Page:Biographical and critical studies by James Thomson ("B.V.").djvu/401

 JOHN WILSON 385 Hunter, who sat under him in 1830, says: "Much as I had heard of his appearance, it exceeded expecta- tion; and I said to myself that, in the tokens of physi- cal health and strength, intellect, high spirit, and all the elements of masculine beauty, I had not seen his equal." The Rev. William Smith, of North Leith Church, writes of a lecture in the winter session of 1837 : "I have heard some of the greatest orators of the day — Lords Derby, Brougham, Lyndhurst ; Peel, O'Connell, Sheil, Follett, Chalmers, Caird, Guthrie, M'Neile; I have heard some of these in their very best styles make some of their most celebrated ap- pearances ; but for popular eloquence, for resistless force, for the seeming inspiration that swayed the soul, and the glowing sympathy that entranced the hearts of his entire audience, that lecture by Professor Wilson far exceeded the loftiest efforts of the best of these I ever listened to." And again : " It was some- thing, moreover, not without value or good effect, to be enabled to contemplate, from day to day through- out a session, the mere outward aspect of one so evidently every inch a man, .nay, a king of men, in whom manly vigour and beauty of person were in such close keeping with all the great qualities of his soul ; the sight at once carried back the youthful student's imagination to the age of ancient heroes and demigods, when higher spirits walked with men on earth, and made an impression on the opening mind of the most genial and ennobling tendency." In an account of Wilson's last year of professional work (session 1850-51), Mr. Alexander Taylor Innes, the gold medallist of that year, writes : " The first thing that every one remarked on entering his class, was 2 B