Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

216 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD.
In the meantime Lockhart's own youthful life had
come to rapid development while all these " Jocks "
and labours were going on. In May 1818, while the
air was still full of the dust and commotion roused by
the establishment of the Magazine, our young man
met Scott at an Edinburgh dinner-party, and was
presented to him. " He received me," as we are told
in the ' Life of Scott,' " with a cordiality which I had
not been prepared to expect from one filling a station
so exalted. This, however," he adds, " is the same
story that every individual who ever met him under
similar circumstances has to tell." The young man
had the good luck, when the ladies retired, to find
himself next to Scott, and the still greater good for-
tune to find a subject which interested him
—
i.e., a
recent visit paid to Goethe at Weimar, to his account
of which Scott listened with great interest, asking
many questions about the man whom he said he had
considered as his Master in his youth. He ended by
inviting the happy youth to Abbotsford, which was
about the finest thing that could happen to a young
man of letters in those days. It is well known to
what further developments that visit led, and advan-
tages which were mutual : for Scott secured for him-
self the most admirable son, champion, and companion
when he admitted Lockhart into his family. He was
married to Sophia Scott in 1820, and from that date
his name was never dissociated from that of her fe,ther.
No more fortunate and happy relationship was ever
formed. Scott's own sons have left but little record
behind them. They fell back into the common crowd,
as we believe it is usual for a race to do after it has
come to a climax by producing one of the greatest of