The Edinburgh Critical Edition of the Works of John Gibson Lockhart
The Edinburgh Critical Edition of the Works of John Gibson Lockhart
The Edinburgh Critical Edition of the Works of John Gibson Lockhart
The Edinburgh Critical Edition of the Works of John Gibson Lockhart
Series Editor: Thomas C. Richardson Advisory Board
Series Editor: Thomas C. Richardson Advisory Board
Series Editor: Thomas C. Richardson Advisory Board
Dr Ian Campbell (University of Edinburgh)
Dr Peter Garside (University of Edinburgh)
Dr Ian Campbell (University of Edinburgh)
Dr Gillian Hughes (Independent Scholar)
Series Editor: Thomas C. Richardson Advisory Board
Dr Ian Campbell (University of Edinburgh)
Dr Peter Garside (University of Edinburgh)
Dr Caroline McCracken-Flesher (University of Wyoming)
Dr Peter Garside (University of Edinburgh)
Dr Ian Campbell (University of Edinburgh)
Dr Gillian Hughes (Independent Scholar)
Dr Gillian Hughes (Independent Scholar)
Dr Kirsteen McCue (University of Glasgow)
Dr Peter Garside (University of Edinburgh)
Dr Caroline McCracken-Flesher (University of Wyoming)
Dr Caroline McCracken-Flesher (University of Wyoming)
Dr Robert Morrison (Bath Spa University)
Dr Gillian Hughes (Independent Scholar)
Dr Kirsteen McCue (University of Glasgow)
Dr Kirsteen McCue (University of Glasgow)
Dr Caroline McCracken-Flesher (University of Wyoming)
Published:
Published:
Published:
Published:
Dr Robert Morrison (Bath Spa University)
Dr Robert Morrison (Bath Spa University)
Dr Kirsteen McCue (University of Glasgow)
Dr Robert Morrison (Bath Spa University)
Some Passages in the Life of Mr Adam Blair, edited by Thomas C. Richardson
Some Passages in the Life of Mr Adam Blair, edited by Thomas C. Richardson
Some Passages in the Life of Mr Adam Blair, edited by Thomas C. Richardson
Peter’s Letters to his Kinsfolk, edited by Peter Garside and Gillian Hughes
Some Passages in the Life of Mr Adam Blair, edited by Thomas C. Richardson
In preparation:
Peter’s Letters to his Kinsfolk, edited by Peter Garside and Gillian Hughes
Peter’s Letters to his Kinsfolk, edited by Peter Garside and Gillian Hughes
Peter’s Letters to his Kinsfolk, edited by Peter Garside and Gillian Hughes
The History of Matthew Wald, edited by Thomas C. Richardson
In preparation:
In preparation:
Valerius, A Roman Story, edited by Kristian Kerr
The History of Matthew Wald, edited by Thomas C. Richardson
The History of Matthew Wald, edited by Thomas C. Richardson
In preparation:
Valerius, A Roman Story, edited by Kristian Kerr
Valerius, A Roman Story, edited by Kristian Kerr
Selected Letters of John Gibson Lockhart, edited by Thomas C. Richardson and Gillian Hughes
The History of Matthew Wald, edited by Thomas C. Richardson
Valerius, A Roman Story, edited by Kristian Kerr
Reginald Dalton, edited by Caroline McCracken-Flesher
Selected Letters of John Gibson Lockhart, edited by Thomas C. Richardson and Gillian Hughes
Selected Letters of John Gibson Lockhart, edited by Thomas C. Richardson and Gillian Hughes
The Life of Robert Burns, edited by Kirsteen McCue
Reginald Dalton, edited by Caroline McCracken-Flesher
Selected Letters of John Gibson Lockhart, edited by Thomas C. Richardson and Gillian Hughes
Reginald Dalton, edited by Caroline McCracken-Flesher
The Life of Robert Burns, edited by Kirsteen McCue
The Life of Robert Burns, edited by Kirsteen McCue
Reginald Dalton, edited by Caroline McCracken-Flesher
The Life of Robert Burns, edited by Kirsteen McCue
Peter’s Letters to his Kinsfolk
JOHN GIBSON LOCKHART
Volume One: The Text
Edited by
Peter Garside and Gillian Hughes
EDINBURGH University Press
Edinburgh University Press is one of the leading university presses in the UK. We publish academic books and journals in our selected subject areas across the humanities and social sciences, combining cutting-edge scholarship with high editorial and production values to produce academic works of lasting importance. For more information visit our website: edinburghuniversitypress.com
Typeset at Mississippi University for Women, Columbus, Mississippi, and printed and bound in Great Britain on acid-free paper at TJ International Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall
ISBN 978 1 3995 0070 8 (hardback)
ISBN 978 1 3995 0071 5 (webready PDF)
ISBN 978 1 3995 0072 2 (epub)
The right of Peter Garside and Gillian Hughes to be identified as the Editors of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988, and the Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 2003 (SI No. 2498).
