The Sun.
London, England, 1854-04-04 00:00:00

DEATH OF PROFESSOR WILSON.

(From the CaledonianMercury of yesterday.)
With the same sincere and profound sorrow in which
we write—Scotland, and many a place far away from it,
will hear—that Professor Wilson is no more with us.
That great and good heart stirs. not again on earth.
Professor Wilson diet this morning at ten minutes after
midnight. We cannot, at this hour, venture to give
feeble utterance to that grief which a nation will feel at
the de, arture of one whose name has been to the pre-
sent generation of men familiar as a household word. We
must reluctantly to-day simply record a sad event, which
deprives our country of a bright glory, while it bequeaths
to it a memory which will not merely be cherished as a na-
tional honour, but be dear to the homeliest and truest of
fectioas of thousands wherever they may dwell. The son
of an extensive manufacturer in Paisley, he was born in
the year 1788, and was thus in his 65th year. At the
age of 13 he commenced his studies at the University of
Glasgow, and continued them for four years after at
Magdalen College,. Oxford, where the genius of which
he was possessed soon manifested itself, and enabled him,
among other houours, to carry off the Newdegate prize
for an English poem. At the end of that period he lett
Oxford, and having purchased the estate of Eileray,
beautifully situated on the Windermere, he found, fur a
time, in the picturesque beauty of the district, something
to minister to hiss naturally high poetic temperament.
He was at this time distinguished by that fine physical de-
velopment on which, even till lately, years produced but
little effect, and which, among his college friends, had
acquired for him so much pre-etninence in all the athletic
exercises in which they engaged. Having been obliged,
however, through some reverses, to abandon his roman-
tic retreat, and, all).tfie Chairris—the society of Words-
worth included—who endeared it to him, he came to
Edinburgh, and after passing Advocate, commenced that
connection with Blackwood's Magazine, which, for
years after, identified him with all the brilliant fancy
and exquisite taste with which its pages were adorned.
The productions of his eloquent pen were in 1842
published in a collected form, under the title of " Re-
creations of Christopher North," and which, in many
respects, manifest that true poetry with which his other
works were characterised. The chief of these are
the " Isle of Paints," anil the " City of the Plague," the
former published in 1812, and the latter in 1816. Soon
aster this he was app'inted to the chair of Moral Philo-
sophy in our University, and by the fervid energy of his
character, and the impassioned eloquence with which
his lectures were characterised, shed a lustre around it
which will long continue to :old to its pre-eminent cele-
brity among the other academic in,titutions. He con•
tinued in the office till the close of the session of 1850.51,
when advancing years and declining health compelled
him to resign. Rest and retirement brought, however,
little relief ; the sail had evidently set for ever, and now
he has sunk into the grave to be honoured for ages to
come regretted wherever the E ig:ish languaga is
known.