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Notes
The Development of English Biography, orig. pub. 1928 (1947), p. 110; The Nature of Biography (1957), p. 98. An admirable exception is provided by Edgar Johnson, One Mighty Torrent, New Edn. (1955), pp. 305-307.
They are owned by Prof. F. W. Hilles of Yale University, with whose kind permission my study has been made. I am grateful to him, and to Prof. R. D. Altick for calling them to my attention and encouraging me to make this study. Refs. to the proofs will be found in my text, but some explanation is needed. The proofsheets are neither complete nor of one stage. They are bound in six vols. Vols. I-III, printed on one side of wide-margined sheets, correspond to the first three published vols.; V and VI, printed the same way, correspond to the last two—published vols. VI and VII. Refs. to the latter ignore the present binding and cite the published vol. numbers: my "VII" is 1st edn. VII, bound at present in the sixth vol.; my "VI" is at present bound in the fifth. The fourth vol. of the present binding contains the first 228 pages of published Vol. IV, printed as above; it also contains entire published Vol. V in its "last proof" stage, printed on both sides of narrow-margined sheets. My "IV" and "V" are first edn. IV and V, both at present bound in the fourth vol., with part of IV missing. Another complication: with the exception of this "V", these proofs are not necessarily either the first or the last. Indeed, at the beginning of Chap. I of Vol. IV is this note in Cadell, the publisher's, hand: "Mr. L has now seen to p. 38 thrice & to p. 144 twice may go to stereotype after revise."
Cf. D. Cook, "Lockhart's Treatment of Scott's Letters," The Nineteenth Century, CII (1927), 382-398; Grierson, D. Cook, W. M. Parker, et al., edd., The Letters of Sir Walter Scott, 12 vol. (1932-7); Grierson, "Lang, Lockhart, and Biography," Andrew Lang Lecture, Univ. of St. Andrews, 6 December 1933 (pub. 1934); and Sir Walter Scott, Bt.: A New Life (1938); The Journal of Sir Walter Scott, [ed. J. G. Tait & W. M. Parker] (1950). Indispensable are two lectures given by James C. Corson: "Scott Studies I & II," pub. in University of Edinburgh Journal, Autumn, 1955, pp. 23-32, and Summer, 1956, pp. 104-113.
May 22, 1843, Lockhart-Croker Corresp., Croker Papers, William L. Clements Library, Univ. of Michigan (hereafter cited as "Croker Papers").
When originals were sent, Lockhart's wife Sophia and "her assistants" made the transcripts. Lockhart resigned himself to "innumerable blunders." Cf. Sir Robert Rait, "Boswell and Lockhart," Essays by Divers Hands, N.S. XII (1933), 123-124; also, letters to Lockhart in MSS. 929, 932, 934, 935, and 3653, National Library of Scotland, to whose MS. Dept. I am grateful for many months of patient help.
"bolt": "sift, separate, grade." For Ballantyne's letter, see Lockhart, The Ballantyne-Humbug Handled (1839), pp. 9-10.
Letters from Mrs. Elizabeth Carter, to Mrs. Montagu (1817), I, xi-xii. A letter from Maria Edgeworth to Lockhart in 1832 (Nat. Lib. Scot. MS. 923) best expresses the taste he had to satisfy. She objects to publishing unedited letters; still, "Garbling—destroys the value—not only the texture—but the value of wholeness—the integrity—the unity of purpose—sentiment—mind." Lockhart convinced her that he could both edit and preserve (or re-create) the value of wholeness, by what we call "contamination."
Nat. Lib. Scot. MS. 924 has Skene's recollections. Several of Scott's most memorable remarks receive their strength and colloquial point from Lockhart's revisions of the memories of others.
Journal of Henry Cockburn (1874), I, 134, 174-177; Southey, ML. to Lockhart, transcpt. in MS. Notebooks of Dr. A. Mitchell, Nat. Lib. Scot.; Letters of William and Dorothy Wordsworth: The Later Years, ed. E. de Selincourt (1939), II, 927; Mahon, MS. 930; Cheney, MS. 923—Nat. Lib. Scot.
