Biography is another form of history, and it is not surprising that a period so rich in historical writings should also be distinguished in biography. If Boswell's _Johnson_ is still supreme, the Age of Tennyson has produced several lives surpassed only by it. Two of the best of these lives, Carlyle's _Sterling_ and Froude's _Carlyle_, were written by historians, and have been noticed along with their other works. Another remarkable book, the _Autobiography_ of John Stuart Mill, is likewise best taken along with the more formal works of the philosopher. But even after these large deductions, and after a rigid exclusion of everything that is not, both in form and substance, of very high quality, there remain at least two men of great distinction in literature, J. G. Lockhart and A. P. Stanley, who must be treated as first and chiefly biographers. [Sidenote: John Gibson Lockhart (1794-1854).] John Gibson Lockhart was a man of many gifts and accomplishments, a good scholar, a keen satirist and critic, a powerful novelist, an excellent translator. He was accomplished with the pencil as well as with the pen, and some of his caricatures are at once irresistibly amusing and profoundly true. His 'Scotch judge' and 'Scotch minister' would make the reputation of a number of _Punch_. His biting wit won for him the _sobriquet_ of 'the Scorpion;' but notwithstanding his sting he won and retained through life many warm friends. He was trained for the Scottish bar, but attached himself to the literary set of _Blackwood_, in which Christopher North was the most striking figure. With him and Hogg Lockhart was concerned in an exceedingly amusing skit, the famous _Chaldee Manuscript_; but the joke gave so much offence that this 'promising babe' was strangled in the cradle. A good deal of more serious literary work belongs to the period before 1830,--the novels, a mass of criticism, and the _Spanish Ballads_. Then too was formed the connexion which opened to Lockhart the great work of his life. He was introduced to Scott in 1818. The acquaintance prospered. Scott liked the clever young man, Scott's daughter liked him still better, and in 1820 Lockhart married Sophia Scott. Largely through her father's influence he was appointed editor of the _Quarterly Review_, an office which he held until 1853, and in which he became to a very great degree, both by reason of what he wrote and of what he printed, responsible for the tone of criticism at the time.