letters
to his daughter, his health declined rapidly. On July 5, 1853, he
notes that his doctors agree that he must not attempt the next Review,
and a few days later, he writes, "I suppose my last number of the
Quarterly Review." He had never ceased to be an occasional contributor
to Blackwood; the pages in memory of its founder, which appeared in
October, 1834, were from his pen, and in those days he still took
pleasure in sometimes "making a Noctes." The annalist of the
Blackwoods has given the last note to the publisher, written very near
the end:--

"Dear B.,--If you think the enclosed worth a page, any time, they are
at the service of Maga, from her very old servant, now released from
all service, J. G. L."

That {p.xxxiv} service had lasted for more than the length of a
generation.

Dean Boyle, in his interesting notes on Lockhart in his later life,
recalls his remark: "If I had to write my Life of Scott over again,
now, I should say more about his religious opinions. Some people may
think passages in his novels conventional and commonplace, but he
hated cant, and every word he said came from his heart." Of Lockhart's
own religious opinions, Mr. Gleig writes: "A clergyman, with whom he
had lived in constant intimacy from his Oxford days [probably the
writer himself], was in the frequent habit, between 1851 and 1853, of
calling upon Lockhart in Sussex Place, and taking short walks with
him, especially in the afternoons of Sunday. With whatever topic their
colloquy might begin, it invariably fell off, so to speak, of its own
accord, into discussions upon the character and teachings of the
Saviour; upon the influence exercised by both over the opinions and
habits of mankind; upon the light thrown by them on man's future state
and present destiny; and the points both of similitude and its
opposite between the philosophy of Greece in its best days and the
religion of Christ. Lockhart was never so charming as in these
discussions. It was evident that the subject filled his whole mind,
for the views which he enunciated were large, and broad, and most
reverential--free at once from the bigoted dogmatism which passes
current in certain circles for religion ... and from the loose,
unmeaning jargon which is too often accepted as rational
Christianity."[15]

[Footnote 15: _Quarterly Review_, vol. cxvi. p. 475.]

Lockhart spent the autumn and winter of 1853-54 in Rome, seeking too
late for such amendment as re