44 Cbrtstopbcr IKortb" 167 



that faults like these did not in the least detract from 

 her general character. Our delight, when she did 

 absolutely, and positively, and bona fide go off, was in 

 proportion to the comparative rarity of that occurrence ; 

 and as to hanging fire why we used to let her take her 

 own time, contriving to keep her at the level as long as 

 our strength sufficed, eyes shut perhaps, teeth clenched, 

 face girning, and head slightly averted over the right 

 shoulder, till Muckle-mou'd Meg, who like most other 

 Scottish females, took things leisurely, went off at last 

 with an explosion like the blowing up of a rock." 



From the Manse John Wilson went to Glasgow 

 University. There is a portrait of him by Raeburn at 

 this period of his life in the Scottish National Gallery at 

 Edinburgh, which represents him as a slender youth 

 with something of the dandy in his dress and air. It 

 seems almost incredible that this neatly garbed stripling 

 in the faultless coat and natty top boots could ever have 

 developed into the big, careless, slovenly Christopher 

 picturesque indeed in his slovenliness, but, as Mrs. 

 Oliphant says, " the very impersonation of irregularity, 

 careless prodigality of strength, and want of system." 

 His contemporaries at Glasgow describe him as a model 

 of method and tidiness. Those virtues he seems to have 

 sloughed at Oxford and come out in his true skin of the 

 real Bohemian hue. 



By the death of his father he was left master of an 

 unencumbered fortune of 50,000, and was therefore 

 able to cut a dashing figure as gentleman-commoner of 

 Magdalen. Legends of his athletic prowess are still 

 preserved. As leaper, boxer, and pedestrian he had no 