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without the prior permission in writing from the publisher.
Aims of the Edition
John Gibson Lockhart (1794-1854) has been understudied and undervalued by critics and literary historians in large measure because his obsessive insistence on anonymity means that the full extent of his literary work and influence is not generally known. Lockhart’s works have never been collected, and there have been no critical editions of individual works. The extent and significance of his literary accomplishments have been eclipsed by his role in the attacks on Leigh Hunt, John Keats, and William Hazlitt in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, and by his authorship of the biography of his father-in-law, Sir Walter Scott.
Lockhart had a career in literature that spanned nearly four decades, serving for much of that time (1826-1853) as editor of what was perhaps the premier journal of his age, The Quarterly Review, published in London by John Murray. Lockhart began his literary career in 1817 with the Edinburgh publisher, William Blackwood, who sent Lockhart to Germany on a literary tour where he met Goethe and other German literati. Lockhart’s first book-length publication was a two-volume translation of Frederick Schlegel’s Lectures on the History of Literature, Ancient and Modern (1818). Lockhart was also a major contributor to Blackwood’s new publishing venture, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, and over his lifetime wrote or had a hand in more than two hundred works in Blackwood’s. There was biting satire, certainly, but those works are small in number. The vast majority of his Blackwood’s works are significant, incisive works of literary criticism covering a broad range of topics from Greek tragedy and poetry to early Spanish literature to works of contemporary American, British, and German authors. His Blackwood’s works also include serious and satirical verse, as well as essays on important political and social topics of his day. He published four novels during his time with Blackwood, as well as a fictitious account of the Edinburgh and Glasgow literary, cultural, legal, political, and religious scenes, Peter’s Letters to his Kinsfolk. Other works during this period include a collection of Spanish translations, Ancient Spanish Ballads; an edition of Don Quixote, with his annotations and a biographical essay on Cervantes; and a lengthy biographical essay on Daniel Defoe to preface an edition of Robinson Crusoe. In December 1825 Lockhart left Scotland for London to become editor of the Quarterly Review. Lockhart wrote nearly 120 articles for
the Quarterly in addition to directing the literary, political, and social focus of the review as an active editor. Over the next few years Lockhart also wrote biographies of Robert Burns, Napoleon, and Sir Walter Scott. He served as editor of John Murray’s Family Library, edited Scott’s poetry and prose works, and contributed significantly to the notes for editions of Byron’s works and to the revisions of John Wilson Croker’s edition of Boswell’s Life of Johnson. He also contributed original poetry, translations, and essays to various other periodicals and annuals.
Lockhart, as an author and an editor, influenced a wide range of nineteenth-century life. The Edinburgh Critical Edition of the Works of John Gibson Lockhart aims to identify and collect the full range of Lockhart’s works and to provide the appropriate critical apparatus to enable readers for the first time to assess fully Lockhart’s achievement and his significance for nineteenth-century studies.
Volume Editors’ Acknowledgements
The completion of the present edition would not have been possible without the support of various people and institutions, for which the present editors are most grateful. In the first place we wish to record our major debt to our Series Editor, Thomas C. Richardson, for his unfailingly shrewd and good-humoured advice on all matters editorial and also for undertaking the laborious tasks of the typesetting and picture editing of this edition. As with every other title in The Edinburgh Critical Edition of the Works of John Gibson Lockhart the financial and technical support of the Mississippi University for Women has also been essential.
Both editors have benefited through their affiliation to the University of Edinburgh during the preparation of this volume, as Honorary Professorial Fellow and Honorary Research Fellow respectively.
