JOHN GIBSON LOCKHART.

TUE late Editor of the Quarterly Review died this day week, at Abbots- ford, under the roof of Mrs. Hope, his last surviving child. His life, during his latter years, had been clouded by domestic griefs, and has been terminated by lingering illness. A visit to Italy, and a sojourn of some length in that country, were beneficial to his health and spirits ; he relapsed after his• return to England, and his condition for a con- siderable time before his death was regarded as hopeless. Mr. Lockhart had many claims to distinction. His brilliant debfit among the young literati of Edinburgh ; the friendship and family al- liance of Scott, gained by his early reputation; his literary powers, not only as a periodical essayist but as the author of works which will not

speedily die ; and the influence of the great critical journal which he con- ducted,—an influence maintained and even increased during the period of his management,—made his name celebrated among his contemporaries, and will make it memorable in the time to come. Personally, too, he en- gaged much attention and interest. He mingled largely in society, and many will long retain regretful yet pleasant remembrances of his social intercourse.

Brilliancy was a marked feature of Lockhart, both as a man and a writer. It sparkled in his eye, shone on his brow, and spoke in the rapid tones of his animated voice. In his youthful Parliament-House days, he used to be the centre of a gay circle, all as little encumbered with briefs as himself, who made the old rafters ring with their merry laughter, while the grave and reverend seniors would pause in their walk that they might partake in the joke of the moment, moving on again with a goodhumoured smile and a half-serious shake of the head. In those days, " the stove " was an attic spot, whose quips and cranks have given

way to the graver intercourse of a more staid if not a happier generation. Lockhart's talk on those occasions was, like his writing in Blackwoa,

full of fun, frolic, and exuberant spirits. It was bright and joyous, like everything about him. But it was likewise sharp, pointed, and satirical. He had a keen sense of the ridiculous, and a rich vein of sarcasm. In those days Whig and Tory partisanship ran high in Edinburgh—much higher than in London ; and Lockhart took a full share in the political skirmishing of the time. Personalities were indulged in on both sides, to a degree which does not exist now that the strong lines of party demar- cation are broken down ; and personal warfare is always keenest when the combatants are drawn within a narrow circle. The gibes of Lock- hart and Wilson in Blackwood were often aimed at the persons as well as

the politics of their adversaries ; but in this respect they were as much sinned against as sinning, each party naturally endeavouring to repay

with interest the blows and thrusts they received. Heats and animosities were engendered in those days, of which the par- ties concerned in them would be ashamed now. On one occasion 1Valter Scutt and James Gibson Craig, two men who in their hearts esteemed and respected each other, were only prevented by friendly interference from settling a silly quarrel of this kind by the more silly arbitrament of the pistol. Could such things happen in these "dc- generate days" ? Other quarrels of a like description were actually carried to this extremity ; and the fatal result of one to which Lockhart gave rise, is known to have had a saddening influence on his mind long afterwards. Deliberate malice formed no part of Lockhart's dispo- sition. His sting was sharp, but not envenomed ; even among those who sometimes smarted from it he made few enemies; and, mixing as we then did in the society of Edinburgh, we feel warranted in saying, that when he removed his household gods to the British metropolis, the prevalent feelings he left behind him, even among the most eminent of the opposite party, were kindliness and good- will.

In London he continued to be, on a larger field, a combatant in the cause of Toryism. The Quurterly Re-view in his bands still was what it

hal been before, the strongest champion of the Tory party. A pro- fessedly party publication, be the party what it may, is bound by the tenure of its very existence to be one-sided—to make the worse appear the better reason, to be unscrupulous, sophistical, and, in plain language, dishonest. All this the Quarterly continued to be, or it would no longer have been the Quarterly. To suppose that Lockhart believed in all the fallacies to which he gave his editorial imprimatur, is impossible; but, knowing the influence of education, early association, and the bent of thought thus insensibly acquired, we can easily suppose that he did be- lieve in them to some extent ; and it is admitted on all hands that his rule was a great mitigation of the reign of terror established by his pre- decessor Mr. Gifford. His own articles were rarely (if ever) connected with party politics. They were generally on subjects belonging to litera-

ture and the arts; distinguished for fine and delicate criticism, elegant scholarship, extensive reading, and a captivating grace of style. Under

his management, the Review became a much more interesting miscellany of science, art, and literature, than it had been before : it prospered ac- cordingly ; and the editor it has lost will not easily be replaced.

Lockhart's substantive works—his books—evince an order of genius which gives him a high place in contemporary literature. His Peter's Letters to his Kinsfolk were, of course, ephemeral, like their subjects ; but his lively and satirical pictures of the Edinburgh society of five-and- thirty years ago may be read even now with interest and amusement. As a modern writer of fiction, we are not sure that he has been excelled by any one save his father-in-law. His Valerius, in which, with singu- lar felicity, he has brought before us "in form and habit as they lived" the Roman people of nearly two thousand years ago, must have suggested to Bulwer the design of The Last Days of Pompeii, which certainly does not reach the excellence of its prototype. Adam Blair is a picture of passion, sin, and repentance, which very high genius only could paint ; but it has the fault, adverse to its general reception, that, like many powerful works of the French school, the glowing colours of passion remain in the ireagi- nation, uneffaced by the dark hues of punishment and remorse. In the exquisite Spanish Ballads, the beautiful legends of Grenada and Anda- lusia are transferred to an uncongenial tongue with rare felicity. But it is on his powers as a biographer that Lockhart's permanent fame will chiefly rest. His Life of Burns was remarkable, at the time it

appeared, for a more manly appreciation of its subject than had commonly prevailed • and his biography of Scott will be as imperishable as the memory of its subject.

In private life Lockhart was very amiable. Those who used to see him in the bosom of his family know how full he was of home feeling—

how gentle cheerful, and affectionate. In his marriage he was eminently

happy. His wife, whose sweetness of temper was joined to great good sense and much of her father's spirit, was all in all to him. Her death

was the first calamity which darkened the evening of his days; and thole who knew him best say that his neglect of his own personal comforts, so constantly provided for him by her tender care, tended in no small de-

gree to the injury of his health. He was warm-hearted and generous ; and all his friends know how ready he ever was to do a kind action. His errors, where he erred, were of the head, not of the heart ; and few men, we believe, who have mingled so largely in the strife and turmoil of the world have descended to the grave with a more unspotted name.