Painted by SIR Francis Grant, P.R.A., Engraved by F. HUTH. AN OLD HAND AT THE COCKPIT, OXFORD Facsimile of a Water-Colour Drawing by J. G. SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON BUYING BOOKS Facsimile of a Pen-and-Ink Drawing by J. G. PROFESSOR WILSON Page 48 "96 Drawn by DANIEL MACLISE, R.A. LEIGH HUNT From the Picture by BENJAMIN HAYDON, in the LOCKHART AND SIR WALTER SCOTT (?) RIDING Facsimile (reduced) of a Water-Colour Drawing by " 144 » 192 » 224 Miss SCOTT, AFTERWARDS MRS. LOCKHART Facsimile of a Drawing by J. G. LOCKHART, in the FENELLA DANCING BEFORE CHARLES II. Facsimile (slightly reduced) of a Caricature by J. G. Page 288 340 LIFE OF J. G. LOCKHART CHAPTER I GLASGOW, 1794-1808 "An Ell of Genealogy."-Origin and History of the Lockharts.— Symon's town.-The House of Saint Lys.-Lockharts of Symington, of the Lee.-The Heart of Bruce.-Cognisance of the Lockharts. Sir Stephen and Sir Allan.-Homicidal Lockharts.— Lockharts of Cleghorn, Birkhill, Wicketshaw.-Milton Lockhart. -Lockharts of the Covenant.-A "Flyting."-After Bothwell Brig. Somervilles, Nimmos, Pringles.-Lockhart's parents.His birth. His shyness.-"Twa Puddens."-His early stoicism. -School days.-Habit of caricature.-Glasgow University.-His prizes.-The Blackstone.-The Snell Exhibition.-Goes to Oxford in a round jacket. "EVERY Scotsman has his pedigree," says Sir Walter, in the Autobiographical fragment where he traces his own. The interest in our ancestors, "without whose life we had not been," may be regarded as a foible, and was made matter of reproach, both to Scott and his biographer, the story of whose own life is here to be narrated. Scott "was anxious to realise his own ancestry to his imagination; . . . whatever he had in himself he would fain have made out a hereditary claim for." VOL. I. A In this taste there is not wanting a domestic piety; and science, since Sir Walter's day, has approved of his theory, that the past of our race revives in each of us. For these reasons Scottish readers, at least, may pardon a genealogical sketch in this place. Or, if they be unkind, we may say of Lockhart, as he says in the case of Thomas Campbell, "He was a Scotsman, and of course his biographer begins with an ell of genealogy." The pedigree of Scott's biographer and son-inlaw, John Gibson Lockhart, was hardly inferior in historical interest to Sir Walter's own. Both Sir Walter and his son-in-law were descended from cadet branches of noble houses. If Harden was the "fountain of the gentry" of Scott, Lockhart of Lee was, as we shall see, in all probability, the source of the "gentry" of Scott's biographer. In the Upper Ward of Lanarkshire is the parish of Symington, bounded on the east by the stripling Clyde, and rising in the south to the crest of Tinto. The whole district lies high, but, save for Tinto, is not hilly. The waters of the land, except Clyde, are but burns, which, in later life, Lockhart remembered with all a Scot's personal affection for his native streams. There is a warm wooded look, considering the height of the general elevation, and the parish is best known, perhaps, for Symington Railway Station, on the Caledonian Railway. The old official name of Symington is Villa Symonis |