Page:Biographical and critical studies by James Thomson ("B.V.").djvu/407

JOHN WILSON 391 in public meeting to raise a memorial to him ; and John Steell was commissioned to execute a bronze statue, ten feet in height, with a suitable pedestal, to be placed at the north-west corner of East Princes Street Gardens. In the year following his death, that other monu- ment to his memory, the edition of his works, was begun by Professor Ferrier. Comprehensive as it is, in- cluding " Noctes," essays, critiques, tales, poems, some important series of articles are omitted, as those on Spenser and " Specimens of the British Critics." Of the latter Mrs. Gordon says : " Those papers, along with too many of equal power and greater interest, have found jealous protection within the ceinture of Blackwood's pages, and seem destined to a fate which ought only to belong to the meagre works of mediocrity." It is natural that a loving and revering daughter should wish as much as possible of her father's writing collected in a permanent form ; but we may safely assume that Messrs. Blackwood were and are very willing to republish anything in demand, and we are sure that Ferrier was not the man to leave out anything of enduring interest. So we take it that our busy world in general is quite satisfied, if not over satisfied, with the dozen rather closely printed volumes ; and we venture to remind Mrs. Gordon that permanent form by no means secures permanent perusal. Ferrier, indeed, as we have already remarked, was fascinated and overpowered by the personal mag- netism of his father-in-law into a stupor of admira- tion, which, with all our hearty respect for both, we cannot help feeling is very comical. Thus, writing of the principal personages of the "Noctes," he calmly