256 MEMOIR OF JOHN WILSON. 



as when he spoke of Alexander, clay-cold at Babylon, with the 

 world lying conquered around his tomb, or of the Highland hills, 

 that pour the rage of cataracts adown their riven cliffs, or even 

 of the human mind, with its ' primeval granitic truths,' the grand 

 old face flushed with the proud thought, and the eyes grew dim 

 with tears, and tho magnificent frame quivered with a universal 

 emotion. 



" It was something to have seen Professor Wilson — this all con- 

 fessed ; but it was something also, and more than is generally un- 

 derstood, to have studied under him." 



CHAPTER XI. 



LITERARY AND DOMESTIC LIFE. 

 1820-'26. 



In July, 1819, the following announcement appeared in the Book- 

 lists : " In the press, ' Lays from Fairy Land,' by John Wilson, au- 

 thor of 'The Isle of Palms,' " etc. 



" Doth grief e'er sleep in a Fairy's breast ? 

 Are Dirges sung in the land of Rest ? 

 Tell us, when a Fairy dies, 

 Hath she funeral obsequies ? 

 Are all dreams there, of woe and mirth, 

 That trouble and delight on earth?" 



In the Magazine for January, 1820, one of these lays was pub- 

 lished, and it seemed as if the formula, "in the press," really meant 

 something was then preparing for publication, which I believe is all 

 that it generally conveys to the initiated. Beyond that, however, 

 the Lays, if ever in the press, did not show themselves out of it* 

 From dreams of Fairy Land the author had been roused to the un- 



* Unless I except a previous poem, "The Fairies, a Dreamlike Remembrance of a Dream," in 

 the Magazine for April, 1818, with the signature of N., evidently his. The subject was a favorite 

 one with him. In one of his Essays there is a very beautiful and fanciful description of a fairies' 

 burial. 



