The Life and Letters of John Gibson Lockhart
Chapter 22: 1850-53
John Gibson Lockhart to Charlotte Lockhart Hope, 7 February 1851
“Sussex Place, February 7, 1851.
“Dear Cha,—I return
Murray’s note. He means well,
I believe, but in short I am always worried near death before I can get out a
No. by the tempers that are to be managed. The truth is that John
Murray is sick of Croker,
and Croker is now in a most impracticable
state—exceedingly jealous that he is supposed to be falling off in his
mental vigour, which I see no signs of, though his bodily condition is
certainly alarming. These annoyances are more added to domestic affliction than
I am well able for—but I am better now than I was when J.
M. wrote to you.
“Yesterday I had at dinner here Gleig, who proposed himself; Fergusson, Sir J. Wilson,
William and Frank Scott, who
slept here, and is also to dine and sleep this night. He kindly brought me a
pair of most charming pepper pups four months old, of clear descent from the
Abbotsford race and inimitably varmint. He and I conveyed them this morning to
Landseer, who is to carry them to
Windsor to-morrow in person, and so there is an end of that bother as far as we
are concerned.
“P.S.—The article Junius in the Quarterly
Review has made a sort of sensation here, and many are at
ton’s own death-bed wraith
appeared, so contemporary testimony reports (in the Scots Magazine of the
following month and in Reynolds’s “Memoirs”), to a friend at a
distance. The reviewer did not
go into the very curious evidence as to the spectres. |
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| 346 | LIFE OF J. G. LOCKHART. | |
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least staggered. I was not convinced, but thought the
writer showed such research and ingenuity, and treated a delicate topic with
such inoffensiveness, that I ought not to refuse him a fair field. He is a
Kentish gentleman, by name Coulton,1 and I never saw him
till yesterday, when his manners made a very favourable impression. Henry Cheney remembers well the old Lord Mount Norris, son of the wicked Lord Lyttelton’s sister, Lady Valentia, who was Lyttelton’s
heir-at-law, and inherited, inter
alia, from him an estate near Badger, in Salop.
Cheney says Lord Mount Norris was
full of stories about the bad uncle who had been good to him. Lord
Lyttelton latterly could bear neither solitude nor darkness;
often his little nephew, awaking in the night, found his uncle by his side on
his bed, and was told that he could not remain in his own room, it was so full
of horrors. At all times he had a blaze of wax-candles in his own bedroom all
night. This last circumstance I recollect Sir Walter
Scott mentioning thirty years ago or more, so he could not have
had it from the Cheneys, whom he first and alone knew at
Rome in 1832. It is a shocking story certainly. Lord
Lyttelton and Gladstone
are both much shocked with the article, and Lord Lyttelton
has offered access to his family papers. I suppose the wicked lord’s
reputation would, in his family’s opinion, be mended by his
identification with Junius, which, in any
other man’s case, would 1 I read it Carleton; the
copyist, “Coulton.”
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come to moral damnation, in his already reached, and which here could only add an
intellectual prestige by way of circonstance
attenuante.
George Annesley, second earl of Mountnorris (1769-1844)
The son of Arthur Annesley, first earl of Mountnorris whom he succeeded in 1816. In 1795
he sued John B. Gawler, Esq. for criminal conversation with his wife, Lady Anne
Courtenay.
Lucy Annesley [née Lyttelton] (1743-1783)
The daughter of George Lyttelton; in 1767 she became the first wife of Arthur Annesley,
first Earl of Mountnorris, then Viscount Valentia.
Robert Henry Cheney (1801-1866)
Of Badger Hall, eldest son of Lieutenant-General Robert Cheney of the Grenadier Guards
(d. 1820); he was educated at Winchester and Balliol College Oxford; he was a JP, poet,
amateur photographer, and friend of John Gibson Lockhart.
David Trevena Coulton (1810-1857)
Conservative journalist who founded
The Britannia newspaper in
1839; he was a contributor to the
Quarterly Review.
John Wilson Croker (1780-1857)
Secretary of the Admiralty (1810) and writer for the
Quarterly
Review; he edited an elaborate edition of Boswell's
Life of
Johnson (1831).
Sir William Fergusson, first baronet (1808-1877)
Scottish physician educated at Edinburgh University; in 1840 he was appointed to the
professorship of surgery at King's College, London.
George Robert Gleig (1796-1888)
Prolific Tory writer who rose to attention with
The Subaltern,
serialized in
Blackwood's; he was appointed chaplain-general of the
forces in 1844.
Junius (1773 fl.)
Anonymous political writer who attacked the king and Tory party in the
Public Advertiser, 1769-1772. There is persuasive evidence that he was Sir Philip
Francis (1740-1818).
Sir Edwin Henry Landseer (1802-1873)
English painter trained at the Royal Academy schools, renowned for his portraits of
animals—he painted Walter Scott with his dogs.
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).
Thomas Lyttelton, second baron Lyttelton (1744-1779)
The libertine son of the “good” Lord Lyttelton was often in prison or in debt for his
riotous behavior; upon succeeding to the title in 1773 he played a prominent if erratic
role in Parliament before his early death.
John Murray III (1808-1892)
The son of the Anak of publishers; he successfully carried on the family publishing
business.
The Quarterly Review. (1809-1967). Published by John Murray, the
Quarterly was instigated by Walter
Scott as a Tory rival to the
Edinburgh Review. It was edited by
William Gifford to 1824, and by John Gibson Lockhart from 1826 to 1853.
The Scots Magazine. 65 vols (1739-1803). Continued as
The Scots Magazine and Edinburgh Literary Miscellany
(1804-17) and
The Edinburgh Magazine and Literary Miscellany
(1817-26).
