Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 9.djvu/369

Rh of honour the vessel that carried kind and happy Mr. Bolton and his guests The bards of the lakes led the cheers that hailed Scott and Canning; and music and sunshine, flags, streamers, and gay dresses, the merry hum of voices, and the rapid splashing of innumerable oars, made up a dazzling mixture of sensations as the flotilla wound its way among the richly-foliaged islands, and along bays and promontories peopled with enthusiastic spectators." On one occasion Wilson's rank of admiral promoted him to an office at which Nelson, Collingwood, Howe, and Jervis would have laughed with sailor-like merriment: it invested him with the command of a real fleet, instead of an armament of cockle- shells. "I remember," he said in his old days, " being with my friend, Sir Pulteney Malcolm, when he commanded the experimental squadron in the Channel—in 1832, I think—one day on the flag-ship's quarter-deck, amidst the officers and ladies, Sir Pulteney suddenly took me rather aback by saying, in his loudest official tone, 'Professor Wilson will now put the ship about!' It was really expected of me, I believe; so setting the best face upon it, and having previously paid attention to such evolutions, I took voice, and contrived to get through it very creditably—in a fine working breeze, when the worst of it was that the eyes of thousands of people were upon us, and the whole column of ships were to follow in regular succession. The flutter of that critical moment when the helm was put down, and the least error in seizing it must have hung the noble line-of-battle-ship in stays, I shall never forget. I had rather have failed in carrying the class—nay, ten thousand classes—through a point of casuistry in moral philosophy. Yet the sensation was glorious; there was a moral grandeur in the emotion. The feelings of a great admiral in difficult weather bringing on a battle must, in some respects, surpass even those of Shakspeare imagining Hamlet or Lear!"

In this way the life of Wilson went onward for years, of which unfortunately no memorial has as yet been published; while of the ten thousand rumours that have endeavoured to supply the deficiency, scarcely a tithe would be worthy of the least attention. He so largely occupied the public notice, that every literary gossip had some tale to tell of him, either fabricated for the purpose or picked up at second hand, and each story-teller endeavoured to establish the veracity of his narrative, by its superior amount of romance and extravagance. After the death of Blackwood in 1834, Wilson took little further concern in the magazine; indeed, he had already done so much for it, and placed it in so firm a position, that he may have felt as if his task in that department had ended, and might be safely intrusted to younger hands. His class also was sufficient to occupy his full attention, more especially when the increase of intellectual demand, and the growing improvements in public education, required every teacher to be up and doing to his uttermost. His private life, tamed down to the gravity of age, without losing its health or vivacity, continued to be enlivened with the society of the learned and talented, of whom a new generation was fast springing up, and among whom he was venerated as a father, while he was loved as a companion and friend. His chief public exhibitions were now at the Burns' Festival, where he was a regular attendant as well as chief orator. In 1851, that profitable literary distinction now so generously accorded by government in the form of a substantial pension, was bestowed upon him, amounting to £300 per annum ; and on the spring of the following year he resigned his professorship, after holding it thirty-two years, and without making the usual claim of a retiring allowance. After this, he