r 86 mSEJV B V I'jiRSE VERANCE. 



old man of might, with his lion heart and sceptred crutch, 

 Christopher North ? I am glad to remember the time when I 

 believed him to be a real, actual, veritable old gentleman, that 

 might be seen any day hobbling along the High Street, with 

 the most brilliant eye — but that is no fiction — and the greyest 

 hair in all the world; who wrote not because he cared to 

 write, not because he cared for the wonder and admiration of 

 his fellow-men, but who wrote because he could not help it, 

 because there was always springing up in his mind a clear 

 and sparkling stream of poetry which must have vent, and, 

 like the glittering fountain in the fairy tale, draw what you 

 might, was ever at the full, and never languished even by a 

 single drop or bubble. I had so figured him in my mind, and, 

 when I saw the Professor two days ago, striding along the 

 Parliament House, I was disposed to take it as a personal 

 offence : I was vexed to see him look so hearty. I drooped 

 to see twenty Christophers in one. I began to think that 

 Scottish life was all light and no shadows, and I began to doubt 

 that beautiful book to which I have turned again and again, 

 always to find new beauties and fresh sources of interest.* 



In proposing the memory of the late Sir David Wilkie, Mr. 

 Dickens said : — 



* Less fortunate than the two gentlemen who have preceded 

 me, it is confided to me to mention a name which cannot be 

 pronounced without sorrow, a name in which Scotland had a 

 great triumph, and which England delighted to honour. One 

 of the gifted of the earth has passed away, as it were, 

 yesterday; one who was devoted to his art, and his art was 

 nature — I mean David Wilkie. He was one who made the 

 cottage hearth a graceful thing — of whom it might truly be 

 said that he found " books in the running brooks," and who has 