Peter’s Letters to his Kinsfolk is a widely-allusive literary work with a frame of reference much broader than any two individuals can hope to deal with adequately on their own, and we wish to thank a number of individual scholars for their contribution to elucidating it, in particular Ian Alexander, Devin Ames, Iain Gordon Brown, Gerry Carruthers, Claire Connolly, Ian Duncan, David Frederickson, Stephen Hall, Cameron Howard, Bob Irvine, Vic Jones, Roland Paxton, Thomas B. Richardson, Rachel Sweet, Iain Torrance, Derek Webb, and Michael Wood.
We are grateful to the Trustees of the National Library of Scotland for permission to quote from manuscripts held by that Library, and similarly to the Mitchell Library, Glasgow, and to the University of Edinburgh Library. We also wish to thank the staff of these institutions for their helpful and friendly assistance with our work there. In addition the following individuals and the institutions they work for should not be forgotten: Kate Anderson of the National Galleries of Scotland; Paul Cox of the National Portrait Gallery; Iain Duffus of Edinburgh Central Library; Isobel Maclellan of the Mitchell Library, Glasgow; and Ruth Pollitt of the Anatomical Museum, University of Edinburgh.
Last but by no means least, we are deeply grateful to our families for their constant support, in particular to Gillian Garside and David Sweet.
Note on the Present Edition
For ease in consultation the text of Peter’s Letters to his Kinsfolk appears in the first volume of this edition, while explanatory notes and other supporting editorial material appear in the second volume.
The text provided in this volume is based on the ‘third’ (actually second) edition of Peter’s Letters of 1819, with emendations from the limited manuscript materials extant, from separately-printed originals for some sections of the work, and from the ‘second’ (actually first) edition. In addition to this a number of editorial interventions have been made where Lockhart’s intentions appear to have been misunderstood or errors made during textual transmission and in the processes of printing. For further commentary see the ‘Introduction’ in the second volume of this edition, especially the section on ‘The Present Text’, as well as the ‘Emendation List’, which provides a more specific record.
PETER’S LETTERS TO HIS KINSFOLK
PETER’S LETTERS TO HIS KINSFOLK
VOLUME THE FIRST
DEDICATION
TO THE RIGHT REVEREND
THE LORD BISHOP OF ST DAVIDS
MY LORD,
I TRUST you will excuse the liberty I take in inscribing to you a new edition of my Letters from Scotland. That none of these letters were addressed to your Lordship, is a circumstance for which I take great shame to myself, after the very kind manner in which you spoke to me on that head, the day I left you—may I be permitted to add, after the long experience I have had of your Lordship’s concern and attachment, in several years of professional attendance, and, since that was laid aside, of private intercourse and friendship.
I must not attempt to deny, that there are some things in these Letters which are not exactly what I should have judged proper for your Lordship’s eye; but your Lordship is aware that they were written without the smallest notion of being printed. I hope the effect of the whole correspondence may be agreeable to you, and I well know the gentle and forgiving nature of your disposition. Above all, I should be highly flattered to learn that the account I have given of the State of Religion in Scotland, had interested and pleased you. The truly liberal and apostolic zeal with which your Lordship has so long been labouring to serve my countrymen in their most important concerns, is appreciated and honoured by none more highly than,
MY LORD,
Your Lordship’s very humble, and very affectionate Servant, PETER MORRIS.
PENSHARPE-HALL, ABERYSTWITH
EPISTLE LIMINARY
BOOKSELLER, IN THE STRAND, LONDON
DEAR SIR,
THE high terms in which you are pleased to express yourself concerning the specimens of my Letters from Scotland which have fallen into your hands, are, I assure you, among the most valued testimonies of approbation which have ever come in my way. To receive applause from one’s acquaintances, is more delightful than to receive it from strangers; but the most precious of all tokens is that which proceeds from an old and dear friend. It is true, that in such case there may be, in general, no small suspicion of partiality, but this cannot be the case with you, as you say you liked the work before you were aware of the name of its author.
Since that name has now been divulged through the rashness of a certain publication, I do not see that any very good purpose could be answered by attempting to keep up the mystery in the work itself. I therefore accept of your offers with regard to the Second Edition, and permit you to send it forth into the world with the name of Peter Morris as conspicuously affixed to it as you may deem expedient.
About the same time that your letter reached me, I had another letter on the same subject from my friend Mr William Blackwood, of Edinburgh. As you and he are already connected in so many ways, it strikes me that no inconvenience could attend your being connected together in this little matter also. I shall be happy if you find it consistent with your
views to communicate the purport of what I have said to him, with all haste; and hope to see the Second Edition graced with both your names on the title-page.
