72

THE LITERARY HISTORY OF

gow, its philosophy and literature; in Oxfo and its society. He had lived for years in trict, and had even come to be considered on members of the "Lake School." In Edin received with all the warmth which a little was calculated to add to the natural welcom handsome, rich, amusing, and delightful str pretty wife, and everything well authenticate able about him. "He is young, handsome, w says Mrs. Grant, "has great learning, exube wife and children that he doats on, and know, but on the contrary, virtuous principle Yet his wonderful eccentricity would put an wife wild."

Wilson was at this time the author of t "Isle of Palms" and the "City of the Plag fine-drawn sentiment and an over-wealth and poetic diction were more conspicuous From these early productions, and from the ness and sentimentality of the tales and ro later years, the "Lights and Shadows of etc., the reader would form very little ide wealth and faculty of the man, the exu which for so many years poured forth lavis) and wisdom, of frolic and song, of the gaye the finest criticism, in the pages of the mag he was the chief and most lasting inspiration Ambrosiana is not, unfortunately, a work of t could be expected to last. The highest scarcely put immortality into these records -and not only of the moment but of the ments of a life by no means strait-laced, a was his fancy to exaggerate the license tenf tion. Whether Wilson counted the cost chose to produce a supreme blaze of effect

rather than to leave anything for posterity, we cannot tell. Perhaps it may be said that sober calculation was not in him; but it is very possible, we think, that, consciously or unconsciously, he may have made some such bargain with himself and fame. Whoever will attempt now to read the Noctes will find in them the outpouring of such an abundant and exuberant soul as has rarely flowed forth with equal abandon in literature. Here and there he will be touched by passages which are lyrical in their wonderful flow and rhythm, though they never abandon the form of prose, by descriptions full of the most brilliant life and colour, and always by a medley of passion and criticism, tenderness and laughter, which is unique, and has no rival. The mixture, no doubt, has poorer elements, chief of which is the ever-present spice of locality and personality, which impairs the enjoyment of those who know neither the place nor the individuals, and is very apt to disgust an impatient reader. But even with these drawbacks, the attempt to understand the Noctes is worth making. To place all these generous utterances of a big heart and teeming brain in the atmosphere, even of the most refined of taverns (which "Ambrose's" does not pretend to be), is not so much a mistake in art as the most wasteful discounting, so to speak, of the author's reputation: but this very familiarity of illustration made the effect prodigious at the time.

There is something more, however, in the Noctes than even the eloquence and the poetry-there is at least one character which raises the curious living record of so many quickly-passing moments to the height of a drama. The other characters introduced are dim enough, but the Shepherd is one of the most delightful impersonations of tender Scotch humour that ever was created. How much he really resembled the rude yet wonderful peasant, uncultivated, uninstructed, and with his coarse homespun

often enough appearing under the ideal Shepherd's maud that veiled him, but withal with a delicate vein of poetry running through his coarser metal, cannot now be ascertained. The Ettrick Shepherd in himself is very worthy of notice, and some small portion of the poetry he produced has a real touch of the divine, and is worthy of a place among the poetry which the world will not let die; but the Shepherd in the Noctes is much greater than his prototype. When Wilson was at his finest, when the stream of his boundless eloquence was at its purest, it was through the lips of the Shepherd that he spoke. If he leaves here and there an alloy of vanity, a touch of folly, in the being whom he manipulates so lovingly, it is no more than enough to make it credible that James Hogg, glorified by the touch of a genius superior to -his own, but still James Hogg, in real flesh and blood, might have sat for the portrait. An attempt has been made recently, by a well-qualified hand, to detach from all superfluous matter what has been called the "Comedy of the Noctes;" but we doubt whether readers in any quantity will ever attempt to thread the long-drawn mazes, and go masquerading into the abodes of a worn-out fashion of life, too recent to be picturesque, too far off to be sympathetic. And apart from the Noctes Wilson cannot be fully known; though the wonderful wealth of his criticism and the sports and descriptions of Christopher North will give a far better idea of his character than either the poetry or the romantic and sentimental fiction which he has left behind him. After all the others had faded,when Scott was gone, and little Jeffrey, and even the great preacher Chalmers, who divided the suffrages of the city with them,-Wilson still remained, the last great relic of that tide of intellectual power which had swept over Edinburgh. Loosely clad and largely made, with flowing locks and a majestic presence, his recollection is

MAGAZINE."

still fresh in the minds of many. But this recollection has carried us far beyond our immediate theme.

The "scorpion who delighteth to sting the faces of men" was John Gibson Lockhart, the future son-in-law of Scott, and for a long time after a power in literature. The description here given of him is sufficiently candid, supplied as it was by a friendly hand, and it proves that keen and bitter wit was even then allowed to be his most striking characteristic. It is curious that a man with so many qualities, who proved himself afterwards in his Life of Scott so capable of truly comprehending real moral excellence, and in some of his novels so sensible of many of the most tragic emotions of the mind, should impress his associates chiefly with those stinging powers. He was a contributor to the new Magazine for a number of years, until he was transplanted to London and became the editor of the Quarterly Review. His novels have not kept much hold upon the public mind, but they are none of them without merit. Valerius is one of the most successful of the two or three studies of the life of the early Christians in Rome which have appeared from time to time; and the very curious, tragic, and painful book called Adam Blair is one that nobody who has read it will easily forget.

The Ettrick Shepherd, to whom we have already referred as, in his glorified conception, the hero of Wilson's great work, was a diffuse and unequal writer, but is remembered chiefly as the author of a most delicate and visionary piece of verse much unlike his rustic personality and the general level of his productions. The description of "Bonnie Kilmeny," from the "Queen's Wake," a poem full of fine passages, of which this is the especial gem, is quoted in every collection of poetry, and it seems unnecessary to repeat it here. It is by far the highest note that Hogg ever attained.

Whether he had

actually any share in the production of the new Magazine it is difficult to say, since Wilson has so connected him with its history as to make it impossible to sever him. from the band of writers who brought it forth. Other names of more note and influence than that of the Shepherd figure in the list. Sir William Hamilton, the future philosopher, was present at the uproarious sitting during which the Chaldee Manuscript was produced, and composed one of the verses so much to his own satisfaction as to fall from his chair exhausted with laughter after the exertion. Thus Edinburgh was once more the scene of one of the great events of modern literary history. All the magazines of more recent days are the followers and offspring of this periodical, so audacious in its beginning, so persistent and permanent in its influence and power.

The success of the new organ of opinion was immediate. "Four thousand of this cruelly witty magazine," writes Mrs. Grant, "are sold in a month, at which I do in wonderment abound, as a great many are sold in London, where, I should suppose, our localities could be little understood, and certainly nothing could be more local. . . . It is supported by a club of young wits, many of whom are well known to me; who, I hope, in some measure fear God, but certainly do not regard man."

It is curious, however, to find that upon the vexed question of the time-the poetry of Wordsworth and Coleridge, the new Magazine, though its chief contributor had been supposed to belong to the "Lake School" of poets, was in no respect more clear-sighted or more liberal than Jeffrey, their arch-enemy, had been. The assault upon Coleridge in the first number is far more fiery and furious than anything Jeffrey ever wrote; and the series of articles which followed upon Leigh Hunt and the