Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 62.djvu/115

 wood [q. v.] himself, and that, contrary to the general belief at the time, neither Wilson nor Lockhart was ever entrusted with editorial functions. The first six numbers had appeared as ‘The Edinburgh Monthly Magazine,’ under the nominal conduct of James Cleghorn [q. v.] and Thomas Pringle [q. v.] The endeavours of these gentlemen to make themselves something more than editors by courtesy speedily estranged them from Blackwood; they seceded to the rival publisher Constable, and Blackwood organised a new staff, of which Wilson and John Gibson Lockhart [q. v.] were the most conspicuous members. Seldom has so great a sensation been produced by a periodical as that which attended their first number (October 1817), overflowing with boisterous humour and at the same time with party and personal malignity to a degree to which Edinburgh society was utterly unused. Besides attacks on Coleridge and Leigh Hunt, able and telling, but disgraceful to the writers, the number contained the renowned ‘Chaldee Manuscript’ (afterwards suppressed), which was in fact a satire, in the form of biblical parody, upon the rival publisher and his myrmidons. The authorship was claimed by James Hogg [q. v.], the ‘Ettrick Shepherd;’ but Professor Ferrier authentically states that, although Hogg conceived the original idea, not more than forty out of the 180 verses are actually from his pen. It may be added that the British Museum possesses a proof-sheet with numerous additions suggested in manuscript by Hogg, not one of which was adopted.

‘Blackwood,’ now fairly launched, pursued a headlong and obstreperous but irresistible course for many years. Wilson's overpowering animal spirits and Lockhart's deadly sarcasm were its main supports, but ‘The Leopard’ and ‘The Scorpion’ were powerfully assisted by the ‘Ettrick Shepherd,’ by William Maginn [q. v.], and Robert Pearse Gillies [q. v.] No one but Blackwood himself, however, can bear a general responsibility; his correspondence with Wilson in the latter's life shows how invaluable he was to his erratic contributor, and also what friction often existed between them. The attacks on Keats and Leigh Hunt, applauded at the time, were in after days justly regarded as dark blots on the magazine. Wilson assuredly was not responsible, and may even be deemed to have atoned for them by the enthusiastic yet discriminating encomiums of Shelley in the articles he wrote at this time, under the inspiration, as now known, of De Quincey, an old associate in the lake district. These were days of fierce exasperation on all sides, and much allowance should be made for the attitude of ‘Blackwood,’ which was nevertheless disapproved even in friendly quarters. Jeffrey was driven to renounce all literary connection with Wilson; and Murray, though the publisher of the tory ‘Quarterly,’ gave up his interest in the magazine. An unprovoked attack by Lockhart on the venerable Professor John Playfair [q. v.] was especially resented. Wilson's temperament continually carried him beyond bounds. His correspondence with Blackwood reveals him as at least once in a condition of abject terror at having committed himself, not from any fear of personal consequences, but from the perception that he had spoken in a manner impossible to justify of men whom he really revered.

During 1819 Wilson left his mother's roof and removed with his wife and family to a small house of his own in Ann Street, where Watson Gordon was his immediate neighbour, and where he also enjoyed the society of Raeburn and Allan. Next year the chair of moral philosophy in Edinburgh University fell vacant, and Wilson, who had no obvious qualification and many obvious disqualifications, was elected by the town council over the greatest philosopher in Britain, Sir William Hamilton, by twenty-one votes to nine, given him on the one sufficient ground that he was a tory [see art. ]. Having so freely assailed others, his own reputation was not likely to pass unassailed through the excitement of the contest. His wife ‘could not give any idea of the meanness and wickedness of the whigs if she were to write a ream of paper;’ and Wilson found it necessary to get not only his literature but his morals attested by Mrs. Grant of Laggan as well as Sir Walter Scott. Opinion on the other side is summed up by James Mill, when he says, writing to Macvey Napier, ‘The one to whom you allude makes me sick to think of him.’ The appointment was certainly an improper one, but turned out much better than could have been expected. ‘He made,’ says Professor Saintsbury, ‘a very excellent professor, never perhaps attaining to any great scientific knowledge in his subject or power of expounding it, but acting on generation after generation of students with a stimulating force that is far more valuable than the most exhaustive knowledge of a particular topic.’ It is only to be regretted that his professorship was not one of English literature. There he would have been entirely at home; his geniality, magnanimity, and ardent appreciation of everything which he admired would have found an eager response from