The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser. — Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1855-08-21 00:00:00

'.510 N--4f 771 E GRRAis OF THE BEAUTIFUL. Se&N he it t he germs of the beautiful ! By waysidetwa let them fall, I'llat the emay spring by the gate, ,ked the vine on the garden wall. 'ever% of earth u. e rough and the rude dud"lth a veil of leaves and flowers, lUark w ith the o pening bud and cup The mar ch of the s ummer hours. Scatter the g e rms of th e b eautiful L , the he shrine of home ; et the pure I u the i a nd the fair, and the graceful there Lea se r lovel ie st lustre come. not a tr ace or d e f ormity ~ In the trace of th e heart, 1114 gather abo ut its h earth the gems C I nature a nd of art. matter th e tem m the The --, .. ells of the beautiful ples of our God— tv;:nGad who e rredst the uplifted sky, wand dowered e tme sod. en fie built a temple for 4 ale tor Rig priestly race, , " curs arch in symmetry, each He reared eachmetry, 4ed e ach line in g race. Scitt e -r the charms of the beautiful theTha depths of the human soul, weY,,,llall bud a n d bl ossom and bear the fruit, pi a 'qe the endless a ges roll. T T Nth the flowers of charity A., ePOrtals of the tomb, 'N the fair and pure Q about thy path ~:zdise shall blo om ! ~„...._ ft g e % C'Fsv•'s.l4 ° age to tolv ra n t fig. A o# l r' R E T'IE ws. • rf' goi""l6u of Fed' ilson, of the University Edited by his Son-in-Law, ?ti 111 er• Edi n b urg h an d London : 114 1 1.i ot kell, aefly%vood and Sons. hltn an 411 Y, of r ecen t ti mes , h ave con ettiae,Rual degree with Professor Wilson uathi 1k1 ) . e a healtpith h i ng and maintaining n our liberal, and independent tone, to lby , s kia el e t : lll ,,„Y generous feeling, purity of taleV °ll der e Z°ll of sentiment. Peculiarly entaldis and v igour of intellect, versatility ! ei Pliti„ ar 'reaching genius, by severe exei ej 7.d a large amount of intellectual car eer f ro l ti l lg an important sway among ion an early date in his dis -10. 4 40 4 eel ' was accorded a prominent , 4 4d g th e . gle e eminent literary men . of his f fo rt :ge, w a . r e, he had passed the period o 14 -1110 %t r ; ~°Y universal consent raised to letil a nd bv -/a is t' of those by whose mental t" ll ,! l, th e "i i ;, 4 e, exercise of whose c . ommand- N Like lellectual character of his country a 3 4 to be sustained and elevated. '4l "° the wel l as bold and searching in 1: , o& ttu iPeret e nsions of others, he was not 11046 cu promising i n th e scru tiny of 1 11 . tie 4 ; 1 7 4tt' aek a ticl while intrepidly leading the ,to eae o „,, ll pon ignorant pretence, he was q i cs(lefa t - 3. ging to merit, particularly if i n ' ati v While showing no quarter to 111 1)1 V et. f°llll it exhibited its distasteful ' ilkea et. Wilson virtue and innocence tnl ti et with an earnest advocate, and ,41tited fro va.liant champion. teekilfaetli„lafancy amidst the luxury derived /4 ) , success, and lulled into a - the easy carelessness of affluence, SUPPLEMENT TO rquoi e...-•tantrartll* AND GENERAL COMMERCIAL ADVERTISER. his too confiding nature presented him a ready victim on the altar of commercial vicissitude ; ere he had ceased to be a youth his fortune was swept away, and in early manhood he was tossed upon the ocean of life, dependent, under God's good providence alone, solely upon his intellectual resources. The opening scenes of his public life, unlike those which heralded and hallowed its close, were cast among the tumults of political contention ; and in the rough warfare of party strife the youthful Titan was schooled in the varied tactics of intellectual battle. In this try ing arena, where every combatant is necessitated to hold his own, by the exercise of individual prowess, without doubt he acquired much of that habit of self-reliance which, although natural to the man, was nevertheless developed and strength ened by the almost ceaseless contests in which he was engaged. Shortly after the close of the great European war, before men had forgotten the art of maintaining opinion by the sword, and long ere the expression of political differences had been modulated to the cadences of peace, Wilson, then full of the animation derived from rectitude of purpose and exuberant manhood, joined that valiant band of intellectual warriors who planned and constructed Blackwood's Magazine, as a citadel for the defence of constitutional liberty, and as an asylum for literary freedom—both threatened with subversion by the conventional liberalism of the Whigs. In the van of those political and literary champions, with whom he was thus associated, he maintained his place of pride during many years - of anxious conflict, sus tained on their part with such resolution and suc cess, that long before his sun had reached its setting point in the horizon, its radiance illu minated a serene and cloudless