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Covenant Close." Though his letters, so far, have not contained one word on politics, he was probably regarded, being a friend of Wilson's and living in his set, as a Tory. Every barrister had to take a side, and we know, from Lord Cockburn's Memorials of his Time," that Tories were dull oppressors, while sweetness, light, knowledge, eloquence, emancipation, wit, wisdom, the Edinburgh Review-everything good but office-were all on the side of the Whigs. The admirable, overweening, unconscious arrogance of party pride in Lord Cockburn's "Memorials" might make a man turn Tory in sheer irritation to-day. While these scarcely human splendours, Jeffrey, Playfair, Henry Erskine, Gillies, Grahame, Macfarlane, Fletcher, -fortisque Gyas, fortisque Cloanthus-they, or their successors, were dwelling in the serene air of perfect self-complacency; while they had at length set going a Liberal newspaper, the Scotsman; while Tories, like Scott, were calling it "a blackguard print," a few young men had grown up who were neither stupid nor Whigs. They saw, Lockhart at least saw very well, that these illustrious Whigs, with all their learned professors, and Reviewers, and political economies, were really keeping Scotland in a state of "facetious and rejoicing ignorance." "In Scotland they understand, they care about none of the three," namely, the poetry, philosophy, and history of the ancient world. Even Dugald Stewart "has throughout been content to derive his ideas of

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Greek philosophy from very secondary sources.' As for the common Whigs of the debating societies and the Junior Bar, "all they know, worth being known, upon any subject of general literature, politics, or philosophy, is derived from the Edinburgh Review." The Edinburgh, again, perpetually derides Wordsworth, and all the Whigs grin applause. "The same people who despise and are ignorant of Mr. Wordsworth, despise also and are ignorant of all the majestic poets the world has ever produced, with no exceptions beyond two or three great names, acquaintance with which has been forced on them by circumstances entirely out of their control. The fate of Homer, of Eschylus, of Dante, nay, of Milton, is his."1

These ideas, expressed in "Peter's Letters," and such as these, were in the clear and well-furnished mind of Lockhart, when he looked at the intellectual self-complacency of Edinburgh's illustrious Whigs. And he was soon to let these magnates hear the full measure of his opinion. That a cold superiority of ridicule did not become Whig witlings when they sat in judgment on the author of "The Excursion"; that a more exalted patriotism than the patriotism of the author of "Marmion" was not really theirs; that Goethe and Kant could not be criticised through the medium of French cribs and summaries; that a facetious and rejoicing ignorance of Greek could not be compensated for 1 "Peter's Letters," vol. ii. p. 144.

by a smattering of geology; that Christianity was a problem to be faced, not an institution to be scornfully patronised; these were among the lessons which the briefless new-gowned advocate was about to teach the Olympians of Whiggery. The spirit of mankind, in fact, was awaking in Lockhart, as it later awoke in a sage who had a strong sympathy with him, in Mr. Carlyle. The Whig view of the world, and notably of poetry, did need to be assailed. But Lockhart, seeing almost as clearly as Carlyle the flaws in the ice palace of Edinburgh's intellectual despots, was very young, and was constitutionally a mocker. Almost everything that he said in a serious humour, whether as the Baron von Lauerwinkel, or as Dr. Peter Morris, was truly and well said, and the truth has prevailed. But with the same pen, and in the same hour, he was writing humorous ditties as "The Odontist"; or attacks on men of whom, personally, he knew nothing; of whose politics he judged by the catch-words and prejudices of his party, and whose characters he detested mainly on the evidence of Tory gossip. Many a "sham," many a "windbag" he exposed, or pricked, but to little or no avail, so strong in him, at that time, was the spirit of levity, and the "Imp of the Perverse." He had great powers, much knowledge, clear ideas, a good opportunity, but the "Imp of the Perverse" had dominion over him. He began to write too young, he enjoyed a latitude far too wide, and he had, in Wilson, an elder

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associate and friend whose genius was perhaps the most unbalanced in the history of literature. Therefore Lockhart never "blazed" in the serenity of the light which assuredly was within him, but only gave forth flashes of brilliance, when he did not pass wholly under the influence of "tenebriferous stars."

CHAPTER V

EDINBURGH, 1817-1818

"There was a natural demand for libel at this period." -LORD COCKBURN.

Blackwood's Magazine.-Account of it in letter to Haydon (1838). -Lockhart "helps Blackwood out of a scrape." "Row in Edinburgh." - Lockhart made the scapegoat.-His regrets.— His prospects ruined." Intolerably grievous fate." — Parallel of Theodore Hook.-Responsibility for Blackwood's.—Wilson and Lockhart not paid Editors.-Lockhart not the assailant of the Lake Poets.-Errors in "Life of Christopher North."-The early numbers of the Magazine.-Lockhart's articles on Greek Tragedy.-Blackwood quarrels with his original Editors.-They take service with Constable.-Their new Opposition Magazine.— Scott and Pringle.-Attack on Coleridge.-Wilson, Jeffrey, and Coleridge.-Lockhart on literary Whigs of Edinburgh.-Attack on the "Cockney School."-Keats and Lockhart agree in their views of Leigh Hunt.-"Vain, egotistical, and disgusting."-His "Tale of Rimini."-His enmity to Sir Walter Scott.-He and Keats fancy that Scott is their assailant.-Persistence of this absurdity." The Chaldee" Manuscript. Hogg claims the authorship.- Burlesque reply.- Lockhart's own statement.Analysis of "The Chaldee.”—“ No end of public emotion."

THE often told story of the early years of Blackwood's Magazine has next to be repeated. It was an ill day for Lockhart when he first put his pen at the service of a journal, which for now the term of a long human life, has been eminently reputable and admirable. Frequently as the matter has been