LOCKHART, JouN (imsox (179-I-1S54 ). The son-in-law and biographer of Walter Scott. lie was the son of Rev. John Lockhart, and was born in the manse of Cambusnethan, Scotland, July 14, 1794. Two years later his father became minister of the College Kirk in Glasgow. From the high school and the University of Glasgow, Lockhart proceeded to Balliffi College. Oxford, where he graduated in 1813. Ile afterwards studied law at Edinburgh and became an advo cate at the Scottish bar (1816). Already inter ested in literature, he made a German tour in 1817, visiting Goethe at Weimar. In April of the same year Blackwood's llatta.hiee founded, and Lockhart. soon became ono of its chief contributors. In the October number be assailed Coleridge and Leigh hunt. the leader of 'the Cockney school' of poets: then had a hand in the buffoonery of "The Chaldee Manu script•" and made some good translations of Spanish ballads (collected, 1823). In 1819 he published Peter's Letters to His Kinsfolk, a satirical description of Edinburgh society. In
ISIS he had Ina& the acquaintance of Sir Walter .colt, whose daughter Sophia he married in 1820. Four novels now followed: I aterius, a Roman tale, placed in the time of Trajan (1821); _Wain Blair ( ; Rcginfad Da/ton (1823) ; and Matthew 11'01(1 (1824). idunt Blair is a powerful story on the theme to be treated later by Hawthorne in The Scarlet Letter. In 1825 Lockhart became editor of the Quaricr/.0 Berieir, and in 1843 auditor of the Duchy of Lancaster. In the interval he wrote Life of Burns (1828) ; II islorg of Aapoleon (1832) ; and the work by which he is hest known, the Lifc of N•ott (1S36 :>1). After Bo-weirs Johnson, this is the most admirable biography in the English language. 1,1,•l:hart's last years were by domestic troubles. He retired front the Quarterly (1853), resigned the anditorship of Lancaster (1854), and died at Abbotsford, November 25, 1854. Coll stl It the Life and Letters of Lockhart, by Lang (London, 1897).