1 84 ffctngs of tbe 1Rofc, IRffle, anfc (Bun 



justify that excellent old lady, Mrs. Grant, of Laggan, 

 in making the following remarks, when in writing to 

 a friend she burst forth upon the eccentricities of the 

 young poet : 



" Did I ever tell you of one of the said poets we 

 have in town here indeed one of our intimates the 

 most provoking creature imaginable? He is young, 

 handsome, witty ; has great learning, exuberant spirits, 

 a wife and children that he doats on (circumstances 

 one would think consolidating), and no vice that I 

 know of, but on the contrary, virtuous principles and 

 feelings. Yet his wonderful eccentricity would put 

 anybody but his wife wild. She, I am convinced, was 

 actually made on purpose for her husband, and has 

 that kind of indescribable controlling influence over 

 him that Catherine is said to have had over that 

 wonderful savage, the Czar Peter. 



Pray look at the last Edinburgh Review, and read 

 the favourable article on John Wilson's ' City of the 

 Plague.' He is the person in question." 



In July, 1820, John Wilson was appointed Professor 

 of Moral Philosophy at Edinburgh University, a post 

 which brought him an average income of about .1,000 

 a year during the thirty years for which he held it. His 

 eloquent and discursive lectures, lacking though they 

 were in logic and philosophy, were a delight to the 

 students, who worshipped their Professor as the very 

 embodiment of "god-like manhood." 



Two years later he burst upon the literary world as 

 " Christopher North," the creator of the " Noctes 

 Ambrosianae," which made the fortune of Blackwood's 



