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 ****** 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.
I recall that upon one occasion, having lost an Elzevir at a book auction, I was afflicted with melancholia to such a degree that Ihad to take to my bed. Upon my physician's arrival he made, as is his custom, a careful inquiry into my condition and into the causes inducing it. Finally, ``You are afflicted,'' said Dr.
O'Rell, ``with the megrims, which, fortunately, is at present confined to the region of the Pacchionian depressions of the sinister parietal. I shall administer Father Prout's `Rogueries of Tom Moore' (pronounced More) and Kit North's debate with the Ettrick Shepherd upon the subject of sawmon. No other remedy will prove effective.''
The treatment did, in fact, avail me, for within forty-eight hours I was out of bed, and out of the house; and, what is better yet, I picked up at a bookstall, for a mere song, a first edition of ``Special Providences in New England''!
Never, however, have I wholly ceased to regret the loss of the Elzevir, for an Elzevir is to me one of the most gladdening sights human eye can rest upon. In his life of the elder Aldus, Renouard says: ``How few are there of those who esteem and pay so dearly for these pretty editions who know that the type that so much please them are the work of Francis Garamond, who cast them one hundred years before at Paris.''
