Page:Biographical and critical studies by James Thomson ("B.V.").djvu/391

JOHN WILSON 375 thirty-nine by Contents), dating from 1825 to 1835, being wholly Wilson's, various songs excepted, he set forth as a permanent galaxy in the starry heavens of our literature ; and who will may study or restudy the same as a systematic whole in the first four volumes of the said works. Ferrier was a subtle thinker, an accomplished scholar, an acute and independent critic ; but the father of his wife had thrown a glamour over him, as over so many others, and to his eyes every star in that constellation was of the first magni- tude. But we, who never came within the scope of Christopher North's personal influence, and whose youth was scarce touched by his written spells, cannot but discern that the cluster is far less splendid than reported, and far from well-defined — that no one of its stars is of the first or even of the second degree ; that their light is provokingly intermittent, and, at the brightest, rather wavering and diffuse than intense. For his personality, beyond doubt, was exceedingly more potent than his literary genius ; and, while fully admitting and admiring the natural fascination which the former exercised on those with whom he came in contact, we must reserve and exercise our right to distinguish and separate this from the legitimate influence of the latter. In order to clearly explain this, it may be necessary to write somewhat about the man, gathering the facts from the " Memoir" by his daughter, Mrs. Mary Gordon (two vols., Edinburgh : Edmonston and Douglas, 1862). John Wilson was born at Paisley on the i8th May 1785, his father being a wealthy gauze manufacturer; his mother, lineally descended by the female side from the great Marquis of Montrose, a stately lady, of