Marie, an expert on Sir Walter Scott and life in Scotland in that era, based at Charles University, Prague, has written a short biography of his life, which in many cases was tragic – a reminder of the harsh times of the 19th century:

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John Gibson Lockhart, L.L.D. was the eldest son of Reverend John Lockhart, D.D. and his second wife Elizabeth Gibson. The couple had ten more children, including Laurence Lockhart, D.D., who later on inherited Milton Lockhart House. The eldest son of John Lockhart by his first wife was Captain William Lockhart of Milton Lockhart, the M. P. for Lanarkshire. John Gibson was a descendant of many excellent Scottish ministers and he was expected to follow their steps. Unfortunately in January 1803 two of John Gibson’s siblings died (probably from diphtheria) and he also caught the illness, which left him partially deaf. He was grieving over his brother and sister so much that he had to interrupt his high school studies, to which he never returned because at the age of 11 he went straight to Glasgow University. John Gibson was such an excellent student – he had already learnt seven foreign languages – that he soon received a bursary to study at Oxford. He had many doubts about religion for the majority of his life and decided to study law instead of divinity.

After graduation, Lockhart returned to his parents' house in Glasgow and started his legal career, but he became more and more attracted to literature. Since his teenage years he would draw and write prose and poetry, and in 1817 Lockhart decided to move to Edinburgh and seek both literary inspiration and a job. He immediately found new friends there and they joined the new, brave Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, which instantly became extremely popular among the readers and not so much among the ridiculed or attacked authors. Blackwood payed for Lockhart’s travels to the Netherlands and Germany, where he studied literature, met Goethe, and wrote several interesting texts about his stay and trip. German language and literature interested only a small group of intellectuals at that time and Walter Scott was one of them. The first meeting with Scott was fateful for Lockhart, although he has never been a great fan of Scott’s novels. Scott was suffering from an attack of gallstones and new friendship with Lockhart cheered him up very much. During the period of Scott’s illness Lockhart got on very well with Scott’s family, protected them from many uninvited guests, and became especially close with Scott’s eldest daughter Sophia, whom he married on the 28th April 1820.

Lockhart’s literary production was very diverse, he wrote a number of more or less mocking articles for the Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine between 1817 and 1825 and at the same time he published all his novels – Peter’s Letters to his Kinsfolk (1819), Valerius (1821), Adam Blair (1822), Reginald Dalton (1823), and Matthew Wald (1824). Lockhart was a very innovative writer, all his novels could be categorized as psychological, but unluckily Adam Blair and Matthew Wald were at that time considered too controversial. He also translated old Spanish ballads and edited a new edition of Don Quijote. Lockhart was an editor of the Quarterly Review, one of the most influential literary journals in the world, between 1825 and 1853. John Wilson Croker, an Irish writer and political commentator, and Elizabeth Rigby Lady Eastlake, a writer, art historian, and traveler, were his closest friends and colleagues. Today, Lockhart is well known as the first and best biographer of Scott (1837). Lockhart also wrote two another very influential biographies: Life of Robert Burns (1828) and History of Napoleon (1829). After Sophia’s sudden death in 1837 Lockhart stopped writing and he never married again.

Lockhart always wanted to have children and he was never happier than when his first son Johnnie was born. Unfortunately John Hugh was born with spina bifida and was destined to die young. Little Johnnie became the family sweetheart, he was very clever and talented, he was brilliant both in writing and painting, and he learnt several foreign languages. He would sit and listen to his grandfather Sir Walter Scott tell his stories and this led to Scott's book "Tales of Grandfather" being dedicated to him. He died at the age of eleven. Another baby girl born to the Lockharts died very soon after her birth. The third child was named Walter Scott Lockhart, he was very handsome, but he refused to study hard. Instead, he chose to become a soldier and fell into a bad company, ruined his health, and died in his father’s arms in January 1853 at the age of 26. Lockhart never overcame this terrible blow, and became seriously depressed, almost starving himself to death. He recovered a little during the winter months in Italy and decided to move from London back to Scotland and live with his only surviving daughter Charlotte, who was settled at Abbotsford with her family. Charlotte and her husband had converted to Catholicism and since then Lockhart, son of a Presbyterian minister, wasn’t particularly welcome in their home. Lockhart died a few weeks after his arrival to Abbotsford. He was buried at Dryburgh Abbey next to his in-laws. Charlotte Hope Scott died in 1858 when she was only thirty years old.

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A rather sad end and a reminder of how harsh life was in those days. These themes of loss are a major part of his novel "Adam Blair": the first few pages are genuinely heart-rending. For those who may dislike Lockhart for his destructive critiques (some hold him responsible for the death of the poet John Keats!) I say they should read that book to see the true picture of the man.

And Lockhart's legacy? Apart from his wonderful biography of Scott and his novels, which perhaps one day will be recognised as they should be (I for one would love to see a dramatisation of Adam Blair!). we should remember that every descendent of Sir Walter Scott alive today, is a descendent of John Gibson Lockhart!

Here is one of my favourite extracts from "Adam Blair" - it is refreshing to read a "period drama" set in our own landscape of central Scotland!

"...he looked out, and saw the external world bright before him, with all the rich colourings of a September evening. The sun had just sunk behind the distant screen of the Argyll and Dumbartonshire hills; the outline of the huge Ben Lomond glowed like a blood-red jewel against the wide golden sky beyond; a thick and hazy cloud of mist had gathered over the rich valleys to the westward, through which, here and there, some far-off bending of the river flashed for a moment in a streak of reflected crimson..."