The Life and Letters of John Gibson Lockhart
Chapter 18: 1837-43
John Gibson Lockhart to Henry Hart Milman, 22 September 1840
“Milton Lockhart, Lanark,
Sept. 22, 1840.
“My dear Milman,— . .
. Yesterday I spent in Glasgow. I found the town all occupied with a Chartist
procession of at least 20,000 people arranged by trades and districts—the
object being to welcome back, as the first huge banner explained,
‘Victims of Whig persecution,’ to wit, two cotton-spinning scamps
convicted of a conspiracy for, inter
alia, murder about two years ago, and now returned from
Botany Bay by the favour of the Whig Government, who have reduced their seven
years of exile to one. The flags and symbols were of the most ![]()
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audacious kind—the inscriptions
breathing everything horrid and atrocious against kings and priests, and
especially Whigs, and the only flags not inscribed being either Tricolour or
Yankee. Yet the captain of the Glasgow police stalked with his baton in advance
of the whole, and his satellite sergeants regulated and accompanied every
section of the march; halting to groan at every Whig factory or mansion, and to
cheer, very often, at the residences of the Tories. I thought this was carrying
liberality a little too far on the part of the authorities; but
Jacobi of Balm, whom I sat by at dinner, was
enchanted—he had never before seen police acting but like executioners;
in this happy land they seemed good-natured schoolmasters humouring the boys in
a frolic! And certainly all was good-humour and whisky—not a symptom of
violence all day long, and the evening quite tranquil. A barber who cut my hair
told me he fancied it might be a question whether the Chartist row or the
scientific one1 were the grosser humbug. I met
twenty-four of the philosophers at dinner chez Sheriff
Alison, Historian and Economist, and Lionfeeder in Chief of the
City—Duke and Duchess of St. Albans; Sir A. Johnstone, Privy Councillor; Lords
Breadalbane, Sandon, and Teignmouth;
Sir J. Macneil and his wife; half a score Germans and Russians; and
the Contessina—whom you pro-![]()
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| 188 | LIFE OF J. G. LOCKHART. | |
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bably encountered among your Whigs when she illuminated
Mayfair a while ago. She owns to twenty-three, but looks forty—very
handsome, dressed after some picture of Correggio, with magnificent black curls clustered under
portentous draperies of gold and scarlet. Her section is, I fancy, that of
l’amour physique, and
the specimen she seemed to take most interest in was Sir John
Macneil, who sported his red ribbon and star with due effect. I
accompanied these exotics to a proménade
scientifique et musicale, where perhaps forty or fifty
ladies and gentlemen were jostled up and down the Royal Exchange of Glasgow,
among two thousand dominies in corduroys and mackintoshes, with their spouses
in straw bonnets, and their daughters in tartan snoods and plaids—the
refreshments, tea, coffee, and punch, in about a hundred huge bowls, arranged
under a gallery crammed with all the bagpipers of the region. I witnessed the
introduction of the blazing Contessina to Chalmers, reeking forth rain and other fluids, splashed to the
mid-leg with mud, and with a portentous hat, which distilled abundantly water,
grease, and odours. The doctor has little French and no Italian—so they
only looked their loves. But I did not see his Grace of Siluria,1 and, alas! I fear I shall not see him; for I left
Glasgow at six this morning, quite satisfied with the Association, and he and
her Grace are, I hear, to move whenever the grand Cattle Show is ![]()
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over upon the deer parks of
Breadalbane.—Yours ever truly,
“I hope you will do the ‘Roms Beschreibung,’ &c, soon. (A modest
Editor!)”
Sir Archibald Alison, first baronet (1792-1867)
The son of the aesthetician of the same name; educated at Edinburgh University, he was a
historian, Tory writer for
Blackwood's, and sheriff of
Lanarkshire.
Thomas Chalmers (1780-1847)
Scottish divine and leader of the Free Church of Scotland; he was professor of moral
philosophy at St. Andrews (1823-28) and professor of divinity at Edinburgh
(1828-43).
Sir Archibald Geikie (1835-1924)
Scottish geologist and historian; he was a young associate of Sir Roderick Murchison,
whose biography he wrote.
Sir Alexander Johnston (1775-1849)
Chief Justice of Ceylon (1805), founder of the Royal Asiatic Society (1823), and privy
counsellor (1832). He published in the
Literary Gazette.
John Gibson Lockhart (1794-1854)
Editor of the
Quarterly Review (1825-1853); son-in-law of Walter
Scott and author of the
Life of Scott 5 vols (1838).
Lady Elizabeth McNeill [née Wilson] (1795-1868)
The third daughter of Professor John Wilson (Christopher North); in 1823 she became the
second wife of the diplomat Sir John McNeill.
Sir John McNeill (1795-1883)
Son of John McNeill of Colonsay; he was surgeon for the East India Company in Bombay
(1816-36), afterwards minister to the Shah of Persia (1836) and chairman of the supervisory
board of the Scottish Poor Act (1845-78).
Henry Hart Milman (1791-1868)
Educated at Eton and Brasenose College, Oxford, he was a poet, historian and dean of St
Paul's (1849) who wrote for the
Quarterly Review.
Dudley Ryder, second earl of Harrowby (1798-1882)
Son of the first earl (d. 1847); educated at Christ Church, Oxford, he was a Whig MP for
Liverpool and a follower of Robert Peel who held the office of lord privy seal
(1855-57).
