The Life and Letters of John Gibson Lockhart
Chapter 3: 1813-15
John Gibson Lockhart to Jonathan Christie, 9 September 1815
“Gourock Bay, Greenock, Sept. 9th, 1815.
“My dear Christie,—I
have been blaming myself all this while for not writing you. I have put it off
day after day that I might have it in my power to tell you my agreement with
the booksellers about our little production, and yet even now I cannot do
so—bless their dilatory souls. My dues being, according to
Wardrop, thoroughly removed, and ten guineas conveyed
from my breeches pocket into his, I left London about a fortnight ago, in
company with Aristotle the second,1 who had been spending three weeks in rummaging a
collection of letters (MS.) in the Bodleian, and egging the tutelary angel of
that mystic abode to a new flight—casa non
detta mai in prosa ne in rima—a translation of
Schneider’s Lexicon. The
little dumpling of philology” (Nicoll) “agreed, but behold Mr. Elmsley
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of Cambridge has forestalled him—vide the spare sheet at the end of the last Quarterly Review—so hæc tentamina tanta must sleep
in præsenti.
Hamilton is full of strange whims and
fancies—anything but the law of Scotland—inter nos, I think it is likely he may publish an
‘Essay on the State of Universities, Ideal and Actual,’ before
long—at least his adversaria teem with scraps concerning it, and his talk
lies much that way, though this is nothing new. He approves highly of the thing
which I meditate—disapproves, however, the title of Olio; he suggests
‘the Oxford Picnic,’ and by all means recommends saying part the
first. Indeed I already smell much matter, and expect that the first hint of
the matter to Wilson will engage his
assistance. I understood Maudlin did not nourish him for nothing. By-the-bye,
Reginald Heber, you may know,
printed some years ago a Brazennose satire, the Whippiad, which he
has since done his best to suppress. This of course no one would think of
meddling with vivo auctore, but I
understand he is the author of a number of very good things besides.
H. heard Tuckwell repeat a good many of them. Could you not contrive to
get at these? I am sure you may. Moreover, Jack
Ireland is the repository of many old lampoons written at the
time of the war between the Balliol exhibitioners and the college. These might
surely be worth something—at all events, they may be inquired after. I
mention these things because ![]()
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you will soon be
there, and can use your judgment if you think proper. Jack
had so far recovered his shock as to get drunk three or four times in
Hamilton’s presence while he was in Oxford.
“‘Pasquillus Oxoniensis’ might not be a
bad title. But I am not despairing but something more happy than any of these
may yet occur. I made a good pun the other day (ut
dirty-Durlice loquar). Hamilton has a law paper to write concerning a Mr.
Hume—a poor devil—who is trying to get the title of
Marchmont. I suggested for a motto—
‘——tentanda via est
qua me quoque possim
Tollere
Humo.——’ |
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“We are here in a beautiful situation in the Firth of
Clyde, surrounded with all the mountains of Argyle, and have Benlomond right
before us. I enjoy myself very much, when the weather is favourable, in
fishing, boating, &c. On Sunday the Antiburghers had their occasion about
two miles off. I went into the tent-field towards evening; the man had just
finished preaching at a great rate, but something being whispered into his ear,
he said just as I entered, ‘Brethren, as they’re aye haddin on
yet in the kirk, I think we had as weel do away the time
a leetle in prayer.’ The Edinburgh Bible Society Report
contains—(it is now lying before me) these resolutions on the second
page:—
“11. Resolved, That the thanks of this meeting are due
to Sir John Marjoribanks, Bart., for his
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kindness to the institution. 12. Resolved, That the
thanks of this meeting are due to Bailie John Waugh for
his able conduct in the chair, &c. 13. Resolved, That the fervent
acknowledgments of this meeting are most justly due to Almighty Providence, for
its watchfulness over the interests of
Christ’s Kingdom in general, and the British and Foreign Bible Society in
particular. 14. Thanks to Mrs. Maxwell for a present of
Gaelic Bibles.—Yours ever,
Jonathan Henry Christie (1793-1876)
Educated at Marischal College, Baliol College, Oxford, and Lincoln's Inn; after slaying
John Scott in the famous duel at Chalk Farm he was acquitted of murder and afterwards
practiced law as a conveyancer in London. He was the lifelong friend of John Gibson
Lockhart and an acquaintance of John Keats.
Peter Elmsley (1774-1825)
Classical scholar educated at Christ Church, Oxford, who published in the
Edinburgh Review and
Quarterly Review.
Southey described him to W. S. Landor as “the fattest under-graduate in your time and
mine.”
Reginald Heber, bishop of Calcutta (1783-1826)
English poet and Bishop of Calcutta, author of
Palestine: a Prize
Poem (1807) and the hymn “From Greenland's Icy Mountains.” He was the half-brother
of the book-collector Richard Heber.
John Ireland (1745-1839)
Born in Scotland, he was an Oxford apothecary, 1772-1825, after which he took a medical
degree and practiced at Headington.
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).
Alexander Nicoll (1793-1828)
Educated at Marischal College, Aberdeen before becoming a Snell Exhibitioner at Balliol
College, Oxford, he catalogued oriental manuscripts at the Bodleian and was regius
professor of Hebrew (1822).
Johann Gottlob Schneider (1750-1822)
German classicist and natural philosopher; he published
Kritisches
griechisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch (1797–1798).
John Wilson [Christopher North] (1785-1854)
Scottish poet and Tory essayist, the chief writer for the “Noctes Ambrosianae” in
Blackwood's Magazine and professor of moral philosophy at Edinburgh
University (1820).
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.
