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WILSON, JOHN (178 1854)

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Originally appearing in Volume V28, Page 695 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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WILSON, See also:JOHN (178 1854) , Scottish writer, the See also:CHRISTOPHER See also:NORTH of See also:Blackwood's See also:Magazine, was See also:born at See also:Paisley on the 18th of May 17 85, the son of a wealthy See also:gauze manufacturer who died when John was eleven years old. He was the See also:fourth See also:child, but the eldest son, and he had nine See also:brothers and sisters.' He was only twelve when he was first entered at the university of See also:Glasgow, and he continued to attend various classes in that university for six years, being for the most See also:part under the tutorship of See also:Professor See also:George Jardine, with whose See also:family he lived. In these six years Wilson " made himself " in all ways, acquiring not inconsiderable scholarship, perfecting himself in all See also:sports and exercises, and falling in love with a certain " See also:Margaret," who was the See also:object of his affections for several years. In 1803 Wilson was entered as a See also:gentleman commoner at Magdalen See also:College, See also:Oxford. Few men have See also:felt more than he the See also:charm of Oxford, and in much of his later See also:work, notably in the See also:essay called " Old North and See also:Young North," he has expressed his feeling. But it does not appear that his Magdalen days were altogether happy, though he perfected himself in " bruising," pedestrianism and other sports, and read so as to obtain a brilliant first class. His love affairs did not go happily, and he seems to have made no intimate See also:friends at his own college and few in the university. He took his degree in 1807, and found himself at twenty-two his own See also:master, with a See also:good income, no See also:father or See also:guardian to See also:control him, and apparently not under any of the influences which in similar circumstances generally make it necessary for a young See also:man to adopt some profession, if only in name. His profession was an See also:estate on See also:Windermere called Elleray, ever since connected with his name. Here he built, boated, wrestled, shot, fished, walked and otherwise diverted himself for four years, besides composing or See also:collecting from previous compositions a considerable See also:volume of poems, published in 1812 as the Isle of Palms. Here he became intimate with See also:Wordsworth, See also:Coleridge, See also:Southey and De Quincey. 1 His youngest See also:brother was See also:James Wilson " of Woodville " (1795-1856), the zoologist.

He See also:

purchased, on behalf of See also:Edinburgh University, in See also:Paris, the Dufresne collection of birds, and arranged them on his return to See also:Scotland. He contributed to Blackwood's Magazine and to the North See also:British Quarterly See also:Review, and wrote many of the articles on natural See also:history in the seventh edition of the F;u yclopaedia Britannica. He married in 1811 Jane See also:Penny, a See also:Liverpool See also:lady of good family, and four years of happy married See also:life at Elleray succeeded; then came the event which made a working man of letters of Wilson, and without which he would probably have produced a few volumes of See also:verse and nothing more. The See also:major part of his See also:fortune was lost by the dishonest See also:speculation of an See also:uncle, in whose hands Wilson had carelessly See also:left it. But this hard See also:fate was by no means unqualified. His See also:mother had a See also:house in Edinburgh, in which she was able and willing to receive her son and his family; nor had he even to give up Elleray, though henceforward he was not able constantly to reside in it. He read See also:law and was called to the Scottish See also:bar, in 1815, still taking many a sporting and pedestrian excursion, and See also:publishing in 1816 a second volume of poems, The See also:City of the See also:Plague. In 1817, soon after the See also:founding of Blackwood's Magazine, Wilson began his connexion with that See also:great Tory monthly by joining with J. G. See also:Lockhart in the See also:October number, in a See also:satire called the See also:Chaldee See also:Manuscript, in the See also:form of biblical See also:parody, on the See also:rival Edinburgh Review, its publisher and his contributors. From this See also:time he was the See also:principal writer for Blackwood's, though never its nominal editor, the publisher retaining a certain supervision even over Lockhart's and " Christopher North's " contributions, which were the making of the magazine. In 1822 began the See also:series of Noctes Ambrosianae, after 1825 mostly Wilson's work.

These are discussions in the form of convivial table-talk, giving occasion to wonderfully various digressions of See also:

