Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tlie Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013572965 
 
JOHN WILSON'S 
 
 Pbose Style 
 
 ^n ®lit&cr0raUuatf Eij^sis; 
 
 , FANNIE W.-McLEAN 
 
 WITff .dJV JJtTMODUCFldJV 
 
 -ALBERT S. COOK 
 
 pROPXiSSOB OF THE ENGLISH LaNGUAGB AN15 LiTERATUBB 'iN THB 
 USiVBBSITT OF CAIiIFOENIA ' 
 
 o}«<o 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 PRINTED, BY J. S. GUSHING & CO- 
 
 1886 
 
JOHN WILSON'S 
 
 P B o s E Style 
 
 an 5anlrerQraliu.ate Eijests 
 
 FANNIE W. McLEAN 
 
 WITH AJ\r IJ{TBODUCTIOJ\r 
 
 ALBERT S. COOK 
 
 Professor of the English Language and Literature in the 
 Uhivbksity of California 
 
 oXXo 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 PRINTED BY J. S. GUSHING & CO. 
 
 1886 
 
II^TEODUOTION. 
 
 nnHE wisdom of printing an undergraduate essay 
 upon the prose of an iutellectaal giant like Chris- 
 topher North may not unnaturally be called in question 
 by literary adepts, and the only defence that can be 
 pleaded must either be drawn from custom or sanctioned 
 by a reasonable hope ; in other words, must appeal to the 
 past or point confidently to the future. If the theatre 
 of observation be confined to America, it must be ad- 
 mitted that the past is not eloquent in favor of such a 
 proceeding. Here, therefore, it will be necessary to 
 attach credit to those unmistakable signs which herald 
 innovation, and to contemporary events like the issue of 
 the " Johns Hopkins Studies in Historical and Political 
 Science." 
 
 In Germany it has long been the rule that disserta- 
 tions shall be published, and these dissertations are 
 essentially theses for graduation. It would be easy to 
 show that they are the product of the seminaries which 
 a^e connected with the various departments of the Ger- 
 man universities, and that these seminaries, conversely, 
 are the nurseries of original investigation. The relation 
 of the two may best be gathered from an admirable 
 
IV CHEISTOPHEE NORTH. 
 
 address delivered before the National Educational Asso- 
 ciation in 1882, by Professor Wright of Dartmouth, and 
 entitled "The Place of Original Research in College 
 Education." 
 
 Seminaries akin to those of the German universities 
 have already been instituted in America, and it will be 
 sufficient to refer to a few of the leading ones, such as 
 the linguistic seminaries of Professors March at La- 
 fayette, Allen at Harvard, and Gildersleeve and Warren 
 at Johns Hopkins, or to the historical seminary of 
 Professor C. K. Adams at Michigan, a prototype of the 
 one under Professor H. B. Adams' leadership at Balti- 
 more. But why, it may be asked, should there be semi- 
 naries of linguistics and history, and none of literature ? 
 Professor Wright justly contends that original research 
 should have the same scope in this subject as in any 
 other. He says : — 
 
 " In literature, both ancient and modern, it will rest 
 upon and be conditioned by broad, comprehensive, and 
 accurate reading of original documents, and will consist 
 in analysis, inference, combination of conclusions, inde- 
 pendently performed and recorded in carefully written 
 theses, commentaries, or monographs." 
 
 The present essay is an attempt to realize this doc- 
 trine of original research in its application to literature. 
 The instruction and discipline in English studies received 
 by the writer was shared by her with the members of a 
 class ; and she may therefore be considered as a typical 
 
INTKODUCTIOjS'. V 
 
 senior student of English in the institution of which she 
 was a member. In one sense, it is true, her essay is 
 colored by personal idiosyncrasies, and it would be 
 utterly valueless if it were not. In another, it is devoid 
 of originality, inasmuch as the general mode of treat- 
 ment and order of topics is that recommended by the 
 example of Minto in his " Manual of English Prose Lit- 
 erature." The only originality to which it pretends is 
 that of due conformity to a method already devised, and 
 of an essential justness, if not profundity of view. That 
 it should lack the robustness, allusiveness, and broad, 
 free handling of its prototype will not be an occasion of 
 wonderment to the initiated, who are aware that these 
 qualities are partly personal, and partly the fruit of wide 
 reading, long experience, and perfect command of literary 
 technique. A few verbal errors have been corrected, but 
 I can affirm that in no single instance has the statement 
 of an opinion been modified, or its form materially 
 altered, by my own or any other hand. That the paper 
 has its imperfections and crudities, the Avriter herself 
 would be the first to avow ; but whatever its faults, or 
 whatever its merits, they are to be ascribed solely to 
 herself. 
 
 While justification for the hardihood here displayed 
 has been sought in German precedents, that is, in an 
 appeal to the past, may not grounds of extenuation be 
 discovered in a forecast of the future ? Should not the 
 production of dissertations and monographs by under- 
 
VI CHRISTOPHKK NOKTH. 
 
 graduate as well as post-graduate students be encour- 
 aged ? If possessed of sufficient merit, should they not 
 be printed for the instruction, or perhaps warning of 
 others ? 
 
 For my own part, I see no reason why there might 
 not be a direct friendly interchange of such monographs 
 among the kindred departments of various colleges, or 
 better still, why they should not be distributed by a 
 National Intercollegiate Exchange, established in con- 
 nection with the Smithsonian Institution, or as an inde- 
 pendent agency with officers of its own. There can be 
 little doubt that at present all our colleges are too much 
 isolated, and even their best students too ignorant, in 
 general, of what is occurring at other institutions. But 
 learning, to be truly regenerative, should be cosmo- 
 politan in its entire nature; and to be most amply 
 humanizing and vivific, should be free from the taint 
 of sectionalism and clannishness ; it can never fulfil its 
 highest ends, unless it is 
 
 " Whole as the marble, founded as the rock, 
 As broad and general as the casing air." 
 
 The Germans make university education national, if 
 not cosmopolitan, by encouraging an interchange of 
 intellectual products, producers, and recipients ; that is, 
 of learned works, professors, and students. They invoke 
 the aid of a generous rivalry to promote this interchange, 
 thereby stimulating each individual to his greatest Intel- 
 
INTRODUCTION. Vll 
 
 lectnal fecundity, and every institution to its highest 
 efficiency. The resulting advantage accrues not only to 
 scholarship, but to the State and the principle of 
 national unity. In one sense the universities have lib- 
 erated and consolidated Germany, and they certainly 
 tend to perfect that liberation — Veritas liherahit vos — 
 and to increase as well the consciousness as the fact of 
 solidarity. 
 
 Do our colleges constitute a similar bond, resolving 
 all differences into the harmony of reason, and uniting 
 all educated citizens in the pursuit and realization of a 
 common good? To some extent, it must be conceded, 
 this vi^ant is supplied by various societies. We have an 
 Archaeological Institute of America, an American Phil- 
 ological Association, one for Social Science, another for 
 Physical Science, and still another for Modern Lan- 
 guages. All of these depend, professedly or indirectly, 
 upon the colleges. But why should there not be even 
 the semblance of unity among the colleges as such? 
 And, supposing such unity desirable, would not one step 
 towards it be taken by the increase of original investiga- 
 tion in all departments, the publication of its results, 
 though confessedly crude, and a freer circulation of the 
 monographs among the sister colleges of the land ? 
 
 Nor would the reflex gain to the individual college 
 be insignificant. The honor of being selected for the 
 noble task of augmenting human knowledge would be 
 eagerly sought for by the most highly gifted, energetic, 
 
VUl CHKISTOPHEE NORTH. 
 
 and unselfish students, and the more ordinary incentives 
 of prizes, scholarships, and Commencement honors might 
 be withdrawn, so completely would they be outshone by 
 the more brilliant reward of application, the permission 
 to serve one's AhrM Mater, one's country, and one's 
 race, the privilege of communicating to a sympathetic 
 audience what had been achieved by severe toil, yet 
 with the buoj'ancy begotten of magnanimous resolve 
 and a yet undaunted hope. 
 
 That these imaginings are not altogether baseless I 
 would fain believe, and am indeed partly convinced; 
 and it is because of my conviction that this little essay 
 is sent forth upon the world. 
 
 ALBERT S. COOK. 
 
 Bekkelet, Calipoenu, 
 February 22, 1886. 
 
JOHI^ WILSOK 
 
 1785-1854. 
 
 LIFE. 
 
 JOHN WILSON, more familiarly known in litera- 
 ture as Christopher North, was born in Paisley, a 
 manufacturing town of Scotland, on the 18th of Maj', 
 1785, and died on the 2d of April, 1854. The most 
 reliable and interesting account of his life is given in 
 the work entitled A Memoir of John Wilson, compiled 
 from family papers and other sources by his daughter, 
 Mrs. Gordon. 
 
 His life, for the most part, was uninterrupted in its 
 smooth and even course. There are but few occurrences 
 which seem to have any special prominence. Its history, 
 as bearing on his literary work, may be divided into 
 three periods. The first is the period of poetry, when 
 his youthful genius, spurred on by the consciousness of 
 intellectual power, and fexcited by the passion of love, 
 expressed itself in smooth and tender lines. The second 
 period originates with the birth of Ulackwood's Maga- 
 zine, where, for the first time, Christopher North found 
 a fitting arena for his literary feats. The third period 
 dates from the death of his wife, which occurrence so 
 deeply affected his nature, as to cast its shadow on all 
 his future writings. 
 
2 CHBISTOPHEE NOKTH. 
 
 '(1) The father of John Wilson was a well-to-do 
 gauze manufacturer ; his mother, a lady of high birth, 
 who gave to her son a goodly heritage of wit, humor, 
 and wisdom, combined with physical beauty and grace. 
 The loYeliness of the natural scenery around his early 
 home is described by him in Fytte First of Christopher 
 in his Sporting Jacket. When a child he was a min- 
 iature Professor Wilson and Christopher North in one ; 
 for we find him in his seventh year preaching ser- 
 mons, witty and pathetic, to his brothers and sisters, 
 and, when even younger, amusing himself by fishing. 
 
 Some happj' school-days, apostrophized by him in his 
 Soliloquy on the Seasons, were passed in the parish of 
 Mearns. Here he took the lead in school-work, as well 
 as in out-door sports. From the year 1797 to 1803 he 
 attended Glasgow College, where his time was equallj' 
 and successfully divided between work and pleasure. 
 During these days he kept a unique diarj-, called a 
 common-place book, which he continued for many years; 
 and evinced other traits of regularity and punctuality 
 afterwards erased from the character of Christopher 
 North. At the age of seventeen he was distinguished 
 as being the best-read fellow in college. Among his 
 early friends were Alexander Blair, Robert Findlay, 
 William Dunlop, and Archibald Hamilton. 
 
 In 1804 Wilson entered Oxford as a gentleman-com- 
 moner of Magdalen College. The results of his sys- 
 tematic and enthusiastic study were displayed in the 
 honorable examinations he passed, and later, in his keen 
 and accurate writings. At this time his common-place 
 book contains essays, critical and imaginative, which 
 display many characteristics embryonic of the future 
 
LIFE. 6 
 
 Christopher North. Aside from his scholarly attain- 
 ments while at college, his talent for brilliant conversa- 
 tion and forcible debate, and his skill in all athletic 
 sports, made him the centre of a host of admiring 
 friends. His first illustrious success as a scholar was 
 made in the brilliant examination he passed in 1807 for 
 the Bachelor degree. This ended his university life. 
 
 In 1807 he settled in Elleray, a beautiful cottage 
 on Lake Windermere, in that country which was the 
 retreat of so many celebrated authors, — De Quincey, 
 Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Southey. Here his life 
 was one of poetic meditation, of sociability, and of 
 out-door recreation. In 1807 his common-place book 
 contains the poems. The Isle of Palms and The An- 
 gler s Tent. In 1811 John Wilson was married to Jane 
 Penny, a beautiful and accomplished lady, with whom 
 he passed twenty-eight years of wedded happiness. His 
 first volume of poems, containing the Isle of Palms, was 
 published in 1812, and was received with but little en- 
 thusiasm. Poetry was evidently not the mode in which 
 Wilson's thoughts could best be presented to the world. 
 His second volume. The City After the Plague, and 
 Other Poems, was published in 1816. 
 
 The loss of his fortune compelled him, in 1815, 
 to leave his home in Elleray, and to move with his 
 family to Edinburgh. He was now admitted to the 
 Bar, but as a lawyer gained little success. The vacations 
 of his profession he spent in climbing and in fishing 
 among the Highlands of Scotland, and meanwhile gath- 
 ered together the materials for his Recreations. 
 
 (2) Christopher North was first introduced to the 
 world in the pages of Blackwood's Magazine in 1817. 
 
4 CHEISTOPHEE NOKTH. 
 
 North was an imaginative character, under whose cloak 
 and behind whose crutch Wilson disguised himself 
 from the public. Periodical literature was better adap- 
 ted than poetry to the versatility of his powers and to 
 his peculiar temperament. The years 1810-32 were the 
 scene of a bitter political controversy in Scotland. The 
 Udinburgh Review was the organ of the Whig party, 
 and Blackwood's the organ of the Tory party. Until 
 1817 the Edinburgh Review had been the only periodi- 
 cal of any importance, and had consequently held un- 
 disputed sway. But now a formidable rival arose in 
 this new magazine. In its pages Christopher North 
 poured forth a rich stream of ideas on politics, poetry, 
 philosophy, religion, art, books, men, and nature. His 
 first articles, written in the flush of political excitement, 
 show a violence of language, and a mercilessness in satire, 
 which were afterwards abandoned by him without any 
 loss of strength or pungency, and with a great gain in 
 accuracy. 
 
 In 1820 John Wilson offered himself as a candidate 
 for the chair of Moral Philosophy made vacant by the 
 death of Dr. Thomas Brown. His opponents were Sir 
 William Hamilton, James Mackintosh, and j\Ir. Mal- 
 thus. Wilson was finally appointed professor, and con- 
 tinued in the chair until his resignation a few years 
 previous to his death. His lectures on philosophy, de- 
 scribed by his students as masterpieces of brilliant rhet- 
 oric, sound logic, and deep argument, have never been 
 printed. He received the admiration and profound love 
 of these students. "To them he was Der Einzige. 
 They felt philosophy. The mental faculties were no 
 mere names ; the passions, affections, and dread myster- 
 
LIFE. 5 
 
 ies of conscience ceased to be abstract matters of spec- 
 ulation, and were exliibited before them as living and 
 solemn realities mirrored in their own kindling hearts." 
 
 The duties of Wilson the professor did not check the 
 flow of North's contributions to Blackwood's. Many- 
 times nearly the whole magazine was of his composition. 
 In 1822 The Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life was 
 published. These tales are designated as poems in 
 prose, and Mr. Field asserts that they are " the most 
 , perfect example of their kind of story in our language." 
 From this time until 1837 his life was one of intense 
 and persevering labor, of strict devotion to literary and 
 philosophical work and study. During the year 1826 
 his contributions to Blackwood's were no less than 
 twenty-seven articles, among which were Cottages, 
 Streams, Meg Bods and G-ymnastics. In 1828 his most 
 important essays were Christopher in his Sporting Jacket, 
 Old North and Young North, Christmas Breams, Health 
 and Longevity, Salmonia and Sacred Poetry. 
 
