Lockman, John

Lockman was a prolific and much-acclaimed translator; It was said, perhaps with some exaggeration, that Lockman translated ‘with general accuracy, more books for half a century together than any man of his time’ (GM, 314). He translated works of the marquise de Lambert, La Fontaine, Desfontaines, Le Sage, Marivaux, and King Stanislaus, as well as three substantial volumes of French travel writing. His Q and A style histories were extremely popular. He also helped compile a dictionary. Between 1730 and 1767 Lockman wrote about twenty separately published occasional complimentary poems (many for the royal family--esp. the prince/princess of wales), as well as others in newspapers and magazines; also he wrote songs for the theatre, prologues, and epilogues, usually for good causes, as well as a couple of dramatic works. Between 1756 and 1762 Lockman fruitlessly circulated proposals to publish his poems by subscription, though he assured Thomas Birch that this was ‘not (Heaven be Praised) the effect of necessity.’  In 1734 Lockman had complained to Birch of ‘unmerited rebuffs from the world’ and being ‘compelled to labor day and night’ (BL, Add. MS 4312, fol. 221), but, thanks, one supposes, to income from his fishery appointment and buoyant sales of the histories by question and answer, he published far less new writing after 1750 than before.