400 



MEMOIR OF JOHN WILSON. 



dlestick. What his fancy for this was I cannot say, but he never 

 did, and would not, make use of any other. 



From 1840 to 1845 there were only two papers contributed by 

 him to Blackwood, viz., the review of Leigh Hunt's Legend of 

 Florence, already spoken of, and a laudatory criticism of Macaulay's 

 Lays of Ancient Home. The latter appeared in December, 1 842. 

 This cessation from labor arose in the first instance from a paralytic 

 affection of his right hand, which attacked him in May, 1840, and 

 disabled him for nearly a year. It was the first warning he received 

 that his great strength and wonderful constitution lay under the 

 same law as that which commands the weakest. Writing thence- 

 forward became irksome, and the characters traced by his pen are 

 almost undecipherable. This attack gradually wore away, but it 

 was during its continuance, and for years after, that he imposed 

 upon himself rules of total abstinence from wine and every kind of 

 stimulant. Toast and water was the only beverage of which he 

 partook. 



I have nothing more to relate of this time, nor are there any other 

 traces of literary occupation beyond that belonging directly to his 

 College duties. The remaining portion of this year must be per- 

 mitted to pass in silence ; and not again till the summer of 1841, is 

 there a trace of any thing but what belongs to a retired and quiet life. 



In June, 1841, he presided at a large public dinner given in honor 

 of Mr. Charles Dickens,* and immediately afterwards started for 

 the Highlands. The following letter to Mr. Findlay recalls recol- 

 lections of that delightful tour. I was then with him at Rothesay, 

 as his communication shows, on occasion of a melancholy nature, 

 which, however, at that period did not result as was anticipated, 

 and left the summer months free from any other sorrow than that 

 of anxiety. Mrs. Gordon rallied for a time, and was well enough 

 to bear removal to Edinburgh in the autumn, but the sad condition 

 in which she was brought friends around her, of whom my father 

 was one ; and on one of these visits to Rothesay, he made from 

 thence a short detour by Inverary and Loch Awe, taking me with 

 him, along with his eldest son John. 



" Eothesat, Thursday Night, 

 July 1, 1841. 

 " My dear Robert : — Gordon and I left Edinburgh suddenly by 



* Reported in Scotsman, June 26, 1841 