 To the year 1831 belongs his essay on Homer and his 
 Translators, which scholars say " contains the most 
 vivid and genial criticisms in our own or any other lan- 
 guage." The same year saw his criticism on Tennyson, 
 who was then but a young poet of uncertain fame. 
 
 1833 and 1834 were years of political excitement in 
 Edinburgh, so Christopher North, who was always 
 interested in current affairs, appeared in many political 
 essays. The summer of 1834 Wilson spent with his 
 family in the Ettrick Forest. His wife, his children, 
 and' his pets form the oft-recurring themes of the beau- 
 tiful imaginative essays written at that time. In Sep- 
 tember of this year Blackwood died. Wilson was 
 
6 CHEISTOPHEB NORTH. 
 
 obliged to perform a prodigious amount of writing in 
 order to bring out the next number of the magazine. 
 Of its one hundred and forty-two pages, fifty-six were 
 from his pen. These included A Glance at the Noctes of 
 Athenaeus and a Review of Coleridge'' s Poetical Works. 
 
 (3) The death of his wife in 1837 not only made a 
 deep impression on his sensitive nature, but also gave a 
 grave, more subdued cast, to all his writings, which 
 were so truly the mirror of his feelings. At this period 
 of his life we find a moderation in his political views. 
 
 After his wife's death, Wilson's writings were less 
 numerous. His only article for Blackwood in 1840 was 
 a Review of a Legend of Florence hy Leigh Hunt. In 
 this same year, after communication with different 
 acquaintances of Burns, and an examination of his his- 
 tory from all possible testimonies, Christopher North 
 wrote a just and delicate account of that poet's life. 
 This was published by Messrs. Blackie of Glasgow in 
 The Land of Burns. Four years later he took a promi- 
 nent part in the Burns Festival. 
 
 V In 1845 he wrote a Criticism of Mauaulay's Lays of 
 Ancient Rome, the first article since 1840. After this 
 there was another period of silence, until, in 1848, he 
 criticized, in the magazine, Byron's Address to the Ocean. 
 In 1847 he was elected first president of the Philosoph- 
 ical Institute in Edinburgh, and was re-elected every 
 year until his death. 
 
 In 1849 the first of a series of ten papers, entitled 
 Dies Boreales, were seen in the pages of Blackwood. 
 They were early recognized to be the work of the same 
 hand that penned the Noctes, but consisted of more 
 mature and more connected discussions on great moral 
 
CHARACTER. 7 
 
 questions, and criticisms of some of the masterpieces 
 of literature. 
 
 In the winter of 1850 Wilson's strong physical con- 
 stitution first began to show the marks of old age in a 
 paralytic stroke. In the summer of the following year 
 he took a trip through the Highlands, but there was no 
 improvement in his health. On his return he tendered 
 his resignation of the chair of Philosophy, and thus 
 passed from active service. As a proof of the great 
 esteem in which he was held, the queen granted him a 
 pension of three hundred pounds a year. The last pro- 
 duction of his pen were numbers nine and ten of Dies 
 Boreales for Blackwood. The remaining years of his life 
 present a gratifying picture of a peaceful and happy old 
 age. As an example of his independence in political 
 views, and of his magnanimity of spirit, we note this 
 little incident. In 1852 he arose from his sick-bed in 
 order to cast his vote for Macaulay, his old Whig antag- 
 onist, as a representative to Parliament. The gradual 
 weakening of his wonderful mental and physical powers 
 culminated in 1854, when this noble man and distin- 
 guished scholar died. 
 
 CHARACTER. 
 
 Personal Appearance. — The fine physical appearance 
 of John Wilson has formed the subject of many a beauti- 
 ful engraving and of many a fine word-picture. Lockhart, 
 his co-conspirator of Blackwood's, describes him thus : 
 " His hair is of the txue Sicambrian yellow ; his eyes are 
 of the brightest, and at the same time of the clearest 
 blue ; and the blood glows in his cheek with as firm a 
 
8 CHEISTOPHEK NOBTH. 
 
 fervor as it did, according to the description of Jornan- 
 des,. in those of the Bello-gaudentes, praelio-videntes 
 Teutones of Attila." Sarauel Warren, in his Personal 
 Recollections of North, gives this account of his impres- 
 sions on first seeing Wilson. His excited exclamations 
 remind us of Wilson himself. "When he came near 
 enough for his face to be seen with distinctness, I forgot 
 everything else about him : and I shall never forget the 
 impression it produced. What a magnificent head ! 
 How firmly chiselled his features ! What a compression 
 of the thin, but beautifully formed lips ! What a bright- 
 blue flashing ' Eye, like Mars, to threaten or command,' 
 flowing auburn hair, and the erect, commanding set of 
 his head upon his shoulders ; and surely, no Grecian 
 sculptor could have desired anything beyond it." His 
 voice, too, was an index to his character. It is described 
 as deep and sad, with a nervous tremor. In Faed's 
 beautiful engraving of Sir Walter Scott and his Friends, 
 the magnificent form of Professor Vfilson is leaning 
 over the chair of the great novelist. 
 
 The strength, beauty, and vigor of his physical body 
 was transmitted to his literary offspring. In respect to 
 both he was a Hercules-Apollo. This splendid animal- 
 ism clung to him almost to the very end of life, and he 
 never lost the peculiar commanding bearing of his noble 
 figure. 
 
 Activity. — Wilson was a man, who, physically and 
 uieutally, was ever on the alert. There are many curi- 
 ous stories told of his wonderful walking feats, his 
 pugilistic encounters, his athletic sports and fishing 
 excursions. He interested himself in all the domestic 
 concerns of his own home, and in the affairs of his 
 
ACTIVE NATURE. 9 
 
 friends. His recreations were always of an active 
 nature. His travelling was confinecl almost entirely to 
 the country, and it is somewhat surprising that a man of 
 the world, such as he, cared so littie for city life. Very 
 few were his visits to London. He dashed off these lines 
 to describe his feelings on first beholding that great city: 
 " Now were we in the eddies, — the vortices, — the whirl- 
 pools of the great roaring sea of life ! and away we were 
 carried, not afraid, yet somewhat trembling in the awe of 
 our new delight, into the heart of the habitations of all the 
 world's most imperial, most servile, most tyrannous, and 
 most slavish passions ! All that was most elevating and 
 most degrading, most startling and most subduing too ; 
 most trying by temptation of pleasure, and by repulsion 
 of pain ; into the heart of all joy and a,ll grief ; all calm 
 and all storm ; all dangerous trouble and more danger- 
 ous rest ; all rapture and all agony — crime, guilt, mis- 
 ery, madness, despair." 
 
 The mind of this author rivalled his body in the con- 
 stant activity of its powers. Every subject of the day 
 was quickly revolved in his mind, and room made for 
 the next. Little time was spent in day-dreaming. 
 Even his reminiscences are not simple recollections of 
 the past, but are interwoven with many new thoughts 
 and fancies. 
 
 In the history of his life we have noted the almost 
 inconceivable amount of literary work performed by 
 him for Blackwood. Eight thousand two hundred and 
 thirty-four pages of that magazine were contributed 
 by his pen. These articles were written from enthu- 
 siastic love of composition, for the pecuniary reward 
 was slight. He said that he did more work for " Maga." 
 
10 CHKISTOPHER NOETH. 
 
 with less pay than any other contributor. Added to 
 this literary labor were the arduous duties of his profes- 
 sorship. Wilson indeed proved that to live earnestly is 
 to live well. • 
 
 Sensuous Nature. — The sensuous framework of Wil- 
 son's being was most delicately fashioned. In the pres- 
 ence of nature he was always filled with silent awe. It 
 was not until this first feeling had passed away that he 
 gave utterance to his beautiful apostrophes to nature, 
 in which he "animates the insensate earth, till she 
 speaks, smiles, laughs, weeps, sighs, groans, goes mad 
 and dies." The poet soul of Wilson delighted in mid- 
 night wanderings, when in the silence all around him 
 he drank into his very being the mystery and beauty of 
 nature. Not only was his eye , sensitive to all beauty, 
 but, like De Quincey, he possessed a peculiarly sensi- 
 tive ear, alive to every sound of music. We find 
 Christopher in the Aviary describing with delicate ap- 
 preciation the songs of various birds. Nor did Wilson 
 deem it degrading to pamper that other sense, — the 
 taste. From his essay, Christopher at the Lakes, we 
 quote this luscious description of a meal in a Highland 
 cottage: — "Such bread! baked of finest flour for the 
 nonce in a pan-oven that raises the light brown crust 
 almost into the delicacy of the coating of bride-cake, 
 while close-grained even as that ' mighty magic,' kythes, 
 as you break it, the crumbling inconsistency of the 
 fair interior ! Graceful from the gridiron that crump 
 circle of oatmeal wafers, broad as the bottom of a 
 bee-hive; and what honeycomb! The scent is as of 
 thyme, and, by some conjuration, preserved has been the 
 cellular framework all winter through, and therein lies 
 
CHAEACTERISTICS OP WRITINGS. 11 
 
 the dewy flower-distilment, as clear as when the treasure 
 was taken at harvest-close from the industrious people, 
 who in a moment hushed their hum. That is our pot 
 of porridge ; and oh ! it is exquisite when supped with 
 cream I . . . Aren't these pretty patterns of suns and 
 sunflowers, stars and roses, impressed on the glistening 
 countenance of that glorious butter? Till now never 
 saw' we yellow. Put a spoon into that cream — it 
 stands for a few moments straight — and then slowly 
 declining, leans on the edge of the jug, like a young 
 lady about to go into a swoon." 
 
 Characteristics of Writings. — The two most marked 
 characteristics of Wilson's literary work are : (1) The 
 great variety of subjects treated with equal power 
 and facility ; and (2) the unparalleled number of his 
 productions. 
 
 (1") The variety of subjects is accounted for by the 
 fact that he took a zealous interest in every branch of 
 human life and knowledge ; hence the profuse and 
 varied flow of his thoughts. The almost necessary 
 expression in words of this constant overflux of ideas 
 precluded, whether regrettably or otherwise, the Avrit- 
 ing of any one sustained work. It is doubtful whether 
 the sparkle of his wit, the tenderness of his pathos, the 
 strength of his sublimity, the subtlety of his thought, 
 could all have been crystallized into one great work. 
 Such a production would indeed have been a master- 
 piece of transcendent literary art; but, rather than 
 lose any of his gracious spontaneity, we might well 
 prefer these exquisite fragments of an ununited whole. 
 In these papers from Blackwood he re-animates the 
 stirring political times of the past ; he gives us his per- 
 
12 CHRISTOPHER NORTH. 
 
 sonal estimate of his national literature, and sheds the 
 light of liis genius upon all things, great and trivial, of 
 his day. 
 
 We have already intimated by the title Hercules- 
 Apollo that Wilson possessed both strength and 
 beauty. He was poet, philosopher, and critic in one. 
 When we call him a poet we have reference to the 
 poetry in his prose. In his poems, such as The lah of 
 Palms, the exuberance of his thought seems to be un- 
 naturally checked by the necessity for rhyme and 
 metre. He is, in truth, more poetical when he pours 
 forth his sparkling thoughts unrestrainedly, in words 
 tearful with pathos, laughing with humor, and grand in 
 their earnestness. It has been remarked of his prose 
 "that he approached more nearly than any modern 
 since Burke to that wild prophetic movement of style 
 which the bards of Israel exhibit ; nay, more nearly 
 even than Burke, since with Wilson it is a perpetual 
 afflatus." All these beautiful fancies are wrought by a 
 brain, not excited with opium, as with De Quincey, but 
 in its normal, healthy condition. 
 
 Wilson was not only a poetical rhapsodist, but also a 
 sound, deep thinker ; his mind was powerful to grapple 
 with grave subjects. Side by side with a tender reminis- 
 cence of some childhood scene is a thoughtful and 
 logical paper on Education, or on The Punishment of 
 Death. Moreover, his versatile genius led him to treat 
 of the same theme in different ways, — at one time in a 
 pathetic strain, at another, in a humorous. 
 
 (2) The ease and rapidity with which he wrote form 
 an explanation of the great number of his literary 
 works. In a few hours he could write what would have 
 
CHAEACTEEISTICS OF ^VKITINGS. 13 
 
 taken another author as many days. The systematic 
 and carefully prepared work performed during the early 
 part of his career Avas entirely superseded by his later 
 hurried and careless production, described by him in the 
 JVoctes : " We love to do our work by fits and starts. 
 We hate to keep fiddling away, an hour or two at a 
 time, at one article for weeks. So off with our coat, 
 and at it like a blacksmith. When we once get the way 
 of it, hand over hip, we laugh at Vulcan and all his 
 Cyclops. From nine of the morning till nine at night, 
 we keep hammering away at the metal, iron or gold, 
 till we produce a most beautiful article. A biscuit and 
 a glass of Madeira, twice or thrice at the most, and then 
 to a well-won dinner. In three days, gentle reader, 
 have we, Christopher North, often produced a whole 
 magazine, • — a most splendid number. For the next 
 three weeks we were as idle as a desert, and as vast as 
 an antre ; and thus on we go, alternately laboring like 
 an ant, and relaxing in the sunny air like a dragon- 
 fly, enamored of extremes."' His j-outhful, pains-taking 
 labor blossomed in the smooth, even, neatly-laid lines of 
 his poetry, while we find, as the outcome of his later 
 mode of writing, an unequal prose structure, composed 
 of many varieties of material, from the coarsest of clay to 
 the most precious of stones. In these irregularities, his 
 prose may be contrasted with the uniform richness and 
 stately dignity of Macaulay, and with the smooth pre- 
 cision of Addison. Nevertheless, breadth of treatment 
 must not be erroneously confounded with shallowness. 
 On the contrary, Wilson pierces at once down to the 
 very centre of a subject with a true philosophic eye. 
 The truth he finds there beats like a heart, out of sight, 
 underneath a body of delicate, stylistic beauty. 
 
14 CHRISTOPHEK NOETH. 
 
 The underlying stratum of all Wilson's qualities was 
 his broad sympathy. His works are said to be sui 
 generis and inimitable. They are so from their essen- 
 tial "vitality, from the presence of Christopher himself 
 in all he writes. He felt, he saw, he studied everything 
 intensely. His warm sympathies, his heart-wholeness 
 and earnestness, pervade the pages of his essaj's. He 
 surpasses all writers in his exhaustless store of vivid 
 boyhood reminiscences. 
 
 Wilson's loyalty to his own people, and to his own 
 order (he professed to belong to the working order), 
 gave him great popularity and influence. From his 
 boyhood this "gay, girt-hearted fellow," was a favorite 
 among all classes. Although his brilliant conversa- 
 tional powers and fine personal appearance gave him 
 entrance into the highest circles of society, he was more 
 often to be found at his own hearth-stone, in the public 
 inn, or in the dwellings of his humbler friends. He 
 was thoroughly Scotch in nature, as was Walter Scott ; 
 but the works of both these great men are read in other 
 countries with the same relish as in their own. The 
 Nodes have met with even greater popularity in Amer- 
 ica than in Scotland. 
 
