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Page 39
I do not see what Miss Susan can possibly do with all this
trumpery in the hereafter, but, if I survive her, I shall
certainly insist upon a compliance with her wishes, even though
it involve the erection of a tumulus as prodigious as the pyramid
of Cheops.
XIV
ELZEVIRS AND DIVERS OTHER MATTERS
Boswell's ``Life of Johnson'' and Lockhart's ``Life of Scott''
are accepted as the models of biography. The third remarkable
performance in this line is Mrs. Gordon's memoir of her father,
John Wilson, a volume so charmingly and tenderly written as to be
of interest to those even who know and care little about that era
in the history of English literature in which ``crusty
Christopher'' and his associates in the making of ``Blackwood's''
figured.
It is a significant fact, I think, that the three greatest
biographers the world has known should have been Scotch; it has
long been the fashion to laugh and to sneer at what is called
Scotch dulness; yet what prodigies has not Scotch genius
performed in every department of literature, and would not our
literature be poor indeed to-day but for the contributions which
have been made to it by the very people whom we affect to deride?
John Wilson was one of the most interesting figures of a time
when learning was at a premium; he was a big man amongst big men,
and even in this irreverential time genius uncovers at the
mention of his name. His versatility was astounding; with equal
facility and felicity he could conduct a literary symposium and a
cock-fight, a theological discussion and an angling expedition, a
historical or a political inquiry and a fisticuffs.
Nature had provided him with a mighty brain in a powerful body;
he had a physique equal to the performance of what suggestion
soever his splendid intellectuals made. To him the incredible
feat of walking seventy miles within the compass of a day was
mere child's play; then, when the printer became clamorous, he
would immure himself in his wonderful den and reel off copy until
that printer cried ``Hold; enough!'' It was no unusual thing
for him to write for thirteen hours at a stretch; when he worked
he worked, and when he played he played--that is perhaps the
reason why he was never a dull boy.
Wilson seems to have been a procrastinator. He would put off his
task to the very last moment; this is a practice that is common
with literary men--in fact, it was encouraged by those who were
regarded as authorities in such matters anciently. Ringelbergius
gave this advice to an author under his tuition:
``Tell the printers,'' said he, ``to make preparations for a work
you intend writing, and never alarm yourself about it because it
is not even begun, for, after having announced it you may without
difficulty trace out in your own head the whole plan of your work
and its divisions, after which compose the arguments of the
chapters, and I can assure you that in this manner you may
furnish the printers daily with more copy than they want. But,
remember, when you have once begun there must be no flagging till
the work is finished.''
The loyalty of human admiration was never better illustrated than
in Shelton Mackenzie's devotion to Wilson's genius. To Mackenzie
we are indebted for a compilation of the ``Noctes Ambrosianae,''
edited with such discrimination, such ability, such learning, and
such enthusiasm that, it seems to me, the work must endure as a
monument not only to Wilson's but also to Mackenzie's genius.
I have noticed one peculiarity that distinguishes many admirers
of the Noctes: they seldom care to read anything else; in the
Noctes they find a response to the demand of every mood. It is
much the same way with lovers of Father Prout. Dr. O'Rell
divides his adoration between old Kit North and the sage of
Watergrass Hill. To be bitten of either mania is bad enough;
when one is possessed at the same time of a passion both for the
Noctes and for the Reliques hopeless indeed is his malady! Dr.
O'Rell is so deep under the spell of crusty Christopher and the
Corkonian pere that he not only buys every copy of the Noctes and
of the Reliques he comes across, but insists upon giving copies
of these books to everybody in his acquaintance. I have even
known him to prescribe one or the other of these works to
patients of his.
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