When in Edinburgh I became acquainted with Mr James Ballantyne, and have a strong inclination that any little thing of mine should be printed at his press, both from my regard for the man himself, and on account of the high report I heard of his qualifications in that way, from some of the best judges I know of. The First Edition being but a coarse job, and so small withal, I did not think of him, but trust there will be nothing to prevent him undertaking this, about which Mr Blackwood will be able to arrange with him very easily, being on the spot. I should think the best way would be to leave the style of printing, &c. entirely to Mr Ballantyne’s own discretion I am sure he will do all he can to make my book a pretty one. As for correcting of proofs, &c., I dare say I might very safely leave that also to Mr Ballantyne; but I have a friend in Edinburgh, (a Mr Wastle,) who will find it quite an amusement to superintend all that affair; and, by the way, I am a very bad hand at correcting proofs myself, for I read them so quickly, that my eye passes over a thousand errata, for one that escapes the observation of a person more accustomed to such things.
What you say about the portraits, puzzles me more than anything else; I mean as to the propriety of introducing such things at all. It is very true, however, as you have heard, that my pencil was in request while I was in Scotland, almost as much as my pen, and that I have now a very rich portfolio of the chief worthies I met with in that northern region. In this matter, too, I am inclined to trust more to my friends’ judgment than to my own, so I have sent you this day (per waggon) the whole lot of the sketches, leaving you to select for the engraver such as seem most likely to improve the appearance and popularity of the work. I think, however, you should on no account omit the sketches of the Man of Feeling, Mr Scott, Mr Jeffrey, Mr Alison, and Dr Chalmers. The others you may do with as you please.
I would have sent you my drawings of scenery also, but really in the present day when so much is a-doing in that line by much abler hands, I feel shy about pushing my rude efforts upon the public. I have, therefore, packed up only a very few specimens not at all for the engraver—but merely as a present to Mrs Davies, which I beg she will accept, as also the cheese which accompanies them, along with the best wishes and compliments of a very old acquaintance and admirer. You cannot do better than have the etchings executed in Edinburgh also.
Nobody can be better for the purpose than Mr Lizars and, if he be too much engaged to do the whole, he can get a very excellent young artist, some of whose works I saw when there, to give him assistance I mean Mr Stewart, who is engraving Allan’s Picture of The Robbers dividing their Spoil. By the bye, I had a note from Sir Joseph Banks a day or two ago, in which he says a great deal about a new invention of Mr Lizars, which he thinks is the greatest thing that has occurred in engraving since the time of Albert Durer. I have not seen any specimen of it, but do ask him to try some of the portraits in the new way—say my own—for that is of least consequence.*
As I am just going over to Dublin to spend a few weeks with my brother Sam, I shall not be able to hear from you again about this matter so I leave it with perfect confidence in your hands, and those of Mr Blackwood. I hear the cry for the book is great, particularly in the North; therefore do bestir yourselves, and have PETER out before the rising of Parliament.
I hope you won’t allow next Autumn to go over, without coming down and paying a visit to some of your old friends in your native country and I am vain enough to hope you won’t omit us if you do come. I am an idler man, now-a-days, than I could wish to be; so do come, my dear sir; and if my good friend, Mr Cadell, could come with you, tanto melius; I shall do all I can to amuse you in the mornings; and, in the evenings, you shall both have as much as you please of what, I flatter myself, is not the worst claret in the principality. Between ourselves, I have a great desire to see you, as I have some thoughts of looking over my papers, and giving you Peter’s Letters from Italy and Germany, in the course of the winter. Meantime, I remain, with great sincerity, Your friend,
PETER MORRIS
PENSHARPE-HALL, ABERYSTWITH Wednesday Evening
*The portrait of Dr Morris is done in this new style; and had the time permitted, the others would all have been done so likewise. It is thrown off by the common printingpress, as the reader will observe but this is only one of the distinguishing excellencies of this new and splendid invention of Mr Lizars. I am happy that my friend’s book has the honour of being the first graced with a specimen of it; and not the less so that the specimen presents a capital likeness of my friend himself.
W. W.
LIST OF EMBELLISHMENTS
VOLUME THE FIRST
Portrait of the Author ............................................................... to face the Title
The Author in his Shandrydan driving to Edinburgh Vignette on Title
of Mr Leslie ...................................................................................... 49