 The alleged vanity of Wilson is purely a fiction, as 
 much a product of his imaginative brain as the crutch 
 of old Christopher in the Nodes. In reality, he was 
 humble and unselfish in disposition ; simple, eloquent, 
 earnest, and vigorous. His eloquence Avas no affected 
 brilliancy ; it was the steadily-burning flame of the fire 
 within. 
 
 A strong magnetism is possessed by his writings, — 
 a power to impassion, to excite a noble rapture. This 
 
POLITICAL OPINIONS. 15 
 
 magnetic influence was felt particularly by the members 
 of his class in philosophy. His most admirable charac- 
 teristic "was his mastery over the hearts of the young. 
 Mr. Field pronounces him a "teacher of youth, who 
 gloried in the God-given power of imparting knowledge 
 to the young and ardent." 
 
 OPINIONS. 
 
 Political. '■ — Wilson, though thoroughly loyal to Scot- 
 land, was imbued with broad English views, on account 
 of his long residence in that country. During the most 
 vigorous yeai's of his life, political warfare was raging 
 in Great Britain. Wilson was a Tory and strongly 
 conservative ; he upheld existing institutions, and be- 
 lieved, not in sudden revolutions, but in gradual refor- 
 mations ; he was an opponent of the Reform Bill of 
 1832, and a staunch supporter of Free Trade. The 
 urgencies of the time made it necessary for a man of 
 his frank and upright nature to express his sentiments 
 boldly on tlie one side or the other. However, his 
 liberty of thought caused liim to differ from the 
 Tories in certain respects. He was a firm advocate 
 of the education of all classes, and has written an 
 argumentative and defensible paper on that subject. 
 The following is his opinion regarding the effects of 
 educating the lower classes: — "Let not men — the men 
 of this great and fi-ee country — fear the ultimate 
 effects of knowledge. It is a great power poured in, 
 and will produce some commotion ; but will settle and 
 find its way to its proper places. The immediate effects 
 are not the ultimate. At first a degree of emotion is 
 
16 CHKISTOPHER NOETH. 
 
 excited, which belongs not to the matter, but to the 
 times — the novelty, the suddenness, the generality, 
 namely, the act of diffusion. But the lasting impres- 
 sions are those which belong to the matter. Nothing 
 is without risk — nothing great at least. But neither 
 is it witliout risk to do nothing — to leave everything 
 alone. Certain it is that the Old World has greatly 
 and suddenly changed. One thing is true, that injuri- 
 ous and corrupt abuse will not stand before an enlight- 
 ened people — nor ought it. The instruction of the 
 people will give a tenfold, but not a turbulent weight 
 to public opinion. The danger is, not from knowledge 
 or reason, but from the concurrence of particular 
 changes of opinion with particular causes of political 
 ferment, which may or may not happen. It has been 
 confessed that Intellect has causes of disturbance, but 
 that they are tempered and subdued by moralitj-. Let . 
 there be sufficient causes of the morality of the people, 
 and Intellect will not hurt them ; let there not be, and 
 Intellect will not be wanted to make mischief."' 
 
 Wilson carried the burden of his people's troubles upon 
 his large heart, and considered it his duty to point out 
 to them that their weal was further advanced, and their 
 manhood better honored, by a steady j)erseverance in 
 their rural duties, than by mingling in the fierce politi- 
 cal frays of the time. It was his aim to show to them 
 the beauties of their country life. In writing to De 
 Quiney, he says of the Lights and Shadows of Scottish 
 Life : " I have wished to speak of humble life, and the 
 elementary feelings of the human soul in isolation, 
 under the light of a veil of poetry." A division of 
 ranks in society he considered inevitable, but a dis- 
 parity in tlieir worth and importance impossible. 
 
CRITICAL. 17 
 
 Critical. — Wilson was the critical autocrat of his 
 generation. Among his critical works are essays on 
 Homer, The Greek Drama, Greek Anthology, The Hin- 
 doo Drama, six essays on Spenser, his Specimens of the 
 British Critics, and portions of the Dies Boreales. He 
 iutrodnced a peculiar kind of criticism in which there 
 is no attempt at brilliant originality, in which the au- 
 thor does not make himself the central figure, but the 
 author criticized. He produces this result by an entire 
 lack of the flowery adornment and playful egotism 
 characteristic of his other works. The simplicity of his 
 stj-le causes us to forget the interpreter and brings us 
 into immediate contact with the author. We call Wil- 
 son an interpreter because his criticism of others consists 
 in interpretations of their thoughts and feelings. 
 
 It was Wilson's desire to make the name of Words- 
 worth loved and renowned, and with this intent he wrote 
 often in praise of his fatorite poet. When a boy at 
 college he had read Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads, and 
 so great was his admiration for them that he immediately 
 wrote a letter of thanks to the poet. In this letter 
 there was noticeable in the youthful critic a nice power 
 of discrimination, which detected faults even in the 
 hero he worshipped. He intimates to Wordsworth 
 that there are some subjects so repugnant to our feel- 
 ings as to be unfit themes for a poet. Of such was the 
 stoiy of the Idiot Boy. At this time Wordsworth was 
 but an obscure poet, and Wilson was among the first 
 critics to notice him favorably. In after jems his 
 laudations of the Lake poet were many, but never 
 exaggerated. He accuses him of a lack of warm relig- 
 ious sentiments in The Excursion, presumably a relig- 
 ious poem. 
 
18 CHKISTOPHEE NORTH. 
 
 In a second characteristic Wilson's criticisms differed 
 from many others, in their unswerving aim at truthful- 
 ness. No critical remark was made without careful 
 forethought. He directed all the keen arrows of his 
 wit against the many critics who touch with ruthless 
 hands those works which should be to them objects of 
 reverence. We have already spoken of the careful 
 study of Burns' life and works he made in order to set 
 that much abused poet before the world in the light of 
 truth. These are the words of the shepherd in one of 
 the. Nodes : " I canna conceive a mair sacred, a mair 
 holy task, than that which a man takes upon himsel, 
 when he sits doun to write the life and character of his 
 brither man. Afore he begins to write the capital 
 letter at the beginnin o' the first word, he ocht to hae 
 sat mony a lang hour, a' by himsel, in his study, and to 
 hae walked at eventide mony a lang hour, a' by himsel, 
 alang the Sowings of some river (hoo life-like I) — and 
 to hae lain awake during mony a lang hour, a' by himsel, 
 and to hae lain awake during mony a lang hour o' the 
 night-watches, and especially then a' by himsel — med- 
 itating on the duty he has undertaken to perform, and 
 comparing or contrasting, as it may be, what he may 
 conjecture to hae been the character o' his brither, 
 whom God has called to judgment, wi' what he must 
 ken to be the character o' his ain sel', whom God next 
 moment may call to his dread account." This desire 
 for truthfulness causes him to be particular rather than 
 general in his criticisms; as, for example, in A Few 
 Words on Thomson. 
 
 Philosophic. — As to Wilson's scientifically philo- 
 sophic opinions, unfortunately we can give no accurate 
 
PHILOSOPHIC. 19 
 
 account, as none of his lectures on philosophy have 
 been published. We do not know to what particular 
 school he belonged, nor what were his explanations of 
 the leading problems whose solution enters into all 
 philosophy. From the many beautiful and subtle phil- 
 osophical speculations in his essays we notice a ten- 
 dency towards Pure Idealism. His words and deeds 
 testify to his belief in the immense responsibility of 
 hfe, in the immortality of the soul, in God, and in his 
 revealed Word. The question he asked concerning 
 Robert Burns, " Did he read the Bible ? " can be an- 
 swered in the affirmative of AVilson. That Book was 
 to him "even as the sky^ — with its sun, moon, and 
 stars, its boundless blue with all its cloud-mysteries — 
 its peace deeper than the grave, because of realms 
 beyond the grave, — its tumult louder than that of life, 
 because heard altogether in all the elements." His 
 arguments for the immortality of the soul seem to pro- 
 ceed from the feelings, and to have instinctive convic- 
 tions for their authority rather than logical reasoning. 
 
 AVilson, like Macaulay, was an optimist. There was 
 nothing in his nature akin to the misanthrope who com- 
 plains of the vanity and coldness of this world, and of 
 its slight appreciation of genius. He believed that all 
 genius receives its reward here, that the world is warm 
 and beautiful if men's hearts are so, that all is good 
 excepting our sin, that there is not even such a thing as 
 bad weather, for " tho' we may na be able to see, we can 
 aye think o' the clear blue lift." In short, his philosophy, 
 summed up in one sentence, is this : — " Do your duty 
 to God and man, and fear not that, when that dust dies, 
 the spirit that breathed by it will live forever." 
 
20 CHRISTOPHER NORTH. 
 
 ELEMENTS OF STYLE. 
 
 VOCABULARY. 
 
 Copiousness and flexibility of diction are natural 
 antecedents to great variety in literary production. 
 Consequently we find these two qualities noticeably 
 present in Wilson's' writings. In the prodigality and 
 splendor of his words he rivals Carlyle, though not 
 in the coining of original words. Like Carlyle, in spite 
 of his wonderful command over a profuse vocabulary, 
 he sometimes delights in the repetition of words which, 
 fi'om their sound or associations, have pleased his fancy. 
 This expression occurs very frequently in his essays, 
 " winnowing the air with their wings." His mercurial 
 disposition, the suddenness with which one feeling fol- 
 lowed another in his heart and one picture another in 
 his brain, necessitated the same quick transitions in his 
 diction. Therefore a poetical and musical flow of words 
 is followed by some slang phrase of the day, or by some 
 rare Scottish expression. Thus is displayed to us an 
 endless kaleidoscopic variet}'. 
 
 Li general Wilson's vocabulary consists more in 
 words of Anglo-Saxon derivation than in those of 
 Latin. Yet he is not such a purist in this respect as 
 is De Quincey in the use of Latin derivatives. The prev- 
 alence of these hardy English words gives to his style 
 strength and homeliness, an effect, however, somewhat 
 counteracted by the picturesque and musical nature of 
 his expressions. 
 
 In discussing Wilson's vocabulary we divide it into 
 three classes : (1) Classical or Standard English, (2) 
 Scotticisms, (3) Outlaived English. 
 
VOCABULAEY. 21 
 
 (1) His classical English is composed of the most 
 expressive and most musical words in our language. 
 He scatters them most lavishjy in his descriptions .of 
 Highland scenery and in his stories of Highland life. 
 From this fact we discover that he was more intimately 
 acquainted with the objective than with the subjective 
 side of our language, and in this respect differs from 
 De Quincey. Even in speaking of the human feelings, 
 he, by means of figures of speech, still clings to words 
 descriptive of sensible objects. An example of this 
 tendency, and also of the delicate subtlety of his lan- 
 guage, is his description of the different ways in which 
 a poet may affect the human heart : — 
 
 " You may infuse the sentiment by a single touch — 
 by a ray of light no thicker, nor one thousandtli part so 
 thick, as the finest needle ever silk-threaded by lady's 
 finger ; or you may dance it in with a flutter of sun- 
 beams ; or you may splash it in as with a gorgeous 
 cloud-stain stolen from sunset; or j^ou may bathe it in 
 with a shred of the rainbow. Perhaps the highest 
 power of all possessed by the sons of song is to breathe 
 it in with the breath, to let it slip in with the light of 
 the common day ! " 
 
 In his word-pictures Wilson uses many felicities of 
 speech characteristic of a poet. He seems to slip nat- 
 urally into alliteration. On almost every page are 
 examples of this poetical device. Sometimes, even, he 
 adds rhyme to alliteration in the poetical fragments of 
 his prose. Bits of word-coloring are suggestive of the 
 old ballad singers. 
 
 To Wilson's creative mind belong many original 
 combinations of words in the^ form of compound adjec- 
 
22 CHEISTOPHBE NOETH. 
 
 tives. He uses these with great effect not only in his 
 imaginative, but also in his critical essays. A whole 
 critical analysis is condensed into these few words: 
 " Comraon-manners-painting poetry of Crabbe, dark- 
 passion-painting poetry of Byron, high-romance-paint- 
 ing poetry of Scott." There is no trace of a Critical 
 Terminology in these essays. His versatile and origi- 
 nal genius needed no such aid. But there is a direct 
 aim at strength and simplicity of language, which re- 
 sulted oftentimes in such expressive epithets as this, 
 " Scott the great magician." 
 
 His inexhaustible wealth of words is also manifest in 
 the frequent artifice of accumulated adjectives. Ten or 
 twelve adjectives, describing the same noun, and each 
 with but a shade's difference in meaning from the pre- 
 ceding, follow each other to a perfect climax. " Is not 
 spring, at times, the gladdest, gayest, gentlest, mildest, 
 meekest, modestest, softest, sweetest, and sunniest of all 
 God's creatures that steal along the face of the earth." 
 
 The too capricious use of these accumulated adjec- 
 tives tends to weaken the force of his thought by dilut- 
 ing rather than concentrating its energies. 
 
 (2) Wilson's consummate skill in handling the Scot- 
 tish language gives to his writings their most exquisite 
 and inimitable charm. It is the language of Burns and 
 of Scott. They have immortalized it in their pages, 
 where it will still exist after it has ceased to be a spoken 
 language. Wilson wields it with still more natural ease, 
 with a richer copiousness and splendor, than did even 
 these two masters of the language. The dialect of the 
 shepherd in the Nodes is so thoroughly Scotch, that, 
 if Anglicized, its raciness could not be preserved. 
 
SENTENCES. 23 
 
 His is not a provincial dialect, but the true burry 
 speech of the olcl Scot. The same characteristics that 
 belong to Wilson's classical English belong to this 
 Scotch. 
 
 (3) We apply the term outlawed English to the 
 slang phrases, coarse expressions, puns, and colloquial- 
 isms which mar the beautj-^ and sweetness of Wilson's 
 diction. They can only seem excusable when we appre- 
 ciate that many of his writings were of the nature of 
 familiar conversations with the readers of Blackwood, 
 and that lie was of necessity brought into close contact 
 with people of all classes. Such words as the following 
 are not legitimate in any work of art : " slang-whang- 
 ishness," " pully-hawlying," "plump-down," "sparker," 
 " make themselves scarce." His brilliant genius alone 
 saves his literary productions from irrevocable degrada- 
 tion by his familiarity with common speech. 
 
 SENTENCES. 
 
 The sentences of Wilson's prose may best be 'des- 
 ignated as loose in arrangement and irregular in con- 
 struction. The proof of this statement is obtained by 
 an examination of those works most peculiarly his 
 own, the Nodes and the Recreations. His strictly 
 critical essays are an exception in this respect, as they 
 were in their vocabulary. They differed from his 
 other compositions in the simplicity of their diction, as 
 they likewise differ in the regularity of their sentence 
 structure, which is built up, for the most part, of sen- 
 tences either simple, or, if complex, with but few modi- 
 fying clauses, and these in exact grammatical order. 
 To vary the monotony there is occasionally the inter- 
 
24 CHRISTOPHER KORTH. 
 
 spersion of periodic sentences. Through the medium of 
 such nicely compacted sentences Wilson attained the 
 clearness for which he sought in his formal criticisms. 
 
 But for typical examples we must look in the greater 
 bulk of his writings. Here the sentences display a 
 general unconformity to all grammatical and rhetorical 
 rules. 
 