Cooper, Knickerbocker, XII (1838), 349, 351, 359; Martineau, Biographical Sketches (1869), p. 31.
Morritt, Nat. Lib. Scot. MS. 932. The pre-Lockhart publications—the sources of rumor, true and false—are listed by Dr. Corson in his Bibliography of Sir Walter Scott. Obviously, the early announcement of Lockhart's plans caused such memoirists as Hall, Ballantyne, and Gell to refrain from separate publication and give their materials to Lockhart. The notable exception was James Hogg, for the story of whose erratic disloyalty, see A. L. Strout, "James Hogg's Familiar Anecdotes of Sir Walter Scott," SP, XXXIII (1936), 456-474.
London, April 24-25, 1837. This valuable and hitherto unpublished letter is owned by Dr. Corson, who has kindly furnished me with a copy and with permission to quote from it.
London, Jan. 19, 1837; see R. Carruthers, "Abbotsford Notanda," in the 1871 edn. of Robert Chambers, Life of Scott, p. 192.
The Making of the Life of Johnson, Private Papers of James Boswell from Malahide Castle, VI, 16.
Letters to Lockhart in Nat. Lib. Scot. MSS. 1554 & 924 show the collection underway in October. For the rest of the timetable, see Mrs. Oliphant, William Black-wood and His Sons (1897), II, 124; Lang, Lockhart, II, 114-115; M. Lochhead, John Gibson Lockhart (1954), pp. 202-204; W. M. Parker, TLS, March 20, 1937, p. 210.
Hall, 20 Sept. 1832, Nat. Lib. Scot. MS. 932; Lockhart, 18 Aug. 1838, Croker Papers, Clements Lib.
Knowledge of the comment would have helped Sir H. Grierson two decades ago. In his New Life (p. 32n.) he reports his inability to find any reference to the early printing other than that sent Lockhart from the Baroness Purgstall (J. A. Cranstoun) by Basil Hall. Cadell's note was ignored, and the Purgstall story stayed.
"Lang, Lockhart, and Biography," pp. 31-34. His argument is that the ride could have been made only after Nov. 11, and that after Nov. 11 Scott was in Edinburgh, Lockhart at Chiefswood. Dr. Corson, in conversation, recalled Una Pope-Hennessy's guess that the ride was actually to see Cadell: The Laird of Abbotsford (1932), p. 264n. But it would be wrong to absolve Constable of blame in the deceptive reassurance of Scott. The day after the news came from London (Nov. 22), Constable, in the presence of "J. B. and R. Cadell," "convinced me we will do well to support the London House" (Journal, p. 11). Is it so unlikely that at some time during the last ten days of November, Scott rode from Edinburgh to Polton, and then, late at night, decided to go on to Chiefswood (c. 35 m.), arriving for breakfast? The only contradictory detail would be Lockhart's strolling over to Abbotsford to warn Scott the evening of the drive; but this might well have occurred at an earlier date. It was not uncommon for Lockhart to amalgamate incidents in such a way; it was not part of his practice to invent incidents ex nihilo.
Letters of Scott, I, xciii; Grierson, New Life, p. 260 & n., and "Lang, Lockhart, and Biography," pp. 35-36.
Lockhart, late Jan., 1837, Croker Papers, Clements Lib.; Adam, MS. 924, and Croker, MS. 927, Nat. Lib. Scot.
Cf. Grierson, LE "Scott's Journal," TLS, Aug. 8, 1936, p.648; Reginald Heber had died years before; the other reader was H. H. Milman.
Nat. Lib. Scot. MS. 932. All other quotations of Morritt in what follows are from letters in MSS. 932 and 935.
Peter's Letters to His Kinsfolk, "2nd Edn." (1819), II, 299-362 passim; to Cunningham, April 27, 1830, Nat. Lib. Scot. MS. 1553; to Croker, April 10, 1852, Croker Papers.
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