Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1854-11-27
Gbe 1ailr spp.'
MONDAY, NOVEMBER ~, 1854.
Nocies Ambrosian1,

ply, learning, criticism, sentiment, art and
genius, ostensibly issuing from tavern. The
authors of the Noctes did no profess that it was
series of pictures, painted in an ambrosial
dreamland but simply that it was the con-
versational pastime of wits, poets, politicians,
and scholars, who ate turkey and drank toddy
in AmbIoses. Ambrose was an Englishman,
famous in the Scottish capital, for his cuisine
and cookery. Forty years ago, his tavern was
in Gabriel's road, in the vicinity of the Ban
ker Hill of Edinburgh; latterly, he spread his
board and held court in Leith Walk, near to
classic region of Picardy Place. Fame report
eth, that John Wilson, Robert Syme, James
Hogg, ]. G. Lockhart, DIR. Maginn, and others
Of the staff of Blackwood, " forgathered Gas
Burns hath it, once upon a time" in Am
brose's to spend merry evening; and from
this solitary occasion, issued those glorious
noctes of the imagination, which now take
their place among the British classics.
Every remarkable epoch in history, has
been remarkable epoch in literature. The
English Commonwealth is n more glorious
for having produced its Cromwell, than for
having produced its Milton. The thrill Of the
American Revolution, not only awakened the
Girondists and Jacobins Of France into polit-
itical life, but it armed Germany, and Britain
with the hostile pens of the most brilliant ar
ray of genius that Europe ever saw. Mira
beau, Vergnieau, aud Bonaparte, are no more
representatives of the Revolution, than Vol
taire, DeStael, Goethe, Burke, and Macintosh.
The electric fash of the Revolution, infused
into the sword of the soldier, and the pen of
the thinker, its own terrible force. Tradition
and progress struggled in mortal combat, not
only at the barricades, but in books. The fau-
bourg st. Antoine, and the fauborug st. Ger
man met in the streets, one armed with the
iron hook of the rag-picker, the other with the
rapier of thenoble ; the ideas they represented
also met hand to hand, in the hostile arena of
letters. The Edinburgh Review, and Black
woods Msgszine, were the most prominent
representatives of the old and new ideas in
Great Britain. Broughman, jeffrey, Sidney
Smith, and Macintosh, were the literary con-
suls of the Edinburgh; Wilson, Syme, Lock-
hart, Hogg, and Maginn, the oligarchy of
Blackscood
The Revolution mingled with every circum-
stance OF European life for fifty years after it
burst out; and it impaired its own intensity
to feeling, thought, and speech. Men hated,
struck, and wrote. with nervous energy, dur
ing its electric yibration, and hence the Edin-
5uygh and BiGcktoood have been mutually
charged with staying and slaughtering the
reputation of their political opponents. The
Noctes Anpbrosiane series of articles was one
of the mediums through which the Tory wits
launched their sarcastic sneers, and keen, Bit
ing, trenehant, Iperciless satire at the Wings /;
and on this account, originally, it became no.
ted as the political spirit of Btackwood's Mag
Gzine = latterly it became mellowed down in
to a medium of generous criticism, genial
philosophy, elegant poetry, eloquent word
painting, and contemporaneous history. AS
whole, the Noctes series is splendid illus
tration of the progress of literary life. 1t
opens with the clang and clash of combat /;
graduates towards sober, rational opposition !;
AID closes with an. old mans eloquent sigh
over the yanities of partizan strife.
The persone of the Noctes, have all passed
away. The caustic Timothy Ticker and the
generous Kit North, with all their host of
fellows, save Lockhart, are dead. The writer
of this has seen the outward forms of several
eff those brilliant men,-their inner life, as
faithfully daguereotyped by themselves, in
literature,is now to be seen in the work which
DIR. Mackenzie has SO ably and 50 faithfully
edited.
Timothy Ticker, Robert Syme, was John
Wilson's mothers brother. He was bache-
lor, and resided at % Georges Square, To-
cality famous, as the residence, at one period,
of Walter Scott. When at the apex of his
manhood he was reported to be six feet six
inches in height. We have seen him when
nearly seventy years of age, straight as an ar
row, tall as a poplar, and as handsome and
18th Of limb as it was possible for man to be.
He had often rallied at the buff and blue, as
the cognizance of the wings, yet he sported
those colors himself on the sunny side of Min
2 toast, during summer afternoons. Ills coat
having velvet collar and brass buttons, was
blue, his vest, buff, his small clothes, drao,
his stockings, faultlessly white, and his low
shoes, black as jet. The young nursery maids
would turn to gaze at the stately old Tory as
he passed, and their verdict always was that
he was ga grand auld man." Wilson was
not so tall (being six feet two inches) as his
uncle, but he was formed with more breadth,
and, if we may be allowed the expression,
more poetical grandeur. His head was poised
with greater ease, his features wers larger,
rounder, and fuller of genius and genial ex-
preston; his long, tangled, yellow locks,
hung over his broad shoulders like the waving
crest Of deu- Celedonian bison; his form
was of the manifest beauty, and his step as
firm and free as that of the dun deer on his
own native mountains. We have often dwelt
upon his rich, mellifuous words, and listened
to his footstep; and We know an old class
room and the corridor of stately university
far away, where the echoes of both now lie
soundly sleeping.
The Noctes An,byosiane is q critical review
of the history of literature in Europe, for
nearly forty years. No student If Anglo
Saxon literature can afford to except it som
his library. 1t is published by Redfeld, lilo
Nassau street, New York, and is for sale at