 The periodic sentence is uncommon with Wilson. 
 When this form of sentence is used, the suspension is 
 brought about by introducing the sentence with an 
 adjective. " Sweet would be the hush of lake, woods, 
 and skies, were it not so solemn." " Beautiful is it by 
 nature, with its bays, and fields, and woods." Such 
 sentences are constructed not for the sake of holding 
 and heightening the interest, but to emphasize the 
 adjective, which was always an expressive and potent 
 word with Wilson. Of the true periodic sentence there 
 is no instance. Sometimes the climax is found in the 
 middle of the sentence, but it is never pushed forward 
 to the end. The hurrying spontaneity of his thought 
 suggests new ideas which must be crowded into the 
 same sentence, even after a proper close has been 
 reached. In the following sentence, apparently we 
 have grasped the significance of his thought when we 
 arrive at the word " transfigured." However, he adds 
 another succession of clauses after the predicate : — 
 
 "Therefore bad as boys too often are — and a dis- 
 grace to the mother who bore them — the cradle in 
 which they were rocked — the nurse by whom they were 
 suckled — the school-master by whom they were 
 flogged — and the hangman by whom it was prophe- 
 sied they were to be executed — wait patiently for a 
 
SENTENCES. 25 
 
 few years, and you will see them all transfigured — one 
 into a preacher of such winning eloquence, that he 
 almost persuades all men to be Christians — another 
 into a parliamentary orator, who commands the applause 
 of listening senates," etc. Enough of the sentence has 
 been quoted to illustrate the point. The periodic style 
 was unnatural to Wilson's play of mind, in which 
 thought was joined to thought by an emotional, and not 
 by a logical link. He trusted to the intrinsic interest of 
 the subject-matter, and to the glowing eloquence of his 
 language, rather than to 'any formal sentence artifices to 
 attract the attention of his readers. The sentence 
 forms into which he naturally slipped were of a nature 
 foreign to the period. 
 
 Wilson's most characteristic sentences are either 
 abruptly short or extremely long. In the latter, one co- 
 ordinate statement is heaped upon another. This same 
 tendency in Carlyle's writings was denominated by 
 Minto "a studied ruggedness and a careless cumulative 
 method." In Wilson, however, it is not studied, but 
 natural. Especially do we note these constructions in 
 his descriptions of natural scenery, where his strong 
 feelings sweep him beyond the pale of rhetorical rules. 
 Many sentences in the Recreations are three or four 
 pages in length ; he clusters one picture around another 
 as if he knew not when to cease drawing from the 
 crowded art-gallery of his imagination. These lengthy 
 cumulative sentences are not confined solely to his de- 
 scriptions of nature. He often employs them in argu- 
 mentative discourses, in narration, in fact whenever his 
 excited feelings have the mastery over his pen. As a 
 fine example of these long sentences we quote from the 
 Nodes : — 
 
26 CHKISTOPHEB KORTH. 
 
 " Hunt the dew-drops after they have fled from before 
 the sun-rising — the clouds that have gone sailing away- 
 over the western horizon, to be in at the sun-setting — ■ 
 the flashing and foaming waves that have left the sea 
 and all, her isles in a calm at last — the cushats still 
 murmuring on farther and farther into the far forest, 
 till the sound is now faint as an echo, and then nothing 
 — golden eagles lost in light, and raging in their joy 
 on the very rim of this globe's attraction — during 
 the summer heats, the wild flowers that strew the old 
 woods of Caledon only during the pure snowy breath of 
 the earth-brightening spring — the stars, that at once 
 disappear with all their thousands, at the howl of the 
 midnight storm — the lightnings suddenly intersecting 
 the coUied night, and then off and away forever, quicker 
 than forgotten thoughts — the grave-mounds, once so 
 round and green, James, and stepped over so tenderly 
 by footsteps going towards the low door of the little 
 kirk, but all gone now, James, — kirk, kirk-yard, and all, 
 James, — and not a house in all the whole parish that 
 has not been many times over and over again pulled 
 down — altered — rebuilt, till a ghost, could he but 
 loosen himself from the strong till, and raise up his 
 head from among a twenty-acre field of turnips, and 
 potatoes, and pease, would not know his own bonny 
 birth-place, and death-place too, once so fringed and fra- 
 grant with brushwood over all its knolls, with whins, 
 and broom, and harebells, and in moist moorland places, 
 James, beautiful with ' green grows the rashes o',' and a 
 little loch, clear as any well, and always, always when 
 you lay down and drank, cool, cold, chill, and soul-re- 
 storing — now drained for the sake of marl, and for- 
 
SENTENCES. 27 
 
 sakeii by the wild swans, that used to descend from 
 heaven in their perfect whiteness, for a" moment fold up 
 their sounding pinions, and then, hoisting their wings 
 for sails, go veering like ships on a pleasure. cruise, all 
 up and down in every direction, obeying the air-like 
 impulses of inward happiness, all up and down, James, 
 such heavenly air-and-water-woven world as your own 
 St. Mary's Loch, or Loch of the Lowes, with its old, 
 silent, rained chapel, and one or two sliepherds' houses, 
 as silent as the chapel, but, as you may know from the 
 smoke, old, but not ruined, and, though silent, alive ! " 
 
 Wilson frequently resorts to the dash as a mechanical 
 contrivance for uniting the clauses of his sentences, 
 thereby avoiding the use of conjunctions. Neverthe- 
 less, a confusion is caused by the fact that he uses these 
 dashes both to weld together coordinate clauses, and to 
 separate a parenthetical clause from the body of the 
 sentence. An analysis of his long sentences usually 
 proves them to be simple in structure ; but the strain 
 on the reader's mind is intense, and only keen sympathy 
 with the writer's sentiments prevents them from becom- 
 ing intolerably wearisome. 
 
 From excessively long sentences Wilson passes to the 
 other extreme, and in the intoxication of some over- 
 powering feeling, he expresses himself in short exclama- 
 tions : — 
 
 " How sudden, yet how unviolent, the transitions 
 among all our feelings! Under no other power so swift 
 and so soft as that of Music ! . . . Not a smile over all 
 that hush. Entranced in listening, they are all still as 
 imasres. A sigh — almost a sob — is heard, and there is 
 shedding of tears." Sentences of such brevity are the 
 
28 CHKISTOPHBK NORTH. 
 
 outpouring of a more tumultuous and varying tempest 
 of emotions than are the longer sentences; but they 
 also require the strong sympathy of the reader in order 
 to endure their abruptness. In his expository essays 
 Wilson finds these brief ejaculations forcible in empha- 
 sizing his opinions. Scattered among more finished sen- 
 tences in the essay on Tennyson are short sentences 
 such as these : " Miserable indeed! " " That is drivel ! " 
 
 As another sign of Wilson's attainment of clearness 
 in his critical essays we mention the balanced and anti- 
 thetical sentences. A comprehensive parallel between 
 Burns and Johnson is embraced in a sentence four 
 pages in length, and composed of a series of balanced 
 statements. The following series of sentences, in addi- 
 tion to their balanced structure, have a repetition of 
 tlie same subject at the beginning of each sentence : — 
 
 " The Young Poets, we said, all want fire. Macaulaj^, 
 then, is not one of the set; for he is full of fire. The 
 Young Poets, too, are somewhat weakly ; he is strong. 
 The Young Poets are rather ignorant ; his knowledge 
 is great. The Young Poets mumble books ; he devours 
 them. The Young Poets dally with their subject ; he 
 strikes its heart. The Young Poets twiddle on the 
 Jew's harp ; he sounds the trumpet. The Young Poets 
 are arrayed in long singing-robes, and look like women ; 
 he chants succinct — if need be — for a charge. The 
 Young Poets are still their own heroes; he sees but 
 the chiefs he celebrates. The Young Poets weave 
 dreams with shadows transitory as clouds; with sub- 
 stances he builds realities lasting as rocks. The Young 
 Poets are imitators all; he is original. The Young 
 Poets steal from all and sundry, and deny their thefts. 
 
PARAGRAPHS. 29 
 
 He robs in the face of day. Whom ? Homer." 
 
 In the arbitrary selection of his sentences, his disre- 
 gard of their lengtli, and his lawless use of the dash, 
 Wilson is not a model for any young writer. His natu- 
 ral genius led him usually to the most appropriate 
 choice of sentences ; his masterful feelings and his mag- 
 netic force give to them an emotional union, when, by 
 calm analysis, there will be found no true rational unity. 
 The great variety in the forms of his sentences are on a 
 par with the number of his themes, the varying moods 
 in which he composed, and the profuseness of his dic- 
 tion. Without these gifts his sentences would betoken 
 lack of artistic skill ; with them they betoken natural 
 art. 
 
 PARAGRAPHS. 
 
 A more- systematic disposition of paragraphs than of 
 sentences is noticeable in Wilson's works. Again, how- 
 ever, we find a different degree of explicitness in his 
 critical and rhapsodical writings. This is but natural, 
 for, since the object of his criticisms is to throw light 
 on various points, these elucidations group themselves 
 into distinct paragraphs. On the other hand, his fanci- 
 ful sketches, partaking of the character of monologues, 
 are rambling and discursive, and show a less firm weld- 
 ing together of sentences and of paragraphs. 
 
 All the conditions necessary for a model paragraph, 
 as enumerated by Bain, are fulfilled by Wilson in the 
 former class of essays. (1) Very rare are the instances 
 when each sentence does not react' upon the preceding 
 and is not acted upon by the succeeding sentence. 
 This mutual interaction is maintained by all the legiti- 
 mate modes of explicit reference; — the use of various 
 
30 CHEISTOPHEK NORTH. 
 
 conjunctions, pronouns, repetitions of words and inverted 
 position of clauses. The most cliaracteristic means of 
 linking his sentences is through interrogatories. A 
 series of questions is asked and followed by their 
 answers, in order. There is likewise the same inter- 
 dependence of paragraphs. The following introductory- 
 phrases and words show the diversity of his connec- 
 tives. " How happened it then" " You will not think 
 tlwse words extravagant." " It was in this way that." 
 " And here it is incumbent." " Hpwever." 
 
 (2) A striking example of parallel construction is 
 afforded by the example of balanced clauses already 
 cited, 
 
 (3) The opening sentence never leads one astray as 
 to the subject of the paragraph; but rather seems to 
 embrace the whole topic, while the sentences that fol- 
 low are amplifications, reiterations or illustrations of its 
 thought. 
 
 (4) A nicety in marking out the proper scope of each 
 paragraph distinguishes Wilson's critical style. iHe 
 rarely makes the mistake of introducing irrelevant mat- 
 ter, or of separating into distinct paragraphs closely 
 related ideas. Each holds within its limits a family of 
 ideas bound together b}" such close ties as not to admit 
 of separation. 
 
 His imaginative essays, as was said before, are merely 
 soliloquies and breezy conversations. Consequently 
 there cannot be such unity in their paragraphs, nor 
 such- explicit connection between them. Each repre- 
 sents a flight of thought. The first sentence affords no 
 clue to the purport of the paragraph ; but every suc- 
 cessive one brings with it a new surprise. We feel 
 
FIGUKES OF SPEECH. 31 
 
 that the author's pen was driven along by the impetus 
 of his emotions ; he is carried away from the subject at 
 hand by a tide of recollections suggested to him by a 
 word; he indulges in vague and beautiful speculations; 
 he begins with a description and ends with a long nar- 
 ration. All these wanderings cannot be called irrele- 
 vancies, for he seldom had in mind any definite topic. 
 A passage on the lark in Christopher in his Aviary 
 illustrates these remarks. The lark he describes calls 
 to his mind tlie larks that sang in the meadows dur- 
 ing his boyhood days. He tells us of his rambles 
 through the " lark-loved " vales in holiday times. He 
 thinks of one companion who was always witli him. 
 He stops to apostrophize this dear boy-friend, .and to 
 describe, with touching pathos, how he went to sea and 
 was never heard from again. It is almost impossible to 
 summarize such paragraphs or to point out their main 
 trend. 
 
 FIGUEES OF SPEECH. 
 
 We dignify an author with the name of poet Avhen 
 he addresses us in a language, not plain and direct, but 
 beautified with figures of speech ; not in the temperate 
 words of prose, but in the tropical words of poetry. 
 The truth must be revealed under sensuous forms. 
 On the dividing line between prose and poetry stand 
 man}' tales and essays of Wilson. They are now bright 
 with the sparkle of his fancy, and again dark with the 
 gloominess of his imagination. They lack but the 
 mechanical form of poetry to transfer them to its rank. 
 
 Wilson luxuriates in that class of figures of speech 
 which Minto designates as tropes : that is, metaphors, 
 
32 CHEISTOPHEE NORTH. 
 
 similes, and their closely allied figures. The most fre- 
 quent of these is the personification, which likewise was 
 most characteristic of De Quincey. He, however, em- 
 ployed this figure to humanize abstract ideas, while 
 Wilson has recourse to it in humanizing objects and 
 operations of nature. So necessary to his desciiptions 
 does this personifying element become, that when he 
 paints a scene in ordinary descriptive language our in- 
 tense interest is lost. Thence proceeds the disappoint- 
 ment we experience in reading the essay, Characteristics 
 of Highland Scenery. 
 
 It is a favorite device of Wilson to personify the sea- 
 sons of the year. His skill and originality are rec- 
 ognizable in these words on Spring : — " To-day, he 
 meets jj^ou unexpectedly on the hill-side ; and was there 
 ever a face in the world so celestialised by smiles ! All 
 the features are framed of light. Gaze into his eyes, 
 and you feel that in the untroubled lustre there is some- 
 thing more sublime than in the heights of the cloudless 
 heavens, or in the depths of the waveless seas. More 
 sublime, because essentially spiritual. There stands 
 the young Angel, entranced in the conscious mystery 
 of his own beautiful and blessed being ; and the earth 
 becomes all at once fit region for the sojourn of the 
 Son of the Morning. So might some great painter 
 image the First-born of the Year, till nations adored 
 the picture. — To-morrow you repair, with hermit 
 steps, to the Mount of the Vision, and, ' Fierce as ten 
 furies, terrible as hell,' Spring- clutches you by the hair 
 with the fingers of frost; blashes a storm of sleet in 
 your face, and finishes, perhaps, by folding you in a 
 winding sheet of snow. . . . Hand in hand with Spring, 
 
FIGURES OF SPEECH. 33 
 
 Sabbath descends from heaven unto earth ; and are not 
 their feet beautiful on the mountains ? Small as is the 
 voice of that tinkling bell from that humble spire, over- 
 topped by its coeval trees, yet it is heard in the heart 
 of infinitude. So is the bleating of these silly sheep on 
 the braes — and so is that voice of psalms, all at once 
 rising so spirit-like, as if the very kirk were animated, 
 and singing a joyous song in the wilderness to the ear 
 of the Most High." 
 
 Among his other similitudes, metaphors and similes 
 are the most conspicuous. Occasionally he uses a me- 
 tonymy with telling effect : — ■ 
 
 " The gamester shakes his elbow, and down go the 
 glorious oak-trees planted two hundred years ago, by 
 some ancestor who loved the fresh smell o' the woods, 
 — away go • — if entail does no forbid — thousand o' 
 bonny brfiid acres." 
 