criticism, description and See also:miscellaneous See also:writing. From their origin it necessarily followed that there was much ephemeral, a certain amount purely See also:local, and something wholly trivial in them. But their dramatic force, their incessant flashes of happy thought and happy expression, their almost incomparable fulness of life, and their magnificent See also:humour give them all but the highest See also:place among genial and recreative literature. " The See also:Ettrick Shepherd," an idealized portrait of James See also:Hogg, one of the talkers, is a most delightful creation. Before this, Wilson had contributed to Blackwood's See also:prose tales and sketches, and novels, some of which were afterwards published separately in See also:Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life (1822), The Trials of Margaret See also:Lyndsay (1823) and The Foresters (1825); later appeared essays on See also:Spenser, See also:Homer and all sorts of See also:modern subjects and authors. The first result of his new occupation on Wilson's See also:general mode of life was that he left his mother's house and established himself (1819) in See also:Ann See also:Street, Edinburgh, with his wife and family of five See also:children. The second was much more unlooked for, his See also:election to the See also:chair of moral See also:philosophy in the university of Edinburgh (182o). His qualifications for the See also:post were by no means obvious, even if the fact that the best qualified man in Great See also:Britain, See also:Sir See also:William See also:Hamilton, was also a See also:candidate, be left out of the question. But the See also:matter was made a See also:political one; the Tories still had a See also:majority in the See also:town See also:council; Wilson was powerfully backed by friends, Sir Waiter See also:Scott at their See also:head; and his adversaries played into his hands by attacking his moral See also:character, which was not open to any See also:fair reproach. Wilson made a very excellent professor, never perhaps attaining to any great scientific knowledge in his subject or See also:power of expounding it, but acting on See also:generation after generation of students with a stimulating force that is far more valuable than the most exhaustive knowledge of a particular topic. His duties left him plenty of time for magazine work, and for many years his contributions to Blackwood were extraordinarily voluminous, in one See also:year (1834) amounting to over fifty See also:separate articles. Most of the best and best known of them appeared between 1825 and 1835.

The domestic events of Wilson's life in the last See also:

thirty years of it may be briefly told. He oscillated between Edinburgh and Elleray, with excursions and summer residences elsewhere, a See also:sea trip on See also:board the Experimental See also:Squadron in the Channel during the summer of 1832, and a few other unimportant diversions. The See also:death of his wife in 1837 was an exceedingly severe See also:blow to him, especially as it followed within three years that of his friend Blackwood. For many years after, his See also:literary work was intermittent, and, with some exceptions, not up to the level of his earlier years. See also:Late in i85o his See also:health showed definite signs of breaking up; and in the next year he resigned his professorship, and a See also:Civil See also:List See also:pension of 300 a year was conferred on him. He died at Edinburgh on the 3rd of See also:April 1854. Only a very small part of Wilson's extensive work was published in a collected and generally accessible form during his lifetime, the See also:chief and almost See also:sole exceptions being the two volumes of poems referred to, the Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life, and the Re-creations of Christopher North (1842), a selection from his magazine articles. These volumes, with a selected edition of the Noctes Anibrosianae in four volumes, and of further essays, See also:critical and imaginative, also in four volumes, were collected and reissued uniformly after his death by his son-in-law, Professor J. F. See also:Ferrier. The collection is very far from exhaustive; and, though it undoubtedly contains most of his best work and comparatively little that is not good, it has been complained, with some See also:justice, that the characteristic, if rather immature, productions of his first eight years on Blackwood are almost entirely omitted, that the Noctes are given but in part, if in their best part, and that at least three See also:long, important and interesting series of papers, less desultory than is his wont, on " Spenser," on " British Critics " and the set called " See also:Dies Boreales," have been left out altogether. Wilson's characteristics are, however, See also:uniform enough, and the See also:standard edition exhibits them sufficiently, if not exhaustively.

His poems may be dismissed at once as little more than interesting. They would probably not have been written at all if he had not been a young man in the time of the full See also:

flood of the See also:Lake school See also:influence. His prose tales have in some estimates stood higher, but will hardly survive the tests of universal criticism. It is as an essayist and critic of the most abounding geniality, if not See also:genius, of great acuteness, of extraordinary eloquence and of a fervid and manifold sympathy, in which he has hardly an equal, that Christopher North will live. His defects See also:lay in the directions of measure and of See also:taste properly so called, that is to say, of the modification of capricious likes and dislikes by See also:reason and principle. He is constantly exaggerated, boisterous, wanting in refinement. But these are the almost necessary defects of his qualities of See also:enthusiasm, eloquence and generous feeling. The well-known See also:adaptation of phrase in which he did not recant but made up for numerous earlier attacks on See also:Leigh See also:Hunt. " the Animosities are mortal, but the Humanities live for ever," shows him as a writer at his very best, but not without a little characteristic See also:touch of grandiosity and emphasis. As a literary critic, as a sportsman, as a See also:lover of nature and as a convivial humorist, he is not to be shown at equal See also:advantage in See also:miniature; but almost any volume of his miscellaneous See also:works will exhibit him at full length in one of these capacities, if not in all. See Christopher North, by Mrs See also:Mary See also:Gordon, his daughter (1862); and Mrs See also:Oliphant, See also:Annals of a Publishing House; William See also:Black-See also:wood and his Sons (1897).

End of Article: WILSON, JOHN (178 1854)

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