6 MEMOIR OF JOHN "WILSON. 



pher in his Sporting Jacket," and " May Day." From the latter 

 I cannot resist the quotation of the opening paragraph, perhaps 

 the most beautiful of his many apostrophes to that beloved re- 

 gion : — 



" Art thou beautiful, as of old, O wild, moorland, sylvan, and 

 pastoral Parish ! the Paradise in which our spirit dwelt beneath the 

 glorious dawning of life — can it be, beloved world of boyhood, that 

 thou art indeed beautiful as of old ? Though round and round thy 

 boundaries in half an hour could fly the flapping dove— though the 

 martins, wheeling to and fro that ivied and wall-flowered rum of a 

 castle, central in its own domain, seem in their more distant flight 

 to glance their crescent wings over a vale rejoicing apart in another 

 kirk-spire, yet hoAV rich in streams, and rivulets, and rills, each with 

 its own peculiar murmur, art thou, with thy bold bleak exposure, 

 sloping upwards in ever lustrous undulations to the portals of the 

 East ! How endless the interchange of woods and meadows, glens, 

 dells, and broomy nooks, without number, among thy banks and 

 braes ! And then of human dwellings ! — how rises the smoke, ever 

 and anon, into the sky, all neighboring on each other, so that the 

 cock-crow is heard from homestead to homestead-; while, as you 

 wander onwards, each roof still rises unexpectedly, and as solitary 

 as if it had been far remote. Fairest of Scotland's thousand par- 

 ishes — neither Highland nor Lowland — but undulating — let us again 

 use the descriptive word — like the sea in sunset after a day of storms 

 —yes, Heaven's blessing be upon thee ! Thou art indeed beautiful 

 as of old !" 



Of the precocity of this boy there is evidence enough ; but, unlike 

 most precocious children, he was foremost in the play-ground as 

 well as at the task. With him both work and play were equally 

 enjoyed, and he threw his whole energy into the one or other in 

 its turn. In school he was every inch the scholar ; but when the 

 books were laid aside, and the fresh air played on his bright cheeks, 

 he was king of all sports, the foremost and the maddest in every joc- 

 und enterprise. A pleasant idea of the relation in which the kind 

 minister of the Mearns stood to his pupils, is given in a note from 

 Sir John Maxwell of Pollok, who was a schoolfellow of my father : 



" He was above me in the ranks of the school, in stature, and 

 mental acquirements. I may mention, as an illustration of the 

 energy, activity, and vivacity of his character, that one morning, I 