 By elevating nature to a place in human companion- 
 ship, Wilson made it a person with whom he conversed, 
 as well as about whom he rhapsodized. Apostrophe, 
 therefore, is almost as habitual a figure with him as 
 personification. Its employment gave him a feeling of 
 actual presence at tlie scene whereof he speaks, and 
 afforded him a pleasant means of expressing his strong 
 sympathies and impassioned feelings. He apostrophizes 
 old-time friends and scenes, the great poets whom he 
 criticizes, and all objects of external nature. Among 
 them all shines out most brightly his passionate apos- 
 trophe to the Evening Star : — 
 
 " Art thou the Evening Star, sole Shiner in a sky that 
 might have tempted out the whole starry host from the 
 inmost heavens ! Thou hast glided down, all by thyself. 
 
S4 CHRISTOPHER NORTH. 
 
 to take a look of this fair earth, as gradually it is grow- 
 ing dim in the dying day." 
 
 Closely interwoven with apostrophes are exclamations 
 and interrogations which share in giving a natural con- 
 versational tone to his writings. What sarcasm enters 
 into his speech is open ridicule, sharp condemnatorj' 
 remarks, or, in the Nodes, bits of irony at the expense 
 of himself and of the other characters in the dialogues. 
 
 He had the power to soften and embellish the form 
 of his sarcastic remarks, while at the same time he 
 armed them with a more biting sting. In speaking of 
 the young poets who send their poems to Blackwood, he 
 compares them to troublesome insects, and the maga- 
 zine to a peerless maiden : — 
 
 " But still will they be seeking to insinuate them- 
 selves through her long deep veil, which nunlike she 
 wears at gloaming ; and can they complain of cruelty 
 if she brush them away with her lily hand, or compress 
 them with her snow-white fingers into unlingering 
 death ? " 
 
 Sources of Similitudes. — (1) From Human Nature. 
 Wilson's live and sympathetic interest in all phases 
 of human life afforded him a vast field from whicli 
 to gather apt similitudes for his numerous descriptive 
 sketches. He was not confined to the usual stock of 
 comparisons between man and insensate nature, for he 
 had met all classes of his fellow-beings ; he had studied 
 with philosophic acuteness and thoroughness their man- 
 ifold emotions ; he had regarded them with the prosaic 
 eyes of an active man of the world, and with the glori- 
 fied vision of the poet. The winning charm and tender 
 human interest which similitudes of this origin impart 
 
SOUECES OF SIMILITUDES. 35 
 
 to his essays is exemplified bj'' his comparison between 
 the dove and woman from Christopher in his Aviary. 
 
 (2) From Feminine beauty and Dress. To simili- 
 tudes from this source belong some of the daintiest and 
 most novel of "Wilson's figures of speech. A long 
 line of noble similes owe their inspiration to the effect 
 of the sensuous beauty of woman upon his artistic eye. 
 This little one is a model of delicate coloring : — 
 
 " The same heavens ! more blue than any color that 
 tinges the flowers of the earth — like the violet veins of 
 a vii'gin's bosom." 
 
 He describes jNIemory as one of three sisters, Memory, 
 Imagination, and Hope : — 
 
 " ^Memory has deep, dark, quiet eyes, and when she 
 closes their light, the long eyelashes lie like shadows 
 on her pensive cheeks, that smile faintly as if the 
 dreamer were half asleep — a visionary slumber, Avhich 
 sometimes the dewdrop melting on the leaf will break, 
 sometimes not the thunder-peal with all its echoes." 
 
 He takes up some little feminine peculiarity and 
 makes use of it in a piquant figure : — 
 
 '• Xever see ye her (Xature's) hair in papers, for crisp 
 and curly, far-streamin and wide-wavin are her locks." 
 
 (3) From Mechanical Operations. The figures of this 
 class are few. Their presence tends to strengthen and 
 to condense his thought, and to hold down his too light 
 buoyancy of imagination. As an example we quote : — 
 
 "As to Flowers, they are the prettiest periodicals 
 ever published in folio — the leaves are wire-tvove and 
 hot-pressed by Nature's self." 
 
 (4) From External Nature. Wilson elevated • tlie 
 objects and operations of external nature by com- 
 
86 CHEISTOPHEK NORTH. 
 
 parison, either formal or tacit, to human passions and 
 works. He reverses the order and beautifies human 
 thoughts and acts by pointing out likenesses to them in 
 nature. His knowledge of both man and nature was 
 wide and deep. In his heart they were closely bound 
 together ; hence the transition from one to the other 
 was quick and easy. With poetic taste he selects birds 
 and flowers for the majority of his similitudes. His 
 knowledge of Natural History and his minute personal 
 observations aided him in carrying out into detail his 
 comparisons. He thereby invested them with a force 
 and pertinence which they could not have in the hands 
 of the ordinary writer. Such an author might have 
 omitted the latter half of the following simile, which is 
 freighted with significant meaning : — 
 
 " The dearest thocht and feelings o' auld lang syne 
 come crowd-crowding back again into the heart when- 
 ever there's an hour o' perfect silence, just like so many 
 swallows coming a-wing frae God knows where, when 
 winter is ower and gane, to the self-same range o' auld 
 clay biggins, aneath the thatch o' house, or the slate o' 
 ha' — unforgetfu' they o' the place where they were 
 born, and first hunted the insect-people through shadow 
 or sunshine ! " 
 
 (5) From Objects and Conversations of Every-day 
 Life. Sprinkled in among his exquisitely flowery met- 
 aphors and similes is a plentiful supply of homely and 
 most prosaically ludicrous figures : " As warm as so 
 many pies;" "As flat as a flounder." He compares 
 the extravagant eulogies heaped upon Tennyson to a 
 costly gingerbread structure, frosted and covered with 
 comfits; and again, in speaking of this same extrav- 
 
EFFECTIVE COMPARISONS. 37 
 
 agance of praise, he says, " none splash it on like 
 the trowel-men who have been bedaubing Mr. Tenny- 
 son." 
 
 (6) From Literature. Of similitudes drawn from 
 this source the majority are from classical authors, and 
 the greater part of these from the Iliad and Odyssey. 
 
 Success in Fulfilling Conditions of Effective Compari- 
 son. — Figures of speech are for two purposes : (1) to 
 afford pleasure to the reader ; (2) to aid in exposition. 
 Wilson has for his desire that which is the end of all 
 art, to excite ennobling pleasure. In his finest simili- 
 tudes he attains this object to an extraordinary degree, 
 and in his poorest he falls far below it. The principal 
 requisite, originality in comparison, is undeniably his 
 possession. A vast number of his figures are children 
 of his fertile imagination, and bear the stamp of their 
 parentage so plainly that there can be no mistaking 
 their birth. Others of his similitudes owe their origin 
 to other writers. His personifications of nature show 
 an acquaintance with Chaucer, Spenser, Milton, and 
 Thomson. However,- though these figures are not his 
 own children, they have been adopted into the family, 
 and not stolen. For example, in all the poets the 
 seasons of the year are personified; but while the poets 
 introduce them to us as mythical personages, Wilson 
 makes of them genuine Scotch people. In other cases 
 he follows one of these poetic figures with a homely 
 simile which gives the whole the novel comicality 
 characteristic of him : — 
 
 "The first September frosts chilled the rosy fingers 
 of the Morn as she bathed them in the dews, and the 
 air is cool as a cucumber." 
 
38 CHEISTOPHEK NORTH. 
 
 Another way in which he wields an' old figure with 
 new power is shown in the following simile : — 
 
 '■Man who is but grass, and like the flower of the 
 field flouiisheth and is cut down, and raked away out 
 of the sunshine into the shadow of the grave." 
 
 By the addition of the last clause to the familiar 
 comparison of the psalmist, he clothes it with new 
 beauty, and brings out more forcibly the contrast be- 
 tween the light of life and the darkness of the grave. 
 
 Besides possessing the faculty of exhausting the 
 points of similarity in one comparison, Wilson had also 
 a quick facility in suggesting a variety of happy simili- 
 tudes for the same object. Therefore the quality of 
 variety in figures of speech is added to originality. 
 
 It is true that many of his figures can make no 
 pretension to originality. But the surprise of meeting 
 these very trite figures in a finished artistic essay is 
 sometimes agreeable, and lends to his style a daring 
 boldness and raciness. More often, however, the shock 
 is a disagreeable one. 
 
 Wilson's similitudes of exposition are comparatively 
 few. They are usually terse, simple, and clear, very 
 seldom elaborate or startlingly novel. In all his com- 
 parisons he attained to great aptness and accuracy. 
 When used to elevate the character of any person, they 
 are of the most temperate and noble nature. His oreat^ 
 est fault lies in the coarseness of many of his similitudes 
 employed for the purpose of ridicule. 
 
SIMPLICITY. 39 
 
 QUALITIES OF STYLE. 
 
 SIMPLICITY. 
 
 Almost absolute simplicity is characteristic of this 
 author's style ; though not such simplicity as detracts 
 from one's zest in perusal. He escapes abstruseness, 
 not through a path of tame monotony, avoiding all ele- 
 ments constitutive of abstruseness, but by the judicious 
 use of all artistic embellishments. His is a simplicity 
 both of subject-matter and of mode of treatment. As 
 a broad basis for this double simplicity we find liis most 
 deeply ingrained characteristic to be a sympathy which 
 guided him to the choice of subjects of general human 
 interest, and to an attractive manner of treatment. 
 Yet his true independence of character saved him from 
 an}' servility to popular opinions. 
 
 Subject-Matter. — When we consider the variety of 
 his subjects, we are surprised that Wilson always lim- 
 ited their range to those which touch human thought 
 and feeling most closely. In his tales we meet with the 
 portrayal of such feelings as pulsate in the common tide 
 of affairs, and with the recital of such practical de- 
 tails as make up this common tide. Although many of 
 his stories have historical significance, and therefore 
 might be more intelligible to readers of his day than to 
 tliose of the present, nevertheless their political impor- 
 tance is but slight. We note as illustrations the tales 
 of the Covenanters in The Lights and Shadows of Scot- 
 tish Life. Likewise, in all essays having any reference 
 to the political or religious affairs of his time, only such 
 matters are treated of without explanation as are pre- 
 
40 CHKISTOPHEB NOETH. 
 
 sumably within the knowledge of the most ordinary 
 reader. The fragments of philosophic thought found in 
 Ids essays and in the Nodes show his discrimination in 
 detecting how far he could carry his speculations and 
 yet be intelligible. His critical and imaginative essaj-s 
 deal with familiar subjects; — the lives and works of 
 well-knovsTi poets, descriptions of ramblings and iishing 
 excursions blended with simple stories and anecdotes. 
 
 It is much easier for the mind to grasp concrete 
 notions than abstract. The former are prevalent in 
 Wilson's writings. His descriptions all pertain to 
 special persons and places. He still further particular- 
 izes by interweaving his own personal experiences with 
 the scenes he describes. Such abstract principles as he 
 deduces generally lapse into concrete instances. 
 
 Mode of Treatment. — Yet Such simple subjects as 
 those of Wilson's choice are capable of being shrouded 
 in a cloak of abstruseness by their representation. We 
 must discover in Avhat way he still further promoted 
 this simplicity of his style. 
 
 (1) In Language. It is generally conceded that 
 words of Anglo-Saxon derivation are easier of compre- 
 hension than those of Latin origin. The greater part of 
 Wilson's vocabulary is composed of the former and of 
 the least pedantic of Latin derivatives. His figures of 
 speech, as we have seen, are taken from familiar 
 sources ; therefore his frequent embellishments still pre- 
 serve the simplicity of his plainer diction. The same 
 effect is produced by his personifications of abstract 
 ideas, through which vagne notions are represented in 
 distinct forms. 
 
 (2) The most cogent proof of Wilson's simplicity of 
 
DEFECTS IN SlMrLICITY. 41 
 
 style is found in the fact that the perusal of his writ- 
 ings requires so little concentration of the mind. There 
 is sliglit attempt at connection between the various 
 rhapsodical flights, the sentence or thought immedi- 
 ately before one being all that calls for attention. 
 No straining to keep in sight a distinct thread of 
 thought is necessarj^, but only to experience pleasure 
 and to derive benefit from individual pictures, stories, 
 descriptions, and analyses. 
 
 What shall be said of his expository articles when he 
 does call for connected thoughts ? Is there any means 
 by which he aids us in following related ideas, while our 
 attention is not distracted from the contemplation of 
 individual thoughts ? His success is displayed in his 
 Essay on Burns, where he follows out a simple and nat- 
 ural plan of treatment. He carries along at the same 
 time the life, the development of character, and the 
 writings of the poet, and thus displays their inter- 
 action ; first, the events influencing his character, this in 
 turn affecting the works of the poet, and these reacting 
 on life and character. In this way we are easily 
 guided through an exhaustive and critical study. 
 
 Thus his manner of treatment is siiited to his subject: 
 when the subject is simple he treats it directly ; when 
 verging on the abstruse he treats of it indirectly, dis- 
 guised under simpler forms. 
 
 Defects in Simplicity. — On the other hand, there are 
 certain attributes of Wilson's style which counteract the 
 effect of those qualities just mentioned, and lead in the 
 direction of abstruseness. The slang phrases and pro- 
 vincialisms he uses are limited in their comprehensi- 
 bility to a fixed time and place. Many of them are 
 
42 CHEISTOPHEK NOKTH. 
 
 unintelligible to readers of the present day. The 
 Scottish element of his vocabulary is to many abstruse, 
 but with the help of the glossary appended to most 
 editions is easily mastered. A source of bewilderment 
 is sometimes found in his frequent accumulations of 
 words and clauses. His brief, concise remarks are often 
 difficult of ready comprehension. 
 
 It often happens that the most fascinating and char- 
 acteristic qualities of his style are those which cloud 
 our vision. His eloquence and delicate fancy veil his 
 thoughts in a mysteriousness jjenetrable only by another 
 lively imagination. Such obscurities, however, are rare. 
 Wilson deserves a high rank among simple authors, and 
 is a model for unpretentious writers, to whom simplicity 
 should be the paramount aim, in that he takes for his 
 themes subjects of personal experience and current 
 interest, and handles them with natural ease. 
 
 CLEAKNESS. 
 
