Page:Biographical and critical studies by James Thomson ("B.V.").djvu/399

 JOHN WILSON 383 whose skill in domestic management was the admira- tion and wonder of all zealous housekeepers. Under one roof she accommodated three distinct families; and, besides the generosity exercised towards her own, she was hospitable to all, while her charities and goodness to the poor were unceasing. . . . She belonged to that old school of Scottish ladies whose refinement and intellect never interfered with duties the most humble." If that fine old school is really now closed, the sooner it opens again the better. This same year he was called to the bar, along with his friend Patrick (afterwards Lord) Robertson, of legal, and yet more convivial and humorous renown ; Scorpio Lockhart joining them the next year. Wilson professionally promenaded the Hall of Lost Steps {Salle de Pas Ferdus, as our neighbours say) for but a brief while, not wholly briefless ; he got a few cases, but owned afterwards that when he found them on his table, " I did not know what the devil to do with them ! " Of such stuff are not lawyers made. In the "Memoir" (i. 228) is a capital sketch of Wilson and Robertson in a punt : the former in the stern, standing and pointing with bare extended arm; the latter, almost supine with the oars, a long pull if not a strong pull, puffing big clouds from his cigar. We now come to the starting, in 18 17, of Black- wood, of which Wilson (Lockhart, in 1825, going to London to assume the editorship of the Quarterly) ere long made himself the leading spirit, though the man whose " name was as it had been the colour of ebony " always held firmly the real editorship in his own hands. An interesting chapter of the " Memoir" (i. 233-295) is devoted to this subject. Towards the