'Christopher North ' 

 (Professor John Wilson) 



THERE still lingers a glamour round the name of 

 Christopher North, though to the present generation 

 he is little more than a name " the Shade of that which 

 once was great." Fainter and more shadowy that Shade 

 will grow as, " glimmering through the dreams of things 

 that were," it flits across the path of the future student 

 of English literature, but it will never quite vanish. 

 Scotsmen will take care that the fame of the author 

 of the " Noctes " does not wholly die, for they are a 

 loyal and clannish race, not prone to forget their national 

 worthies, and there will always be some true sportsmen 

 left, I hope, both Scotch and English, who will read with 

 relish the breezy rhapsodies of the " Recreations." 



Perhaps John Wilson's contemporaries who were 

 under the spell of his commanding and extraordinary 

 individuality did more than justice to his fine intellect. 

 But if so, posterity, I think, is likely to go to the other 

 extreme and do him less than justice. For when a man 

 is gifted, as John Wilson was, with a captivating person- 

 ality, in which mental and physical endowments had an 



almost equal share, it is only his contemporaries who 



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