18 MEMOIR OF JOHN WILSON. 



much the niceties of custom ? So people ask and think who knew 

 not Professor Wilson, save out of doors or in print, and who ima- 

 gine that he could never have been otherwise than as they saw him 

 in manhood or age. Bat true it is, that that gentle-looking cavalier 

 represents the John Wilson in whom the deep fires of passion and 

 the hidden riches of imagination lay still comparatively quiescent 

 and undeveloped. For that youth, though he is a bold horseman 

 and a matchless leaper, as well as a capital scholar and a versifier to 

 boot, has not yet had his nature stirred by that which will presently 

 make him talk of life as either bliss ineffable, or wretchedness insuf- 

 ferable. The man whom we know in after life jotting down his 

 lectures on old backs of letters, illegible sometimes to himself, at 

 this time keeps a neat and punctual diary, with its ink rulings for 

 month, and week, and day, and £ s d, all done by his own hand ; 

 the one page containing, under the heading " Appointments, Bills, 

 Memorandums," notes of each day's events, with the state of the 

 weather at the week's end ; the other, its careful double entry of 

 " Received" and " Paid," duly carried over from page to page ; and 

 the expenditure in no single instance exceeding the income. It is 

 altogether an illustration of character that might surprise the unin- 

 itiated even more than Raeburn's portrait. 



As has been said, labor and pleasure seem not unequally to have 

 divided his time. Invitations to dinner, balls, parties, etc., are fre- 

 quently chronicled. A boy of sixteen might be supposed to be 

 somewhat prematurely introduced to those social amenities. But 

 in his case the thing does not seem to have been unnatural, or 

 other than beneficial. No doubt his personal attractions, and a 

 stature above his years, combined with the knowledge of his good 

 prospects in life, made him an object of more attention than would 

 otherwise have been the case. In the heart of this gayety, too, 

 there are indications of marked attention to the ordinary but too 

 often neglected minor duties of society. He makes frequent visits 

 of politeness ; he writes regularly to his mother and sisters ; his 

 respect to his grandmother and other relatives is undeviating, for 

 upon the old lady he waits daily. Order and punctuality, in fact, 

 seem to regulate his minutest affairs, — the more worthy of remark, 

 as in later years these praiseworthy habits were almost entirely laid 

 aside. It will perhaps not be altogether without interest to insert 

 one or two of the entries from this pocket-book, even though mo- 