 Perspicuity. — Although Wilson is simple in style, he 
 is rarely perspicuous. His lack of general clearness in 
 the thought and outline of his essays is no defect, but 
 only a legitimate outcome of the nature and aim of 
 these works. Nor does the absence of perspicuity cause 
 perplexity or confusion. It is left for the imaginative, 
 sympathetic reader to feel rather than to perceive the 
 connection between thoughts. Wilson indulges in an 
 inveterate and acknowledged habit of wandering. 
 Were there some main argument at stake, such loose- 
 ness of thought would be injurious, but, as usually the 
 avowed purpose of his essays is to amuse, they are made 
 more novel and attractive by these digressions. A char- 
 
MINUTE EXACTNESS. 43 
 
 aeteristic example of his deficiency in perspicuity is his 
 paper on Dr. Kitehiner. In one portion he is criticising 
 some remarks of Dr. Kitehiner on cleanliness, and after 
 instituting a comparison between men and streams, he 
 wanders off into a vivid little description of a stream, 
 with apparently no bearing on the subject : — 
 
 "Some streams, just like some men, are always clean 
 — you cannot well tell why — producible to good pic-nic 
 society either in dry or wet weather. In dry, the pearly 
 waters are singing among the freshened flowers — so 
 that the trout, if he chooses, may breakfast among bees. 
 In wet, they grow, it is true, dark Wd drumly — and at 
 midnight, when heaven's candles are put out, loud and 
 oft the angry spirit of the water shrieks. But Aurora 
 beholds her face in the clarified pools and shallows — 
 far and wide glittering with silver or with gold. All 
 the banks and braes reappear green as emerald from the 
 subsiding current — into which look with the eyes of 
 an angler, and you behold a Fish — a twenty-pounder — 
 steadying himself — like an uncertain shadow; and oh ! 
 for George Scougal's leister to strike him through the 
 spine ! Yes, these are the images of trees far down, as 
 if in another world ; and, whether you look up or. look 
 down, alike in all its blue, braided, and unbounded 
 beauty, is the morning sky ! " 
 
 Another tendency towards vagueness and irregularity 
 is evinced in his long, loose sentences. That he can be 
 perspicuous and lucid in the discussion of any vital 
 matter he has proved in his critical essays, and in his 
 plea for the Education of the People. 
 
 Minute Exactness. — We note both the presence and 
 the absence of this element of style in Wilson's writ- 
 
44 CHRISTOPHBE NORTH. 
 
 ings. He carries on a hazardous trifling with quota- 
 tions from other authors, turning them so far from their 
 original purport as to leave one in utter confusion 
 regarding their true meaning. In his facetious play 
 he leaves the reader to attach whatever sense he chooses 
 to these carelessly scattered words. His humorous 
 sketches and railing satires often contain sweeping 
 assertions and exaggerated comparisons, which he takes 
 no pains to corroborate : — 
 
 " Only in such prose as ours can the heart pour forth 
 its effusions like a strong spring discharging ever so 
 many gallons in a minute, either into pipes that conduct 
 it through some great Metropolitan city, or into a water- 
 course that soon becomes a rivulet, then a stream, then 
 a river, then a lake, and then a sea." 
 
 Or again, such a rash, unconsidered statement as the 
 following : — 
 
 "Prose, we believe, is destined to drive what is 
 called Poetry out of the world. . . . Milton was woefully 
 wrong in speaking of ' prose or numerous verse.' Prose 
 is a million times more numerous than verse." 
 
 Nevertheless, Wilson, in many cases, may compete in 
 exactness with De Quincey himself. Our quotations 
 of his figures of speech show that even in his lighter 
 essays there was an inclination to carry out his compari- 
 sons to their extreme limit, and to exhaust every possi- 
 ble point of resemblance. His critical essays manifest 
 the same minuteness in formal comparisons- between dif- 
 ferent authors, an effort to impress us clearly with the 
 exact points of distinction and similarity. 
 
 His treatise on The Punishment of Death furnishes 
 the most remarkable example of his habit of minute 
 
MINUTE EXACTNESS. 45 
 
 exactness. It abounds in general summaries followed 
 by all the practical details that authorize these conclu- 
 sions : — 
 
 " There seem to be Three Great Causes of Ineffi- 
 ciency in the Laws which are framed to severity beyond 
 the crime — their deadening the moral sense of the 
 people — their hardening the temper of criminals — 
 their uncertainty of execution." 
 
 After this statement he proceeds to a minute dis- 
 quisition on these Three Causes. He seldom uses a 
 comparative or superlative adjective without specifying 
 its exact application : — 
 
 " There is one portion of our population more corrupt 
 than the rest — which, by indigence, vice, ignorance, — 
 abject condition of every kind, is the lowest among us." 
 
 Other examples of direct specification are numerous, 
 such as sentences of this nature, " All these men are old 
 in their lights." 
 
 He makes it his business many times to contradict 
 opinions of general acceptation, and to exemplify and 
 prove his corrections : — 
 
 " The great French Revolution, many say, made all 
 our great English poets. It did not make Cowper, and 
 it could not make Crabbe." 
 
 Therefore we find that we can neither designate Wil- 
 son as absolutely and preeminently clear in style, nor 
 as ambiguous. In this respect he is changeable, and his 
 effort to be clear is gauged by the importance of his 
 subject. He can seldom be called truly ambiguous, on 
 account of the native simplicity of his style. 
 
46 CHEISTOPHER NORTH. 
 
 STRENGTH. 
 
 De Quincey exalts and invigorates the mind by the 
 elaborate and sustained dignity of his thought and 
 speech. Wilson stimulates the brain and heart of tbe 
 reader by the vigor and sparkling animation of his writ- 
 ings. In this he approaches nearer to Macaulay than to 
 De Quince)', with this difference, however, between 
 himself and Macaulay, that he possesses greater buoy- 
 ancy and irregularity of style, less artificiality. In both 
 De Quincey and Macaulay the sentiment of power 
 awakened by their writings is partly caused by the en- 
 thusiasm we feel for their literaiy skill — their capa- 
 bility of grasping large subjects, their confident use of 
 artistic adornments. The effect is as if we looked upon 
 a consummate actor, in whose personality we are not so 
 much entranced, as in what we are able to criticize and 
 to analyze, — his artistic movements. But when reading 
 Wilson we seem transported bodily to the scenes he 
 describes, and the stimulus is such as would be received 
 from actual contemplation of the objects and deeds, 
 rather than from admiration of the author. 
 
 The animation of Wilson's style is maintained (1) by 
 abrupt and rapid transitions of thought. Without any 
 preparation or warning he leaps suddenly from one 
 thought to another, from the pathetic to the humorous, 
 from the sublime to the ludicrous. There are few lono-- 
 suspended climaxes. Thus to sweep over great dis- 
 tances between thoughts produces in one a feeling of 
 elation at conscious mental power, and is also creative 
 of quick-wittedness. 
 
 (2) The vigor of Wilson's style is due to a great 
 
STRENGTH. 47 
 
 extent to his choice of subjects. There is an intense 
 animalism in all he writes. The narration of fishing 
 and athletic sports, of Highland scenes and of conver- 
 sations in convivial gatherings, brings a stimulus which 
 can best be compared to the bracing effect of a morn- 
 ing walk. North is preeminent in this faculty of 
 arousing the animal spirits, and in writings of this 
 fervent stamp he exhibits the greatest originality of 
 genius. The following is a typical example : — 
 
 " And oh ! from the bright, balmy, blooming heather- 
 bed, elastic in its mossy sweetness, how like a giant 
 refreshed with mountain dew springs up the pedes- 
 trian at first touch of the morning light — from the 
 shutting door shakes hands with the new-risen sun, 
 nor in the bounding fever of his prime envies the 
 rushing of the eagle's wing." 
 
 This tendency to personify, to infuse life and the 
 highest form of life into all nature, helps to impart 
 vigor to his style, by exciting somewhat the same active 
 sympathy with movements of nature as with human 
 actions. It is noticeable that there is motion in all his 
 pictures. His descriptions of nature in repose are few, 
 and even in them there is some covert allusion to action ; 
 such as smoke wreathing from the chimney of a cottage, 
 which betokens life astir within. 
 
 His vividness in description constitutes another ele- 
 ment of his strength, in that it inflames the imagina- 
 tion and gives it a consciousness of its power. One of 
 his favorite and most vivid descriptions is that of a 
 Highland thunder-storm. 
 
 We have spoken of the personifying element in his 
 figures of speech as conducive to strength. In addi- 
 
48 CHRISTOPHER NORTH. 
 
 tion to these there are many comparisons of the forms 
 of nature to products of human industry, which are 
 conducive to the same result. 
 
 (3) Wilson is powerful and almost sublime in de- 
 picting horrible scenes. He often ens, however, in 
 making his imagery so realistic that its effect is depress- 
 ing rather than thrilling. Excessive vividness in such 
 passages detracts from their strength. The shepherd's 
 dream of a gambling hell is his happiest success in bal- 
 ancing the two extremes; horribly realistic imagery 
 and vagueness in the portrayal of imaginary horrors. 
 The following strong metaphor occurs : — 
 
 " They say that some nichts in thae Hells, when Satan 
 and Sin sit thegither on ae chair, he Avi' liis arm roun' 
 the neck o' that Destruction his daughter, a horrible 
 temptation invades men's hearts and souls, drivin and 
 draggin them on to the doom o' everlasting death." 
 
 (4) It is when Wilson seizes hold of real human 
 nature, and exhibits it in its varied and interesting 
 forms, that his style becomes most forcible and vig- 
 orous. He usually touches external nature in her 
 brightest and most joyous moods, and seldom rises to 
 sublimity. But he depicts human nature in its whole 
 range of feelings, from the most passive to the most 
 active, from the lowliest to the loftiest passions and 
 actions. 
 
 The subjects of Wilson's critical essays are not 
 always such authors as would inspire us with tlie loftiest 
 sentiments. His criticisms of Tennyson, Thomson, Cole- 
 ridge, and others, are stimulating only so far as they 
 delight us by the demands upon our analytical faculties. 
 He rises to a more exalted plane in his essays on Burns 
 
STRENGTH. 49 
 
 and Macaulay, and in his remarks on Dante and Petrarch 
 in the Loves of the Poets, when sympathy with the author 
 and admiration of his genius combine witli our own 
 self-conscious power of criticism. 
 
 In his bits of narration, it is true, Wilson shows a 
 tendency to dwell on the softer and more touching feel- 
 ings, — resignation, melancholy, quiet love. This is 
 especially noticeable in the Lights and Shadows of Scot- 
 tish Life. Yet pictures of stronger and more inspiring 
 passions are intermingled with the others. The best 
 known of these is probably the story of The Eagle and 
 Hannah Lamond's Bairn. This narrative stands just 
 on the border line between strength aud sublimity. Its 
 theme is sublime, — the king of birds thwarted in his 
 cruel strength by a woman inspired with maternal love. 
 But the sentences are too broken, and the feelings too 
 passion-swept for true sublimity. 
 
 Wilson attains his highest degree of strength when 
 portraying either the joyous, exulting animal spirits of 
 youth, or some intense physical suffering. The follow- 
 ing example displays his eloquence in the first : — 
 
 " Higher up among the rocks, and cliffs, and stones, 
 we see a stripling, whose ambition it is to strike the sky 
 with his forehead, and wet his hair in the misty cloud, 
 pursuing the ptarmigan now in their variegated summer- 
 dress, seen even among the uiimelted snows." 
 
 The finest illustration of his force in describing phys- 
 ical suffering is the shepherd's account of his parching 
 thirst on the desert, and his final relief. 
 
 It is seldom that Wilson can be -called sublime. His 
 facile feelings and his excited utterance forbid the ex- 
 alted, sustained power necessary to uphold the sublime. 
 
50 CHRISTOPHER NORTH. 
 
 The few occasions in which he is sublime are worthy of 
 mention. He is so when he speaks in hushed awe of 
 the relation between God and inan, and the closeness of 
 the spiritual to the material. Also the following short 
 passage deserves a place among his few sublime touches ; 
 it is the martyrdom of a young, fair maiden : — 
 
 " Tied to a stake on the sea-sands slie stood ; and first 
 she heard, and then she saw, the white roarin o' the 
 tide. But the smile forsook not her face ; it brichtened 
 in her een when the water reached her knee ; calmer 
 and calmer was lier voice of prayer, as it beat again' her 
 bonny breast ; iiae shriek when a wave closed her lips 
 for ever; and methinks, sir — for ages on ages hae 
 lapsed awa sin' that martyrdom, and therefore Imagina- 
 tion may witliouten blame dally wi' grief — methinks, 
 sir, that as her golden head disappeared, 'twas like a 
 star sinkin in the sea." 
 
 PATHOS. 
 
 A tender and graceful style is highly characteristic 
 of Wilson. Examples of pathos are numerous in his 
 writings. It is his eloquent and touching pathos, as 
 well as his rapid transitions of thought, that makes 
 him akin to Jeremy Taylor. We have seen- that Wil- 
 son was not capable of any sustained sublimity. He is 
 capable of sustained patlios, although usually it forms 
 but one of his many varying moods. His sparkling ani- 
 mal spirits either shade off into softer, calmer thoughts, 
 or pass, by reaction, into melancholy. 
 
 The poetic qualities of his composition, his figures of 
 speech, his musical language and alliteration are in har- 
 mony with his descriptions of the beautiful in nature, 
 
PATHOS. 51 
 
 and therefore enbanoe their grace. Among the galaxy 
 of these soft pictures those wliich gleam out with the 
 brightest lustre are little fragments on the sky and 
 clouds : — 
 
 "I've seen a white lace veil, sic as Queen Mary's drawn 
 in, lyin' afloat, withouten stirrin' aboon her snawy brow, 
 saftenin the ee-licht and its yon braided clouds, as if 
 they had lain there all their lives." 
 
 He describes nature — the earth, the sun, and the sky 
 — in all its most peaceful aspects. His descriptions of 
 sunset can hardly be excelled. The following picture 
 of dawn we select because its graceful language, deli- 
 cate coloring, exquisite figures and the deep feeling of 
 religious awe suffusing.it, combine to make it one of his 
 most characteristic sketches of the beautiful : — 
 
 " O thou first, faint, fair, finest tinge of dawning light 
 that streaks the still-sleeping, yet just-waking face of 
 the morn, light and no-light, a shadowy something, 
 tliat as we gaze is felt to be growing into an emotion 
 that must be either Innocence or Beauty, or both blend- 
 ing together into Devotion before Deity, once more 
 duly visible in the divine coloring that forebodes an- 
 other day to mortal life — before thee what holy bliss 
 to kneel upon the greensward in some forest glade, 
 while every leaf is a-tumble with dewdrops, and the 
 happy little birds are beginning to twitter, yet motionless 
 among the boughs — before Thee to kneel as at a shrine, 
 and breathe deeper and deeper — as the lustre waxeth 
 purer and purer, brighter and more bright, till range 
 after range arise of crimson clouds in altitude sublime, 
 and breast above breast expands of yellow woods softly 
 glittering in their far-spread magnificence — then what 
 
52 CHEISTOPHBE NOBTH. 
 
 lioly bliss to breathe deeper and deeper unto Him 
 who holds in the hollow of his hand the heavens and 
 the earth, our high but most humble orisons ! But now 
 it is Day, and broad awake seems the whole joyful world. 
 The clouds — lustrous no more — are all anchored on 
 the sky, white as fleets waiting for the wind. Time is 
 not felt — and one might dream that the Day was to 
 endure forever. Yet the great river rolls on in the 
 light — and why will he leave those lovely inland woods 
 for the naked shores ? Why — responds some voice — 
 hurry we on our own lives — impetuous and passionate 
 far more than he with all his cataracts — as if anxious 
 to forsake the ' regions of the upper day for the dim 
 place from which imagination sometimes seems to see 
 even through the sunshine, beyond the bourne of this 
 our unintelligible being, stretching sea-like into a still 
 more mysterious night ! " 
 
 We have said that Wilson seldom produced sustained 
 pathos. This is true only in respect to his essays. His 
 Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life is composed entirely 
 of stories of a pathetic nature, in which youth, beauty, 
 and innocence meet with undeserved and pitiful sorrows, 
 or are rewarded by quiet happiness. The gentle, sub- 
 dued tone of these stories, however, becomes monoto- 
 nous. His pathos is more effective when it occurs in 
 close contact with the animated, humorous, or serious. 
 
