rks of art, and of very great art. The earliest of the three,
the _Life of Burns_, is to this day by far the best book on the subject;
indeed, with its few errors and defects of fact corrected and
supplemented as they have been by the late Mr. Douglas, it makes all
other Lives quite superfluous. Yet it was much more difficult,
especially for a Scotchman, to write a good book about Burns then than
now; though I am told that, for a Scotchman, there is still a
considerable difficulty in the matter. Lockhart was familiar with
Edinburgh society--indeed, he had long formed a part of it--and
Edinburgh society was still, when he wrote, very sore at the charge of
having by turns patronised and neglected Burns. Lockhart was a decided
Tory, and Burns, during the later part of his life at any rate, had
permitted himself manifestations of political opinion which Whigs
themselves admitted to be imprudent freaks, and which even a
good-natured Tory might be excused for regarding as something very much
worse. But the biographer's treatment of both these subjects is
perfectly tolerant, judicious, and fair, and the same may be said of his
whole account of Burns. Indeed, the main characteristic of Lockhart's
criticism, a robust and quiet sanity, fitted him admirably for the task
of biography. He is never in extremes, and he never avoids extremes by
the common expedient of see-sawing between two sides, two parties, or
two views of a man's character. He holds aloof equally from _engouement_
and from depreciation, and if, as a necessary consequence, he failed,
and fails, to please fanatics on either side, he cannot fail to please
those who know what criticism really means.

These good qualities were shown even to better advantage in a pleasanter
but, at the same time, far more difficult task, the famous _Life of
Scott_. The extraordinary interest of the subject, and the fashion, no
less skilful than modest, in which the biographer keeps himself in the
background, and seems constantly to be merely editing Scott's words,
have perhaps obscured the literary value of the book to some readers. Of
the perpetual comparison with Boswell, it may be said, once for all,
that it is a comparison of matter merely; and that from the properly
literary point of view, the point of view of workmanship and form, it
does not exist. Perhaps the most surprising thing is that, even in
moments of personal irritation, any one should have been found to accuse
Lockhart o