Page:Biographical and critical studies by James Thomson ("B.V.").djvu/397

 JOHN WILSON 381 II In our desire to illustrate the character of Wilson in youth — a character preserved throughout his prime, for his nature was not one of those which have start- ling late developments or aberrations — we have reserved but scant space for recording the rest of his career. Luckily, the " Memoir " by his daughter is a very accessible as well as very readable book, and to it we refer the reader who wants full details. On leaving Oxford, in 1807, he went to live at EUeray, near Windermere, a charming estate with a charming rustic cottage, which he had purchased some little time before. Here were his headquarters until 181 5. He soon became friendly with Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey, Charles Lloyd, Bishop Watson, and other notables of the district, and especially with his age- fellow, Thomas De Quincey, about fourteen years afterwards to be famous as the English opium eater. Of Windermere he constituted himself the admiral (Canning made him Lord High Admiral of the Lakes), maintaining a little fleet of seven sailing vessels as well as a fine ten- oared Oxford gig. His time was fully employed, all the days and many of the nights, with rambling, boating, wrestling, riding, bull-hunting (see De Quincey's account of this, "Memoir," i. 138-140), and cock-fighting. In the "Memoir" (i. 145-147) is a good story of one of his boating and swimming freaks, extracted from " Rambles in the Lake Country," by Edwin Waugh. For softer de- lights he had poetry, dancing, and love-making. The Misses Penny, daughters of a Liverpool mer-