 Wilson is especially fine in his pictures of youth and 
 old age. His character-sketches of boyhood belong to 
 his strong passages ; but in describing maidenhood he 
 extols principally beauty and virtue. He is most at- 
 tractive, however, when he slips into his soft, mellow, 
 twilight strain, and rhapsodizes on Old Age : 
 
PATHOS. 53 
 
 " There are lights that die not away with the dying 
 sunbeams — there are sounds that cease not when the 
 singing of birds is silent — there are motions that still 
 stir the soul . . . and therefore how calm, how happy, 
 how reverend, beneath unoffended Heaven, is the head 
 of Old Age." 
 
 In Scotch pathos Wilson surpasses all essayists, and is 
 only equalled by the poet Burns. Scottish words from 
 their association and musical ring are peculiarly fitted 
 for pathos; as, "weebitbairnie," "• sae lang sin sj'ne," "a 
 bit white breaking wave " or " silly sea-bird." His de- 
 scriptions of the Saturday Eve and Sunday of the Cot- 
 ter are only comparable in quaint simplicity to Burns's 
 " Cotter's Saturday Night." He also resembles that poet 
 in his tender love romances and in his sympathetic 
 descriptions of dumb animals. 
 
 His reminiscences of old friends are always tender, and 
 his fragments on filial affection and religious sentiment 
 are exquisitely delicate. The following passage is a 
 poetical exposition of true friendship : — 
 
 " In utter prostration, and sacred privacy of soul, I 
 almost think now, and have often felt heretofore, man 
 may make a confessional of the breast of his brother 
 man. . . . One such friend alone can ever, from the 
 very nature of things, belong to any one human being, 
 however endowed by nature and beloved of Heaven. 
 He is felt to stand between us and our upbraiding con- 
 science. In his life lies the strength — the power — the 
 virtue of ours, — in his death the better half of our 
 whole being seems to expire. Such communion of 
 spirit, perhaps, can only be in existences rising towards 
 their meridian ; as the hills of life cast longer shadows 
 
54 CHEISTOPHEK NORTH. 
 
 in the westering hours, we grow — I should not say 
 more suspicious, for that may be too strong a word — 
 but more silent, more self-wrapt, more circumspect-:— 
 less sympathetic even with kindred and congenial na- 
 tures, who will sometimes, in our almost sullen moods 
 or theirs, seem as if they were kindred and congenial no 
 more — less devoted to Spirituals, that is, to Ideas, so 
 tender, true, beautiful, and sublime, that they seem to 
 be inhabitants of heaven though born of earth, and to 
 float between the two regions angelical and divine — 
 yet felt to be mortal, human still — the Ideas of pas- 
 sions and desires, and affections, and 'impulses that 
 come to us in solitude,' to whom we breathe out our 
 souls in silence or in almost silent speech, in utterly 
 mute adoration, or in broken hj'mns of feeling, believ- 
 ing that the holy enthusiasm will go with us through 
 life to the grave, or rather knowing not, or feeling not, 
 that the grave is anything more than a mere word with 
 a somewhat mournful sound, and that life is changeless, 
 cloudless, unfading as the heaven of heavens, that lies 
 to the uplifted fancy in blue immortal calm, round the 
 throne of the eternal Jehovah ! " 
 
 .Although Wilson shows so much of the "Celtic 
 Magic " in his natural descriptions, that is, the power 
 to make Nature appear in a mystic, weird light, Ms sad 
 pathos has none of the melancholy, despairing " Celtic 
 Grief," that comes without any cause. He is not mo- 
 rose, but only breaks out into words of sorrow at the 
 thought of some human grief. In the tearfully pathetic 
 he is most happy when he describes or narrates the 
 sorrows that come upon youth and innocence. Death is 
 so beautified by his delicacy of language, and his avoid- 
 
HUMOK. 55 
 
 ance of all that is repulsive, as to form the pleasing 
 theme of many artistic sketches. The following quota- 
 tion will afford one a just estimate of his skill in this 
 particular : — 
 
 " In the silence, sobs and sighs, and one or two long, 
 deep groans ! Then in another moment, he saw, through 
 the open door of the room where Lucy used to sleep, 
 several figures moving to and fro in the light, and one 
 figure upon its knees — who else could it be but her 
 father ! Unnoticed he became one of the pale-faced com- 
 pany — and there he beheld her on her bed, mute and 
 motionless, her face covered with a deplorable beauty — 
 eyes closed, and her hands clasped upon her breast ! 
 ' Dead, dead, dead,' muttered in his ringing ears a 
 voice from the tombs, and he fell down in the midst of 
 them with great violence upon the floor." 
 
 THE LTJDICEOTJS. 
 
 Humor. — Whether Wilson excels in pathos or in 
 humor has often formed a subject of dispute. So rare 
 is his skill in both that those natures most susceptible 
 to the tender and sad laud him as their master of pathos ; 
 while those, on the other hand, who are keenly sensitive 
 to the ludicrous, are as strong in their praises of his 
 unique humor. He said it was his delight to brood over 
 both the pathetic and ludicrous, and to pass from the 
 one to the other at will. The wonderful power of the 
 pathos in his writings gives us good reason to expect 
 an equally delicate and forcible humor; for the true, 
 warm sympathies that produced the one, would, by 
 their nature, beget the second. As Carlyle says, "The 
 
56 GHEISTOPHEK NOKTH. 
 
 essence of humor is sensibility; warm, tender fellow- 
 feeling for all forms of existence." 
 
 The close relation between his pathos and humor is 
 shown by the many instances in which the pathetic 
 glistens out suddenly into the ludicrous, and the hu- 
 morous melts away into the pathetic. Convincing ex- 
 amples are found in Christmas Breams and in his 
 Rhapsodies on the Seasons. This perpetual interchange 
 of pathos and humor has a twofold beneficial nature: 
 (1) it prevents him from indulging in maudlin senti- 
 ment; (2) it restrains him from a tendency towards 
 coarseness and buffoonery in his witty sallies. 
 
 Wilson's humor is often of a homely nature, and 
 enjoyable because of its homeliness. He possesses the 
 peculiar gift of caricaturing common, every-daj' events, 
 ludicrous and embarrassing situations, duties and dis- 
 comforts that can be made irksome or laughable, as one 
 chooses. He is ridiculing the exaggerated way in which 
 people talk of the pleasure of living at home, and 
 says : — 
 
 " People seldom live very well at home. There is 
 always something' requiring to be eaten up, that it may 
 not be lost, which destroys the soothing and satisfac- 
 tory symmetry of an unexceptionable dinner." 
 
 The same laughable, good-natured ridicule is used in 
 Cottages, and also in the Essay on Early Rising, which 
 is perhaps one of the most truly ludicrous of his essaj-s. 
 
 There is a freshness and joyousness about Wilson's 
 humor, and a pleasant assumption of sharing in the 
 human frailties he ridicules, which relieves him of all 
 unpleasantness. One of his most charming bits of 
 pleasantry is the following quotation : — 
 
WIT. 57 
 
 " Gallantry forbids, but Truth demands to say, that 
 young ladies are but indifferent sketchers. The dear 
 creatures have no notion of perspective. At flower- 
 painting and embroidery, they are pretty fair hands, but 
 they make sad work among waterfalls and ruins. Not- 
 withstanding, it is pleasant to hang over them, seated 
 on stone or stool, drawing from nature ; and now and 
 then to help them in with a horse or a hermit. It is a 
 difficult, almost an impossible thing — tliat foreshorten- 
 ing. The most speculative genius is often at a loss to 
 conjecture the species of a human beijig foreshortened 
 by a young lady. The hanging Tower of Pisa is, we 
 believe, some thirty feet or so off the perpendicular, and 
 there is one at Caerphilly about seventeen ; but these 
 are nothing to the castles in the air we have seen built 
 by the touch of a female magician ; nor is it an unusual 
 thing with artists of the fair sex to order their plumed 
 chivalry to gallop down precipices considerably steeper 
 than a house, on animals apparently produced between 
 the tigerand the bonassus. . . . Nevertheless, we repeat, 
 that it is delightful to hang over one, of the dear crea- 
 tures, seated on stone or stool, drawing from nature ; 
 for whatever may be the pencil's skill, the eye may be- 
 hold the glimpse of a vision whose beauty shall be 
 remembered when even Windermere himself has for a 
 while faded into oblivion." 
 
 The vein of humor running through the Nodes comes 
 out plainly in his imitation of De Quincey's pedantic 
 style of conversation. 
 
 ■Wit.- During those years of hot political strife in 
 
 England and in Scotland, many biting satires came 
 from Wilson's pen. In his witty sallies and railleries 
 
58 CHKISTOPHEE NOETH. 
 
 he impaled his "victims with merciless cruelty. He 
 ridiculed and degraded them by exaggerating their 
 defects, by causing them to play ludicrous parts in his 
 allegories, by using slang phrases. A favorite and 
 peculiar method of his was to assume an air of loftj' 
 superiority, and to treat his antagonists as mere pigmies, 
 with whom he played in a leonine fashion. The bitter- 
 ness of his wit has been tempered to us by the inter- 
 vening lapse of time. The impression it makes is one 
 of mingled pleasure and indignation ; the latter at see- 
 ing the strong in the act of crushing the weak. 
 
 Wilson is too open in his ridicule ever to be malig- 
 nant. Although his wit is generally delicate and 
 fanciful, it sometimes verges on coarseness and con- 
 tumely. This is especially the case when he was 
 provoked by what seemed to him a sham poet or artist. 
 At such times he became flippant and impertinent. 
 Many examples can be found in his essays on Homer and 
 his Translators and on Tennyson. In criticising the 
 Lotus Eaters he says : — 
 
 " The vessel in which the land-lubbers were drifting 
 when the" Sea-Fairies salute them with a song, must 
 have been an old tub of a thing, unfit even for a trans- 
 port." 
 
 Wilson's humorous writings are crowded with witti- 
 cisms of a trifling nature, such as the clever turning 
 of quotations from their original meaning, puns, and 
 epigrams. 
 
 Melody and Harmony. — The music in Wilson's prose 
 is so clear and distinct that the most uncultivated-ear can 
 detect it ; and it has procured for him a distinguished 
 place among melodious and artistic writers. There 
 
TASTE. 59 
 
 seems to be no technical term by which to designate his 
 melody. It has no alliance whatever with the stately 
 march either of De Quincey or of INIacaulay. As Minto 
 compared the music of De Quincey's prose to the " swell 
 and crash of an organ," so we might liken Wilson's to 
 a Scotch ballad sung by a human voice or by a violin. 
 The oft-recurring strain is simple, touching, and sweet. 
 The effect is heightened by the alliteration of pleasant 
 consonant sounds, by the repetition of vowel sounds, and 
 by his choice of musical English and Scotch words. 
 
 In his most deeply impassioned moods the musical 
 ring and rhythm of his utterances is most distinct. Con- 
 sequently we should look among his descriptions and 
 reminiscences of Scottish life for a typical example of 
 melody. It is also there that we find the most sympa- 
 thetic and delicate harmony between the words and the 
 subjecf>-matter. His poetic temperament and natural 
 love of music insured for him a musical flow in the 
 sincere and natural expression of his feelings. The fol- 
 lowing extract is from Christopher- in his Sporting 
 Jacket : — 
 
 "But oh! that Craig-Hall hawthorn! and oh! that 
 Craig-Hall broom ! They send their sweet rich scent so 
 far into the hushed air of memory, that all the weary 
 worn-out weaknesses of age drop from us like a garment, 
 and even now the flight of that swallow seems more 
 aerial — more alive with bliss his clay-built nest — the 
 ancient long-ago blue of the sky returns to heaven — 
 not for many a long year have we seen so fair — so frail 
 — so transparent and angel-mantle-looking a cloud ! " 
 
 Xaste. Many of the quotations already cited are 
 
 sufficient to prove that Wilson possessed an innate sense 
 
60 CHEISTOPHEK KOETH. 
 
 of the beautiful, and a delicate artistic judgment. How- 
 ever, his writings have too much the character of spoken 
 thought not to have lead him into transgressions of the 
 artistic rules of composition. Defects of this kind are 
 all owing to his impetuous, passionate nature, and to his 
 hurried, careless manner of writing. We have already 
 mentioned the most important of these violations of art 
 principles. To summarize, they are slang words and 
 phrases, unwieldy sentences, coarse figures of speech, 
 scathing invectives, and boisterous humor. These faults 
 taint but certain portions of his work; therefore those 
 portions alone are to be condemned, and to be denied 
 a name among works of standard literature. The main 
 body of his works is pure in sentiment and artistic in 
 form. 
 
 KINDS OF COMPOSITION. 
 
 DESCRIPTION. 
 
 E:sternal Nature. — With the name of Wilson is indis- 
 Solubly associated the beauty and charm of Scottish 
 Highland scenery. Not until William Black do we find 
 any one who approaches him in picturing that country, 
 and their manner of description is entirely unlike. 
 How is it that Wilson has gained such fame as a 
 descriptive writer? It is not that he has any clear and 
 concise method of description; for, by an analysis of 
 those works where it were natural to look for some 
 such plan or ground-work of description, we find an en- 
 tirely arbitrary mode of procedure. The delight created 
 in us by his pictures must be accounted for otherwise 
 
EXTERNAL XATURB. 61 
 
 than by system and order. The source of his winsome- 
 ness is found in the intense feeling breathed into and 
 through his sketclaes of nature, and in the fehcities of 
 his speech. 
 
 His descriptions of external nature are usually con- 
 nected with some sentiment or thought. He loves the 
 beautiful places of this earth because they are the scene 
 of human joys and sorrows, and because they are sug- 
 gestive in their varied aspects of the different phases 
 of human nature. His frequent personifications speak 
 this feeling of a bond of sympathy between man and 
 nature. His descriptions are limited to such portions 
 of Scotland as he had visited many times and had grown 
 intimately acquainted with. On account of this lim- 
 itation, the spirit in which he writes is more enthusiastic. 
 He is rich in the store of personal memories clustered 
 around the scenes he describes : — 
 
 "Ye fields, that long ago we so often trode together, 
 with the wind-swept shadows hovering about our path 
 — Ye streams, whose murmtir awoke our imaginations, 
 as we lay reading, or musing together in day-dreams, 
 among the broomy braes — Ye woods, where we started 
 at the startled cushat, or paused, without a word, to 
 hear the creature's solitary moans and murmurs deepen- 
 ing the far-off hush, already so profound — Ye moors 
 and mosses, black yet beautiful, with your peat-trenches 
 over-shadowed by the heather-blossoms that scented the 
 wilderness afar — where the little maiden, sent from the 
 shieling on errands to town or village in the country 
 below, seemed, as we met her in the sunshine, to rise up 
 before us for our delight, like a fairy from the desert 
 bloom Thou loch, remote in thy treeless solitude, 
 
62 CHEISTOPHEE NORTH. 
 
 and with nought reflected in thy many-springed waters 
 but those low pastoral hills of excessive green, and the 
 white-barred blue of heaven — no creature on its shores 
 but our own selves, keenly angling in the breezes, or 
 lying in the shaded sunshine, with some book of old 
 ballads, or strain of some Immortal yet alive on earth 
 — one and all bear witness to our undying affection, that 
 silently now feeds on grief I " 
 
 The blending of these recollections with scenes of 
 nature is not conducive to clearness or vividness ; but 
 it does increase one's interest, and thereby spur on the 
 imagination to picture the scene for itself. 
 
