, nor ever
extravagant in his personal expenditures, he was a most generous
giver, especially to unfortunate members of his own craft. Inclined to
be somewhat silent in large companies, among his friends he was a
brilliant talker, though always a ready and willing listener. He
asserted a power over society, Mr. Gleig has noted, "which is not
generally conceded to men having only their personal merits to rely
upon. He was never the lion of a season, or of two seasons, or of
more. He kept his place to the last." Being a gentleman and a man of
sense, he neither over-valued nor under-valued the attractions of the
great world. Regarding one of his personal attributes, all who saw him
were of the same mind: his quite exceptional and very striking beauty
of face and distinction of bearing never failed to impress those
brought into contact {p.xxxi} with him ever so slightly, even in the
sad days when broken health and much sorrow had made him an old man
long before his time. A proud man, he was absolutely without vanity,
and had little tolerance for it in others; undoubtedly, some measure
of this quality would have made him a happier man, and one more
ambitious of literary success. Almost from his boyhood he could
greatly admire great work even while it was yet not only caviare to
the general, but under the condemnation of the critical arbiters of
the day. It was said of him, that as a critic, "high over every other
consideration predominated the love of letters. If any work of genius
appeared, Trojan or Tyrian, it was one to him--his kindred spirit was
kindled at once, his admiration and sympathy threw off all trammel. He
would resist rebuke, remonstrance, to do justice to the works of
political antagonists--that impartial homage was at once freely,
boldly, lavishly paid."

[Footnote 10: There were untruths as well; some of them so
grotesquely false as now to cause amusement rather than
anger. An article on Lockhart in _Temple Bar_ for June, 1895
(vol. cv. p. 175), touches on some of these legends, and
pleads for a memoir. Gratitude is due to the anonymous
writer, for he was, says Mr. Andrew Lang, "the onlie
begetter" of that gentleman's biography of Lockhart, which
gives so interesting a portrait of its subject, whom, it is
plain, the author has learned to love. It is a book written
with such sympathetic insight and genuine feeling, tha