Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 62.djvu/92

 she characterises the three years spent with them as without serious interests or much religion. But, as is shown by the character of her writings, the frivolities of this period had little effect on her deeply religious mind. In 1823 she commenced bringing out the ‘Assistant of Education,’ a periodical publication edited and almost wholly written by herself. In a letter to her brother in 1826 she says that six numbers of her magazine are ordered monthly for his majesty's library. It filled ten volumes. ‘The Listener’ (2 vols.), the work by which she is best known, was compiled from the ‘Assistant of Education,’ and contains moral essays and tales on such subjects as education, conduct, and practical religion. It passed through thirteen editions between 1830, the date of the first edition, and 1863, was printed in America, and translated into French (Paris, 1844). In 1831 she visited Paris, and in that year married Mr. Wilson. After her marriage she lived at Blackheath and Woolwich. She continued to write hymns and religious books. ‘Christ our Example’ (3rd ed. 1832) had nine editions between its first appearance and 1873; in a preface to the ninth edition Canon Christopher gives it the highest praise. Of her hymns the best known are ‘For what shall I praise Thee, my God and my King,’ and ‘Often the clouds of deepest woe.’ She died at Tunbridge Wells on 17 Sept. 1846.

Her portrait, painted in 1827 by Sir Thomas Lawrence, shows her to have been a very handsome woman. An engraving of her portrait by H. Robinson forms the frontispiece of the ‘Autobiography’ edited by her husband in 1848.

Other works by Mrs. Wilson are:
 * 1) ‘A Poetical Catechism,’ 1821; 5th ed. 1857.
 * 2) ‘Serious Poetry,’ 1822; 2nd ed. 1823.
 * 3) ‘Death, and other Poems,’ 1823.
 * 4) ‘The Scripture Reader's Guide,’ 1828; 16th ed. 1849; new edition, 1864 (this is part of the ‘Assistant of Education’).
 * 5) ‘Scripture Principles of Education,’ 1833; 4th ed. 1839; new edition, 1864.
 * 6) ‘The Gospel of the Old Testament,’ 1834.
 * 7) ‘Daily Scripture Readings,’ 1835; 2nd ed. 1840.
 * 8) ‘The Table of the Lord,’ 1837.
 * 9) ‘Gatherings,’ 1839, 1849.
 * 10) ‘The Listener’ in Oxford, 1839, 1840.
 * 11) ‘A Word to Women,’ 1840.
 * 12) ‘Christ our Law,’ 1842; 9th ed. 1893.
 * 13) ‘Sunday Afternoons at Home,’ 1844; 2nd ed. 1847.
 * 14) ‘The Great Commandment,’ 1847.



WILSON, CHARLES HEATH (1809–1882), art teacher and author, eldest son of (1780–1848) [q. v.], the landscape-painter, was born in London in September 1809. He studied art under his father, and in 1826 accompanied him to Italy. After seven years, he returned to Edinburgh, where he practised as an architect, and was for some time teacher of ornament and design in the school of art. His pictorial work was principally landscape in watercolour, but he also etched a number of book illustrations, of which the more important are in Pifferi's ‘Viaggio Antiquario’ (Roma, 1832), and James Wilson's ‘Voyage round the Coasts of Scotland’ (Edinburgh, 1842). In 1835 he was elected A.R.S.A., but resigned in 1858. While in Edinburgh he wrote and published, in collaboration with [q. v.], a pamphlet (addressed to Lord Meadowbank) upon ‘The Best Means of ameliorating the Arts and Manufactures of Scotland,’ which attracted much attention. A copy in the British Museum is annotated by Wilson himself. Shortly afterwards Dyce was made director and secretary of the recently established schools of art at Somerset House, but resigned in 1843; and Wilson, who had meanwhile been director of the Edinburgh school, was appointed his successor. His position there was not much more comfortable than Dyce's had been, and in 1848 he also resigned, but the following year accepted the headmastership of the new Glasgow school of design. In 1840 he had visited the continent to make a report to government on fresco-painting, and while in Glasgow he was occupied for nearly ten years under the board of trade in superintending the filling of the windows of Glasgow Cathedral with Munich pictures in coloured glass. He selected the subjects and wrote a description of the work (prefaced by some account of the process), which went through many editions. In 1864 the board of trade masterships were suppressed and Wilson was pensioned, but continued to live in Glasgow for some years longer, doing architectural work. In 1869 he and his family finally left Scotland and settled at Florence, where he became the life and centre of a large literary and artistic circle. Much interested in Italian art, on which he wrote occasionally, and particularly in Michael Angelo, of whom he published a life (London and Florence, 1876; 2nd edit. London, 1881), which, begun as a compilation from Gotti, developed into a quite independent work, ‘enriched with not a few ingenious criticisms,’ he had, for these and other services, the cross of the ‘Corona d'Italia’ conferred upon him by Victor