him by consoling him with an additional Latin prize when he had failed to obtain one of the two adjudged by the students' votes. His display at the last examination, when he took up an unusual quantity of Greek, procured him a nomination to a Snell exhibition at Balliol College, Oxford. He entered the college in 1809. He covered the walls of his rooms with caricatures of his friends and himself, and did not spare the authorities. To ridicule a tutor who had made a point of dwelling upon hebraisms in the Greek Testament, Lockhart wrote what appeared to be a Hebrew exercise, to the admiration of his teacher, who showed it to the master of the college. It turned out to be an English lampoon on the tutor in Hebrew characters. Lockhart was a good classical scholar, wrote excellent Latin, and read French, Italian, and Spanish. He took a first class in classics in the Easter term of 1813. Among his contemporaries were H. H. Milman, afterwards the dean of St. Paul's, a lifelong friend, and Sir William Hamilton, who succeeded in diverting him from a brief lapse into hunting and boating. Lockhart cared nothing for sport at school or in afterlife. Hamilton was a warm friend until they were separated by political differences (Quarterly Review, October 1864).
Lockhart, it is stated, wished to obtain a chaplaincy in the army under Wellington. The war would have been over before he was of age to take orders. His father disapproved the scheme, and after leaving Oxford he studied law in Edinburgh. He became an advocate in 1816, but scarcely took his profession seriously. His strong literary tastes had led him to study German, and he resolved to visit Weimar to see Goethe. Before going he agreed with Blackwood to translate F. Schlegel's lectures on the history of literature. The book was not published till 1838. He became a contributor to ‘Blackwood's Magazine,’ started in April 1817. His first articles appeared in the seventh number, when he attacked the ‘Edinburgh Review,’ the so-called ‘cockney school’ of poets, and Coleridge's ‘Biographia Literaria.’ He was supposed to have had a share in the Chaldee MS. chiefly written by James Hogg [q. v.] He challenged an anonymous author who had abused him as the ‘Scorpion’ in a pamphlet called ‘Hypocrisy Unveiled,’ but his opponent declined to come forward. Lockhart did not confine himself to satire, although his satirical articles naturally made the most noise, but wrote some classical articles and poetry, including some of his very spirited translations of Spanish ballads (collected in 1823). In May 1818 the brilliant young tory writer met Walter Scott, who was interested in his talk about Goethe at Weimar. Scott invited him to Abbotsford, and became a warm friend.
On 29 April 1820 Lockhart married Scott's eldest daughter, Sophia. They settled at the cottage of Chiefswood on Scott's estate. Scott often spent the day with them, and they were members of his most intimate domestic circle. During this period he wrote the historical part of the ‘Edinburgh Annual Register.’ In 1819 he published ‘Peter's Letters to his Kinsfolk,’ an interesting description of Edinburgh society, which, however, gave some offence, especially to the whigs, by its personalities, and perhaps, as Scott said, by its truth. The personalities were harmless enough, as judged by a later standard. In a passage about himself Lockhart apologises indirectly for his excessive love of satire. His knowledge of German literature and philosophy has, he says, strengthened his platonism, and given him a turn for ridiculing the incongruities of life; but he hopes to strike a different note hereafter. Lockhart wrote novels, and continued to contribute to Blackwood. The novels have considerable merits of style, but show that he was scarcely a novelist by nature. In 1825 B. Disraeli visited him at Chiefswood, bringing him an offer from Murray of the editorship of the projected ‘Representative.’ Lockhart declined, partly because such a position was then in bad repute. Murray directly afterwards (13 Oct. 1825) offered him the editorship of the ‘Quarterly Review,’ which since Gifford's resignation had been edited by John Taylor Coleridge [q. v.] He accepted the post, with a salary of 1,000l. a year, and settled in London at the end of the year in Pall Mall. He afterwards moved to Sussex Place, Regent's Park, where he lived till near his death. The ‘Quarterly Review’ fully maintained its character under his rule. He is reported to have been admirably business-like and courteous in his dealings with contributors. He appears to have taken more liberties with their articles than would now be relished, a practice in which he only followed the precedent of Jeffrey and Gifford. Lord Mahon (afterwards Stanhope) was so much vexed by the insertions made by Croker in an article upon the French revolution in 1833, that he published the article in its first shape as a protest. Lockhart was probably hampered to some extent by the traditions of the ‘Review’ and the influence upon its management of his chief contributor, Croker. Carlyle offered his article on ‘Chartism’ to him in 1839; but Lockhart, though sympathising with its tendency, said that he ‘dared not’ publish it. Carlyle was much
