Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 9.djvu/370

634 was almost daily to be seen upon his accustomed walk in Prince's Street, until the beginning of the present year (1854), when paralysis, and a dropsical affection laid him wholly aside, and he died in his house in Gloucester Place, on the morning of the 3d of April. His remains were interred in the Dean Cemetery on the 7th, and the funeral, which was a public one, was attended by thousands, consisting of every rank and occupation, who thus indicated their respect for one so universally known and esteemed. Proceedings for a monument to his memory in the city of Edinburgh have been so successful, that its site and particular character are now the only subjects of question.

The poetical productions of Wilson, by which he commenced his career as an aspirant for the honours of authorship, we have already enumerated. The oblivion into which they are even already sinking, shows that it was not by his poems that he was to build for himself a name, admired though they were at their first appearance before the public. They satisfied a certain temporary taste which at that time happened to be predominant; and having done this, they had fulfilled their purpose, and were therefore quietly laid aside. Neither was the matter greatly amended by his subsequent attempts as a novelist; and his three productions in this capacity—the "Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life," "The Foresters," and the "Trials of Margaret Lyndsay," have been placed by public estimation in the same category with the "Isle of Palms" and "City of the Plague." In fact, he lacked that quality of inventiveness so essential for the construction of a tale, whether in poetry or prose, and therefore his narratives have little or no plot, and very few incidents a defect which neither fine writing nor descriptive power is sufficient to counterbalance. It is upon Blackwood's Magazine that his claims to posthumous distinction must fall back; for there we find his whole heart at work, and all his intellectual powers in full action. Of these productions, too, his critical notices can scarcely be taken into account vigorous, just, and often terrible though they were; nor even his Noctes Ambrosianœ, though these for the time were by far the most popular of all his writings. But it is as Christopher North, whether in his shooting-jacket, or with his fishing-rod, or " under canvas," that he will be best remembered and most highly valued. The scenery which in that character he has so beautifully painted, and the deep emotions to which he has given, utterance, are not things of a day, but for all time, and will continue to be read, admired, and cherished, when the rest of his numerous writings have passed away.

WILSON,, LL.D.—This popular traveller, whose agreeable narratives of foreign countries obtained such general acceptance, was born in Paisley on the 7th of June, 1772. He was the eldest of a numerous family of the name of Rae, whose grandfather held the office of Provost in the town of Haddington. His uncle, John Wilson, who was town-clerk of Glasgow, bred the future traveller to the profession of the law, and thus William Rae practised as a solicitor for some years before the supreme courts; but in 1806, Mr. Wilson having died without issue, left to his nephew the whole of his fortune, who, in consequence, assumed the name of Wilson in addition to his own. In 1811, Mr. W. Rae Wilson married Frances, fourth daughter of the late John Phillips, Esq., of Stobcross, originally a merchant in Glasgow; but only eighteen months after this happy union his partner died childless, and he felt himself alone in the world. As a solace for his loss, as well as an affectionate memorial, he wrote and printed for private circulation a very interesting record