italian , the German and the Spanish , is interested in traditional and British antiquities and becomes very versed in Héraldique and genealogical traditions.

In 1813, it obtains its first class of humanities into final. During two years, after having lived with Oxford, it passes the essence of its time to Glasgow, before following studies of Scottish right to Edinburgh, where it is elected with the Faculty of Lawyers in 1816.

Career

A Large Turn on the continent, during which it meets Goethe with Weimar, is made possible in 1817 thanks to the kindness of the editor William Blackwood, who advances to him the money against the promise of a translation of the readings of Schlegel on the Histoire of the literature , which was not published before 1838. Edinburgh is then the bastion of the left Whig, whose body is the Revue of Edinburgh , and it is not before 1817 that the tories Scottish find a means of expression with the Blackwood' S Magazine . After beginnings in brass band, the Blackwood electrifies the world of Edinburgh by an explosion of criticisms brilliant. John Wilson (alias Christopher North) and Lockhart join his team in 1817. Lockhart undoubtedly takes its share in the caustic and aggressive articles which mark the first years of the Blackwood ; but its biographer, Andrew Lang, tries to show that it is not responsible for the virulent articles against Coleridge and the poetic school for Cockney (in English, “The Cockney School off Poetry”), which is of Leigh Hunt, Keats and their friends. It was constantly shown to be the author of the last article of the Blackwood on Keats of August 1818, but it hardly tests regard for Coleridge and Wordsworth.

For the Blackwood , it also carries out several Traduction S full with energy of Ballade S Spanish, which is published in share in 1823. In 1818, the brilliance and elegant young man is pointed out by Sir Walter Scott; their relations become soon intimate, leading to the marriage of Lockhart with the oldest daughter of Scott, Sophia, on April 29th 1820. Five years of an uninterrupted domestic happiness, the couple spending the winter with Edinburgh and the summer in a cottage with Chiefswood, close to Abbotsford, where the two elder ones of Lockhart, John Hugh (in February 1821) and Charlotte (in 1828), were born; a second wire, Walter, are born then with Brighton, in 1826. In 1820, John Scott, the editor of the London Magazine , writes a series of articles in which it tackles the control of the Blackwood' S Magazine , and makes of Lockhart the person in charge of these extravagances. A correspondence begins, during which a meeting between Lockhart and John Scott is proposed, with Jonathan Henry Christie and Horace Smith like seconds. After a series of delays and be complicated negotiations, a duel takes place at the beginning of 1821, during which Scott is killed. This tragedy business was the subject many denaturations.

Between 1818 and 1825, Lockhart works tirelessly. In 1819, the Peter' S Letters off his Kinsfolk appear and, in 1822, it publishes the translation of Don Quichotte by Peter Motteux, for whom it writes in foreword a Vie of Cervantes . Four novels follow: Valerius in 1821, A few moments in the Life of Adam Blair, Minister of Gospel with Cross Meikle in 1822, Reginald Dalton in 1823 and Matthew Wald in 1824. But its force does not lie in the romantic writing, although vigorous qualities of the novel Adam Blair were recognized by the modern critic. In 1825, Lockhart accepts the function of editor association of the Quarterly Review , which was between the hands to sir John Taylor Coleridge since the departure of Gifford in 1824.

At the time, its literary position is well established, and, like next heir to the Scottish properties to its unmarried half-brother, Milton Lockhart, it is rather independent, although it gave up the right. With London, he is a great social success and he is recognized like a brilliance editor. He contributes largely to the Quarterly Review , his biographical articles being particularly admirable. He writes an article amusing, but violent one in the Quarterly on the Poèmes of 1833 of Tennyson, in which he does not succeed in discovering the mark of the genius.

He continues to write for the Blackwood , writes in 1828 for the Collection of Constable the volume XIII, who remains most charming of the biographies of Burns, the Vie of Robert Burns . He also directs the organization of a series, called Librairie of the family Murray , which begins in 1829 with a Histoire of Napoleon of Scott. But its principal work is the Vie of Sir Walter Scott (7 flights, 1837 - 1838; 2nd edition, 10 flights., 1839). Carlyle testified to its great quality in a criticism published with the London and Westminster Review in 1837. The account that Lockhart makes discussions between Scott and its editors, Ballantyne and Constable, caused great protests; the polemic which followed led to a lampoon, in which Lockhart exhales its bitterness, smoky operations of Ballantyne . The Vie of Scott is considered, after the Johnson of Boswell, like the most admirable biography written in English language. The sums collected, which were considerable, were allotted by Lockhart to the payment of the creditors of Scott.

The life of Lockhart was saddened by several family mournings. His/her oldest son (suffering it “Hugh Littlejohn” from the Tales of a grandfather of Scott) dies in December 1831; Scott itself in 1832; Mrs Lockhart in 1837; and the last survivor of his sons, Walter Lockhart, in 1852.

Giving up the head of the Quarterly Review in 1853, it spends the next winter to Rome, but turns over in England before to have recovered health. It is looked after by his Charlotte daughter, who became Mrs James Robert Hope-Scott, with Abbotsford, where it dies the November 25th 1854. It was buried with the Abbaye of Dryburgh, close to Sir Walter Scott.

Robert Scott Lauder painted two portraits of Lockhart, one of him only, the other with Charlotte Scott.

A Vie of Lockhart (2 flights., London and New York, 1897) was written by Andrew Lang.

See too

Sir Walter Scott

External bonds

Summarized '' Vie of Walter Scott '', by John Gibson Lockhart, 1838

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