George Douglas - The 'Blackwood' Group

He also shared with Sir Walter Scott the love of birds and animals of all kinds, from the dog, Rover – one of many dogs – who, crawling upstairs in its last moments, died with its paw in its master's hand, to the sparrow which inhabited his study for eleven years, and which, boldly perching on his shoulder, would sometimes carry off a hair from his shaggy head to build its nest. In these matters animals have an instinct which rarely misleads them, and that they had good grounds for recognizing a friend in the Professor is proved by the following incident. One afternoon Wilson, then far advanced in life, was observed remonstrating with a carter who was driving an overladen horse through the streets of Edinburgh —

'The carter, exasperated at this interference, took up his whip in a threatening way, as if with intent to strike the Professor. In an instant that well-nerved hand twisted it from the coarse fist of the man, as if it had been a straw, and walking quietly up to the cart he unfastened its trams , and hurled the whole weight of coals into the street. The rapidity with which this was done left the driver of the cart speechless. Meanwhile, poor Rosinante, freed from his burden, crept slowly away, and the Professor, still clutching the whip in one hand, and leading the horse in the other, proceeded through Moray Place to deposit the wretched animal in better keeping than that of his driver.'

'This little episode,' adds the writer, 'is delightfully characteristic of his impulsive nature, and the benevolence of his heart.'

Whilst human nature remains what it is, traits of such broad and genial humanity as this are never out of date; but when we turn from the writer to the writings, it is to find the case altered, and ourselves brought face to face with the devastations of time. In the sense of great and immediate effect produced by his work, Wilson was unquestionably the most brilliant, as – excepting the too-fertile Galt – he was the most prolific, of the group of distinguished authors who are here associated with the publishing-house of Blackwood; yet in vitality, in enduring freshness, such a novel as The Inheritance , such a sea-piece as Tom Cringle's Log , not to speak of such a character-study as The Provost , to-day leaves his work far behind. Of course this is in large measure due to the nature, not to the defects, of that work. North's most distinctive writings were not creative, and in general it is only creative work that lives. The critic's reputation is transitory; Time's revenge deals swiftly, hardly by it; it has none of the phœnix-property of the creator's. Of all our distinguished critical reputations of the last hundred years or so, how many now survive? To-day the critic Johnson is remembered chiefly for blindness, the critic Jeffrey for overweening self-confidence when he was wrong, the critic Macaulay for idle rhetoric and for consistent failure to strike the mark. The appreciator Lamb is almost alone in holding his own. And there is not one reader in a thousand who has time, or cares, for the purely historical task of looking closer, of studying these eminent writers in relation to the age in which they lived, and of estimating accordingly the services which they performed. Christopher North, in so far as he was a critic, has not escaped the common doom. Scattered over the pages of the Noctes , there are no doubt some shrewd and pregnant observations upon writers and upon literature. But these sparse grains of salt are not enough to preserve the general fabric from decay; whilst the more numerous errors of judgment in which his work abounds require no pointing out. As a reviewer North was not lacking in discrimination, as may be seen in the historical though generally misconceived essay on Tennyson; and, granted a really good opportunity – as in the case of that completion of Christabel which was to Martin Tupper the pastime of some idle days – no man knew better how to avail himself of it. The pages signed by him also afford abundant evidence of the gentleness, generosity, and enthusiasm of his spirit. But when so much has been said, what remains to be added? Of stimulus to the reader, of conspicuous insight into the subject discussed, we find but little.

Turning to the essays, collected under the title of 'Recreations of Christopher North,' we sometimes see the author to better advantage, as, for instance, when he dons his 'Sporting Jacket,' and recounts in mock-heroic style the Sportsman's Progress. The subject was one which keenly appealed to him, rousing all the enthusiasm of his perfervid nature, and some very bright and characteristic pages are the result.

His hero is fishing, and has hooked a fish.

'But the salmon has grown sulky, and must be made to spring to the plunging stone. There, suddenly, instinct with new passion, she shoots out of the foam like a bar of silver bullion; and, relapsing into the flood, is in another moment at the very head of the waterfall! Give her the butt – give her the butt – or she is gone for ever with the thunder into ten fathom deep! – Now comes the trial of your tackle – and when was Phin ever known to fail at the edge of cliff or cataract? Her snout is southwards – right up the middle of the main current of the hill-born river, as if she would seek its very source where she was spawned! She still swims swift, and strong, and deep – and the line goes steady, boys, steady – stiff and steady as a Tory in the roar of Opposition. There is yet an hour's play in her dorsal fin – danger in the flap of her tail – and yet may her silver shoulder shatter the gut against a rock. Why, the river was yesterday in spate, and she is fresh run from the sea. All the lesser waterfalls are now level with the flood, and she meets with no impediment or obstruction – the coast is clear – no tree-roots here – no floating branches – for during the night they have all been swept down to the salt loch. In medio tutissimus ibis – ay, now you feel she begins to fail – the butt tells now every time you deliver your right. What! another mad leap! yet another sullen plunge! She seems absolutely to have discovered, or rather to be an impersonation of, the Perpetual Motion. Stand back out of the way, you son of a sea-cook! – you in the tattered blue breeches, with the tail of your shirt hanging out. Who the devil sent you all here, ye vagabonds? – Ha! Watty Ritchie, my man, is that you? God bless your honest laughing phiz! What, Watty, would you think of a Fish like that about Peebles? Tam Grieve never gruppit sae heavy a ane since first he belanged to the Council. – Curse that collie! Ay! well done, Watty! Stone him to Stobbo. Confound these stirks – if that white one, with caving horns, kicking heels, and straight-up tail, come bellowing by between us and the river, then "Madam! all is lost, except honour!" If we lose this Fish at six o'clock, then suicide at seven. Our will is made – ten thousand to the Foundling – ditto to the Thames Tunnel – ha – ha – my Beauty! Methinks we could fain and fond kiss thy silver side, languidly lying afloat on the foam as if all further resistance now were vain, and gracefully thou wert surrendering thyself to death! No faith in female – she trusts to the last trial of her tail – sweetly workest thou, O Reel of Reels! and on thy smooth axle spinning sleep'st, even, as Milton describes her, like our own worthy planet. Scrope – Bainbridge – Maule – princes among Anglers – oh! that you were here! Where the devil is Sir Humphrey? At his retort? By mysterious sympathy – far off at his own Trows, the Kerss feels that we are killing the noblest Fish whose back ever rippled the surface of deep or shallow in the Tweed. Tom Purdy stands like a seer, entranced in glorious vision, beside turreted Abbotsford. Shade of Sandy Govan! Alas! alas! Poor Sandy – why on thy pale face that melancholy smile! – Peter! The Gaff! The Gaff! Into the eddy she sails, sick and slow, and almost with a swirl – whitening as she nears the sand – there she has it – struck right into the shoulder, fairer than that of Juno, Diana, Minerva, or Venus – and lies at last in all her glorious length and breadth of beaming beauty, fit prey for giant or demigod angling before the Flood!'