of men," as he or Wilson describes himself in the
_Chaldee Manuscript_ (for the passage is beyond Hogg's part), certainly
justified the description. As to this famous _Manuscript_, the late
Professor Ferrier undoubtedly made a blunder (in the same key as those
that he made in describing the _Noctes_, in company with which he
reprinted it) as "in its way as good as _The Battle of the Books_." _The
Battle of the Books_, full of mistakes as it is, is literature, and the
_Chaldee Manuscript_ is only capital journalism. But it is capital
journalism; and the exuberance of its wit, if it be only wit of the
undergraduate kind (and Lockhart at least was still but an undergraduate
in years), is refreshing enough. The dreadful manner in which it
fluttered the dovecotes of Edinburgh Whiggism need not be further
commented on, till Lockhart's next work (this time an almost though not
quite independent one) has been noticed. This was _Peter's Letters to
his Kinsfolk_, an elaborate book, half lampoon, half mystification,
which appeared in 1819. This book, which derived its title from Scott's
account of his journey to Paris, and in its plan followed to some extent
_Humphrey Clinker_, is one of the most careful examples of literary
hoaxing to be found. It purported to be the work of a certain Dr. Peter
Morris, a Welshman, and it is hardly necessary to say that there was no
such person. It had a handsome frontispiece depicting this Peter Morris,
and displaying not, like the portrait in Southey's _Doctor_, the occiput
merely, but the full face and features. This portrait was described, and
as far as that went it seems truly described, as "an interesting example
of a new style of engraving by Lizars." Mr. Bates, who probably knows,
says that there was no first edition, but that it was published with
"second edition" on the title-page. My copy has the same date, 1819, but
is styled the _third_ edition, and has a postscript commenting on the
to-do the book made. However all this may be, it is a very handsome
book, excellently printed and containing capital portraits and
vignettes, while the matter is worthy of the get-up. The descriptions of
the Outer-House, of Craigcrook and its high jinks, of Abbotsford, of the
finding of "Ambrose's," of the manufacture of Glasgow punch, and of many
other things, are admirable; and there is a charming sketch of Oxford
undergraduate life, less exaggerated than that in _Reginald Dalton_,
probably because the su