 He seldom describes any place or object without men- 
 tioning the associated feelings; that is, he is seldom 
 what is called purely descriptive : — "A pensive shade 
 has fallen across May-day." " A Sabbath stillness is in 
 the air." "On such days suicides rush to judgment." 
 " It is a cloudy but not a stormy day." 
 
 (1) These associated feelings and circumstances add 
 to the charm, but not to the vividness of his descriptions. 
 His success in pictorial art is dependent upon other 
 characteristics. In analyzing his descriptions to discover 
 these characteristics we are obliged to confront the fact 
 that he violates the chief rule; — to include with the 
 enumeration of the parts a comprehensive statement, or 
 general plan of the whole. He makes up for this lack 
 of an introductory, comprehensive statement, by the 
 suggestiveness of his pictures. He dashes on bright 
 bits of color, and makes minor trifles conspicuous : " the 
 blue eye of a violet looking up from the ground," " the 
 sheep-nibbled grass, smooth as silk," "the far-off song 
 of the cushat," or " a child shaking his sunny curls iu 
 
EXTERNAL NATURE. 63 
 
 glee." In a few expressive words such details are men- 
 tioned ; and from these the reader imagines the scene 
 for himself. Therefore picturesqueness is the first ele- 
 ment of his pictorial success. 
 
 (2) The second element is " Celtic Magic," as de- 
 scribed by Matthew Arnold. It is the power to infuse 
 into nature a life, mystic and supernatural. Wilson 
 produces this effect when he speaks of a " knoll, whis- 
 pering and quivering through the twilight with a few 
 birches whose stems glitter like silver pillars in the 
 shade." 
 
 (3) Wilson understands the art of individualizing 
 his descriptions. He is careful to designate the season 
 of the year, and often the time of day, when any particu- 
 lar scene was witnessed. A fine example of his power 
 in individualizing pictures is the Shepherd's desci-iption 
 of Noon Hour, in the valleys of Scotland. 
 
 (4) The peculiarly delicate words he uses in descrip- 
 tion we have already noted in speaking of his Vocabu- 
 lary. His exquisite exactness in the adaptation of 
 words to objects atones for all irregularity and careless- 
 ness in his mode of procedure. 
 
 (5) We have said that Wilson possesses no plan of 
 description. He sometimes makes an exception by pro- 
 ceeding, for a short period, according to the Traveller's 
 point of view. We find several examples in his Re- 
 marks on the Scenery of the Highlands, where he 
 approaches the nearest to pure description. We qiiote 
 one passage : — 
 
 " The moor is crossed, and you prepare to scale the 
 mountain in front, for you imagine the torrent by your 
 side flows from a tarn in yonder cove, and forms that 
 
64 CHRISTOPHER NORTH. 
 
 series of waterfalls. You have been all along well 
 pleased with the glen, and here at the head, though 
 there is a want of cliffs of the highest class, you 
 feel nevertheless that it has a character of grandeur. 
 Looking westward, you are astounded to see them rang- 
 ing away on either side of another reach of the glen, 
 terrific in their height, but in their formation beautiful, 
 for like the walls .of some vast temple they stand, roofed 
 with sky. Yet they are but as a portal or gateway of 
 the glen. For entering in with awe, that deepens, as you 
 advance, almost into dread, you behold, beyond, moun- 
 tains that carry their cliffs up into the clouds, seamed 
 with chasms, and hollowed out into coves, where night 
 dwells visibly by the side of day ; and still the glen 
 seems winding on beneath a purple light, that almost 
 looks like gloom." 
 
 Human Kature. — On account of Wilson's warm hu- 
 man sympathies, we expect to find in his writings many 
 descriptions of human feelings. Such there are, and we 
 notice in them this characteristic. He deals with ex- 
 ternal appearances and visible results of certain " feel- 
 ings. Like De Quincey, he arrives at motives by close 
 inspection of every expression of the face and every 
 action. He thus depicts the resigned grief of a mourn- 
 ing family ^ — 
 
 " Another hour of trial passed, and the child was still 
 swimming for its life. The very dogS' knew there was 
 gri§f in the house, and lay without stirring, as if hiding 
 themselves, below the long table at the window. One 
 sister sat with an unfinished gown on her knees, that she 
 had been sewing for the dear child, and still continued 
 at the hopeless work, she scarcely knew why : and often 
 
HUMAN NATURE. 65 
 
 often, putting up her hand to wipe away a tear. ' What 
 is that?' said the old man to his eldest daughter: 'What 
 is that you are laying on the shelf?' She could scarcely 
 reply that it was a ribbon and an ivory comb that she 
 had brought for little Margaret, against the night of the 
 dancing-school ball. And at these words the father 
 could not restrain a long, deep, and bitter groan; at 
 which the boy, nearest in age to his dying sister, looked 
 up weeping in his face; and, letting the tattered book of 
 old ballads, which he had been poring on, fall out of his 
 hands, he rose from his seat, and, going into his father's 
 bosom, kissed him, and asked God to bless him ; for the 
 holy heart of the boy was moved within him ; and the 
 old man, as he embraced him, felt that, in his innocence 
 and simplicitj'-, he was indeed a comforter." This is a 
 typical example of the great stress Wilson placed upon 
 actions as expressive and indicative of the feelings. 
 
 Although Wilson was a philosopher, there is very 
 little of metaphysical analysis in his descriptions of hu- 
 man feelings. Neither does he trace the gradual devel- 
 opment of traits of character. He can give a wonder- 
 fully true and vivid account of some manifestation of 
 anger or of jealousy ; but he never attempts to trace the . 
 birth of these passions in others of less ugliness, and 
 their gradual development into worse passions. His 
 power lies in the individualization of his descriptions, 
 in his vivid pictures of certain feelings in play rather 
 than in an abstract treatment of these. He greatly adds 
 to the force of his descriptions by his original and strik- 
 ing figures of speech. 
 
 In the delineation of character he describes by means 
 of outward signs : — " You see at once that the man 
 
66 CHEISTOPHBE NORTH. 
 
 who lives here, instead of being sick of the world, is 
 attached to all elegant socialities and amities ; that he 
 uses silver cups instead of maple bowls, shows his 
 scallop-shell among other curiosities in his cabinet, and 
 will treat the passing pilgrim with pure water from the 
 spring, if he insists upon that beverage, but will first 
 offer him a glass of the yellow cowslip-wine, the cooling 
 claret, or the sparkling champagne." 
 
 He seldom gives any comprehensive statement of the 
 character of his heroes, but leaves the reader to build it 
 up for himself out of the narration of his actions. He 
 seldom indulges in speculation or minute analysis when 
 setting before us the characters of celebrated men. He 
 dwells on their most familiar characteristics, and to 
 bring these out forcibly uses all his literary skill in 
 telling figures of speech, and in daring hyperbole. 
 
 NAEEATIVE. 
 
 Wilson wrote no sustained historical work. The 
 nearest approach to true narrative, that is, to a sys- 
 tematic account of events, is the biographical portion 
 of his essay on Burns. After extricating this from 
 the critical analysis, we find even then no remarkable 
 display of methodical skill in narration. He obeys the 
 first principle of narration by following the order of 
 events from the childhood of Burns to his death. At 
 the same time he is wise in his selection of the most im- 
 portant and significant of these events, and clear and 
 penetrating in his philosophical explanations of their 
 relations to Burns' character and genius. Another 
 notable characteristic is his frequent interspersion of 
 
NARRATIVE. 67 
 
 concise summaries. In his recital he stops for a mo- 
 ment, and to make sure that the reader is ready to con- 
 tinue with him, he condenses into a few words all the 
 preceding details, then makes a fresh beginning. He 
 thus summarizes Burns' childhood : — " His childhood, 
 then, was a happy one, secured from all evil influences 
 and open to all good, in the guardianship of religious 
 parental lore." His return to Mossgiel is introduced 
 with these words : — " Burns has now got liberated, for 
 ever, from stately 'Edinburgh throned on crags,' the 
 favoured abode of philosophy and fashion, law and liter- 
 ature, reason and refinement, and has returned again into 
 his own natural condition, neither essentially the better 
 nor the worse of his city life ; the same man he was 
 when 'the poetic genius of his country found him at_ 
 the plough and threw her inspiring mantle over him.' " 
 
 His references to past events are frequent when en- 
 deavoring to bring out forcibly some particular point: — 
 
 "And here we ask you who maybe reading these 
 pages to pause for a little, and consider with yourselves, 
 what up to this time Burns had done to justify the con- 
 demnatory judgments that have been passed on his 
 character as a man by so many admirers of his genius as 
 a poet?" 
 
 These are the only laws of narrative obeyed in this 
 biography. Its end of instruction and interest is at- 
 tained otherwise, through picturesque effects, touch- 
 ing scenes, and philosophical comments. We have no 
 means by which to discover whether Wilson was capa- 
 ble of writing a scientific history ; for in a biography 
 the writer does not meet with the same necessity of 
 systematizing. There are not so many contemporaneous 
 
68 CHRISTOPHER NORTH. 
 
 events to relate, nor such complexity in any particular 
 subject. 
 
 Wilson's narration of simple tales possesses a peculiar 
 charm due to its easy and graceful style. His essays 
 are composed mainly of descriptions and narrations, and 
 he has written a whole volume of Scotch stories. These 
 imaginative tales do not make instructive studies in the 
 science of narrative excepting as models of delicate 
 beauty and simplicity. There is no intricacy of plot 
 requiring skilful manipulation of many different inci- 
 dents. There is but one simple theme in each story, 
 one absorbing event, sometimes intensely thrilling fod 
 again pathetic or humorous. The only concurring 
 streams of events that he has to follow are the opera- 
 tions of nature and the actions of human beings, 
 and, although the due subordination of the one to 
 the other would seem extremely simple, Wilson often 
 goes astray by giving too great prominence to the one 
 or the other in the inappropriate place. The characters 
 of his stories are few, and therefore only such as play 
 important parts. The emotions that direct their actions 
 are natural and familiar. Since interest in Wilson's 
 narratives is not sustained by a systematic ordering of 
 important events, or by a skilful dramatic plotting, we 
 are convinced that he owes his power as a narrator to 
 his felicities of style. These are eloquence, wit, pathos, 
 conversational ease, metaphorical and musical language. 
 
 EXPOSITION. 
 
 Wilson could scarcely be called a successful exposi- 
 tor. We should not consult him for information on 
 any particular subject, unless it were to find a clear 
 
EXPOSITION. 69 
 
 criticism • of some author. The graces of his style, 
 which we have already studied, are such as to lead him 
 away from exposition into other fields. His glittering 
 brilliancy of language and of thought, together with his 
 imaginative speculations, detract from the solid worth 
 of all his philosophical papers. 
 
 By exposition we mean a systematic treatment of a 
 certain subject with the primary aim of instructing. 
 Of this we find but few examples in Wilson, although 
 we do meet with wise and beautiful thoughts and opin- 
 ions strewn through his essays, and presented in fasci- 
 nating forms. He gives us instruction in Natural 
 History in Christopher in his Aviary. His expositor}' 
 essays are confined entirely to critical analyses of 
 authors. Not all of his critical essays would come 
 under this head, for some are merely rambling disserta- 
 tions. In others, however, his diction is plain, and his 
 mode of treatment direct and simple. 
 
 His essay on Burns is his best example of exposition. 
 In it he seems not to appreciate the benefit of frequent 
 iteration in making a subject clear. The only way in 
 which he repeats is by summaries. In general he 
 passes from one statement to another, trusting to the 
 simplicity and clearness of each statement without repe- 
 tition. In this particular he resembles De Quincey. 
 
 In like manner he seldom resorts to the statement 
 of the counter-proposition for the sake of emphasis. 
 His nearest approach to this is shown in the following 
 sentence : — 
 
 " So far from detracting from the originality of his 
 lyrics, this impulse to composition greatly increased it, 
 while it gave to them a more touching character than 
 
70 CHRISTOPHER NORTH. 
 
 perhaps ever could have belonged to them, had they 
 not breathed at all of antiquity.*' 
 
 In comparison with his usual flowery language there 
 seems a poverty of figures of speech in these expository 
 essays. But a close examination proves that they are 
 frequent, but more modest than his customary figures, 
 and in this respect appropriate to serious subjects. 
 They are apt, concise, and elucidatory. 
 
 The new charm which he can impart to an old sub- 
 ject is made evident in the Nodes. These dialogues, 
 however, cannot be called works of exposition, because 
 they touch upon so many unallied themes at random, 
 and treat none exhaustively. Whatever instruction the 
 reader gains clings to him, without any effort of his 
 own, by reason of its novelty, its graceful beauty or 
 sympathetic association. It is in this pleasant way 
 that Wilson best performs his part of expounding and 
 teaching. 
 
 PEESXJASION. 
 
 Wilson displays his oratorical powers in numerous 
 passages. Indeed, all his essays are persuasive in that 
 they fill us imperceptibly, by their own beautj' and 
 sincerity, with love and reverence for the beautiful 
 and good. Instead of a disquisition on obedience to 
 conscience and its good results, we find a passage 
 conveying this sentiment : — 
 
 " But a still, small voice is heard within my heart — 
 the voice of conscience — and its whispers shall be heard 
 when all the waters of the earth are frozen into nothing, 
 and earth itself shrivelled up like a scroll." 
 
PERSUASION. 71 
 
 In the two essays On the Punishment of Death and 
 The Education of the People he seeks to persuade by 
 logical reasoning. He moves the understanding by a 
 clear statement of facts and by a reasonable deduction 
 of results from known causes. There are no highly 
 colored pictures nor exaggerated speech such as are 
 usually characteristic of Wilson. 
 
 His art of persuasion, however, is most irresistible in 
 its power w-he'n addressed to the feelings. The causes 
 of his success are : — 
 
 (1) Intense Absorption in the Subject. Enthusiasm 
 calls forth enthusiasm. He seeks to persuade only in 
 matters that come near to his heart ; as in the Lights 
 and Shadows of Scottish Life and in many essays where 
 he preaches loyalty to the Scottish Highlanders. 
 
 (2) Intense Sympathy. This lies at the foundation 
 of all his literary success. 
 
 (3) Felicities of Style. The most effective in persua- 
 sion are copiousness and vividness of illustration. 
 
 (4) Indirect Methods of Persuasion. He never 
 exhibits his intention to persuade, but wins us over 
 to his opinions through some charming narrative or 
 choice description. 
 
 As a political leader his influence was transient. The 
 reasons for this are the one-sided and prejudiced nature 
 of his arguments and his free use of sarcasm and 
 invective. 
 
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Cornell University Library 
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 John Wilson's prose style; an undergradua 
 
 3 1924 013 572 965