460 MEMOIR )F JOHN WILSON. 



On Christmas day, 1853, he assembled around him his entire fam- 

 ily, sons and daughters, with their children, to spend the day in his 

 house. It was almost merry. His servant decorated the rooms 

 with evergreens, and one little garland, with touching love, he or- 

 dered to be laid on his wife's picture, which hung over the chimney- 

 piece in his bedroom. He was unable to dine down-stairs, but we 

 visited him after dinner, and rejoiced in the cheerfulness that lighted 

 up his countenance. It seemed a harbinger of coming peace, and we 

 felt no strangeness in wishing him a happy Christmas, nor thought, 

 as we gazed upon that beautiful face, that the snows of another such 

 season would fall upon his grave. My brother John, with his wife 

 and some of his infant family, spent this New Year with him. This 

 was a great happiness ; and for some time the old fervor and anima- 

 tion of his spirit seemed to return. They remaiued with him to the 

 end. There were two subjects he had been wont to dwell on with 

 affecting tenderness — the memory of his wife, and his beautiful 

 home on Windermere. Had they faded from his vision now, or 

 were they only more sacred as sights now connected with the glo- 

 ries of another world, purified in his thoughts from all earthly con- 

 tact, renewed in spirit and in beauty, just as his sight was about to 

 close, and his heart to cease from participation in things here be- 

 low? I cannot say, but the name of "Jane" and of "Elleray" 

 never more escaped his lips. 



Another spring is announced amid sunshine, and the cheerful 

 twittering of birds. Even in towns the beautiful influence of this 

 season is felt, for the very air has caught up the fresh loamy per- 

 fume from the far-off fields, and a feeling of exhilaration is partici- 

 pated in by all creatures. The languid invalid is not indifferent to 

 this emotion, and, with reanimated nature, new life invigorates 

 every sentient being. And so did we hope that this advent of 

 spring would cheer, and for a time console the heart of him whose 

 eyes, yet able to bear the light of day, were often turned from the 

 bed where he lay to the window, as if he wandered again in the 

 f aintness of memory to the freedom of outward nature. But these 

 impulses were gone, and the activity which once bore him gladly 

 along to the merry music of streams " to linger by the silent shores 

 of lochs," rested now forever. On the 1st of April I received a 

 message that my father had become worse. I hurried immediately 

 to Gloucester Place. On entering the room a sad sight caught my 



