Lockhart, John Gibson (1794–1854), became one of the principal contributors to
Blackwood's Magazine. In 1817 he began a long series of attacks on, in particular, Leigh
Hunt,
Keats, and
Hazlitt, castigating them as the low-born ‘
Cockney School of Poetry’. He did, however, support
Wordsworth and
Coleridge. In 1818 he translated F. von
Schlegel's Geschichte der alten und neuen Literatur as
Lectures on the History of Literature, Ancient and Modern, and he contributed several important articles on German literature to
Blackwood's during the 1820s. He was editor of the
Quarterly Review (1825–53) and his ferocity as a critic was well reflected in his chosen nickname, ‘The Scorpion’. He published a wide range of books:
Peter's Letters to his Kinsfolk (1819), containing spirited sketches of life in Edinburgh and Glasgow;
Valerius (1821), a simple tale of Rome under Trajan; his novel
Some Passages in the Life of Adam Blair (1822), a dark and disquieting story of a Scots minister;
Reginald Dalton (1823), a popular romance; and translations of
Ancient Spanish Ballads (1823). His
Life of Burns appeared in 1828, and in 1837–8 his
Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott (his father-in-law).