sky, in which the turbulent explosions of party wrath had given place to the comparatively whispered zephyrs of merely disputed opinion. The life of such a man, as that is to be read in his works, must necessarily form a valuable chapter in the history of the human mind ; and such a chapter is offered to contemplation in the collected series, the first volume of which is now under considera tion. In these remarks, however, we must not be mis taken as meaning to depict Professor Wilson merely as a political gladiator. On the contrary, his warfare embraced the wide circle of intellec tual strife. Finding the action of a pseudo liberalism sapping the foundations of our consti tution, undermining the stately fabric of our reli gious institutions, and poisoning with its moral pestilence the well-spring and fountain-head of our literature, he and his indomitable companions waged war, uncompromising war, against the insidious monster ; traced him through every tortuous zig-zag of approach, chased him back into his slimy cavern, and there shut him up to perish in his rottenness. This victory achieved, while unrelaxing in his watchfulness, Professor Wilson omitted no opportunity of fostering virtue, encouraging goodness, and upholding worth ; he was untiring in his efforts for the advancement of genius, and even amid the ha rassing cares of laborious duty, he found or made opportunity to forward the general intel lectual advancement of his time. In all such enterprises his name was a tower of strength, and in favour of them his energies were freely drawn upon, and kis efforts were as freely accorded. His fancy was rich and teeming, his eloquence glowing and fervid, and both were at all times willingly as well as ably devoted to the further ance of those views which his conscience told him were the right ones. For upwards of a quarter of a century he was foremost in the strife of knowledge against ignorance, of truth against insidious error ; and probably in no instance was his advocacy more efficiently wielded than in his " imaginary colloquies," as Professor Ferrier calls them, entitled the " Noctes Ambrosianx." In these charming dialogues nearly every topic falling within the range of literary, artistic, and political discussion is freely entered upon, and handled with the ability and liberality of genius. Each subject is analyzed with the dexterity of the moral anatomist, scanned by the tutored eye of the scholar, and scrutinized by the searching glance of the philosopher. Criticism the most searching and subtle, directed towards men and things, are their characteristics. In them the author evokes a train of thought, lively and varied, and invigorating as the breezes which fan the hill-sides and sweep the valleys of his native mountains. They are rich in their ceaseless spring of sparkling wit, delightful in their flow ing stream of genial humour, and resistless in their rolling tide of healthy merriment ; all tem pered and attuned by kindliness of disposition and a manly benevolence of heart. To republish such mental. achievements as those embalmed in the " Noctes Ambrosianse " of Professor Wilson is to confer a boon upon the age which it will not be slow to recognise. The revision of these dialogues has been entrusted to Professor Ferrier, the accomplished son-in-law of their gifted author ; a gentleman whose congeniality of sentiment, added to his affectionate personal intimacy with the author, pointed him out as peculiarly fitted for the task ; a task which he has performed with a degree of skill and with a careful tenderness for Professor Wilson's reputation which fully vindicates his title to the trust reposed in him. He has dis charged his duty faithfully in the preservation of a pure and well-assorted text, which he has enriched by judicious explanatory notes. He has also contributed a prefatory essay, in which he gives a scholarly analysis of these admirable dia logues, in which the wit and eloquence of Pro fessor Wilson shine with so glorious a lustre, so bright a radiance—a brilliancy which none who knew Professor Wilson can fail to recognise in the idealized and portly gravity which hallows the stately eloquence of Christopher North ; in whom also they must at once perceive that noble personal dignity of demeanour, that generaliza tion of mild and lofty kindness, which were so peculiarly and instinctively characteristic of the Professor, whose harmonised grandeur of feature and expression is perpetuated only, so far as we know, in the noble bust of him executed about ten years ago by Fillans, for the Mechanics' In stitution of Paisley, of which locality both the bard and the artist were natives. This magnifi cent bust, one of the finest of modern times, now adorns the library of that institution, and in its massive lineaments and contour, the connoisseur will readily trace much of the instinctive gran-