The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1901-11-03
A TRUE NATURE: LOVER
He,Came More Closely to Wordsworth
Than Any Other Writer.
SEVERAL LATE BOOKS TOUCHED UPON
10 Write Book is an Easy Task, TO Print
Book Slightly More Difficult, to Read a
Book is Still More Difficult, But
Most Difficult Part is to
Sell Book +"

Sell Book "
New York, n. Y, November 1st.-
OF the many new editions of old favor
ties now coming from the presses of New
York publishers, one worthy of note, both
because of the author and of the book, is
christopher and His Sporting Jacket !"
sort of photographed series of
sketches, by John Wilson, or Christopher
North as he was more Familiarity known.
He was one of the most remarkable of
that great group of English and Scotch
men of letters who made the opening Of
the nineteenth century one of the epochs
of English literature, Wordsworth
Scott, Coleridge, De Quincy, ]. G. Lock-
hart, Hogg, Southey-thes are the men
with whom Wilson associated either in
the district of the English lakes where
he had as cottage. Eleray. above Windc-
mere, or in the social literary, or po-
litical life of Edinburgh.
No man in the whole group has a more
fascinating life story. He was born in
1855 in the manufacturing town of Pals
ley. He spent his school boy days in the
parish of Mearrs. a lovely country
neither highland nor lowland, which at
fords the background for most of the adj
ventures of the Sporting Jacket From
school he went to- Glasgow University
and then to Oxford. After graduation
be ing q man Of wealth and able to look
forward to a leisurely life he established
himself in the lake district not far from
Wordsworth. Here he began his literary
career with the volume entitled, THE
sic of Palms, which was followed short
ly by The City of the Plague" These
poems brought him to the favorable no
tice of Jeffrey, the ogre of the Edinburgh
Review Before long sudden misfortune
came. to, Wilson in; the shape of thenloss
of his fortune through the dishonesty of.
an uncle. He was forced to close his
country place, to go to Edinburgh, and
tic study for the bar to which he was
admitted in 1915. He now also began to
look to literature as a means of Hveli-
hood. lie became in short time a con-
tributor to the Edinburgh Review. 1t
was at this time, however, that William
Rlackwood started his famous Tory mag
azine. and Wilson, being of his political
persuasion, deserted the Wing review and
became allied with the new periodical.
his connection with which continued
throughout his active life. In 1915. toe
he was elected professor Of moral philoso-
ply in Edinburgh University, and for
thirty five years he delivered a lecture
day throughout the entire session of the
university. Interspersed with these ser-
GUS public duties and activities is the
mcst fascinating fabric of private pur-
suits. man of herculcan strength and
large appetites, as we'll as of strong in
tcllect and deeply poetical temperament.
there are very few points in the range CT
tie interests of his time which he did
not at one time or another touch Per-
haps he was the most representative man
OF bis day, combining in his person its
most d:ssimilar aspects. He was a thor
ough sportsman, loving nothing better
than days or a months fishing in the
streams of the Scotch Highlands and a
good fight between either men or cocks
ne prize. ring and the cooking main net
then having fallen into the same disre-
pute where they remain at present. He
was a splendid athlete. and the stories
Of his fcats at walking and wrestling
gained him the rare distinction OF being
reckoned as q Scotch Worthy in his ma
tive land. Once he was reported to have
walked seventy miles in the course of
days fishing excursion and once, too, in
his youth at Oxford, he walked over
night from London to the university town
on tho Isis.
On the other hand, nothing could have
been more brilliant from the scholastic
Tolnt of view at Glasgow and at Oxford
All kinds Of academic honors fell to his
share, and once at the latter place, when
bis mind and heart were heavily bur-
dened by an unhappy love affair. he went
TO take the final examinations fer his
degree with tho full conviction that he
would be plucked. he bucl1led down un-
der the running fire Of stringent oral
inquistion, and passed. as one of his
contemporaries tells us, the most bril-
liant examination in the memory of man.
Wilson's career is chiefly connected in
literary history with the famous Black
woods Magazine. From about 1915 to
1851 or during the best years of his life
he devoted his energies. not as the full
editor, indeed. but as, contributor with
out whose assistances either in the vol
ulne of writing which he managed to turr
out or in accuracy of judgment, it could
scarcely have been maintained during the
stormy years of its early existence. Will
series OF papers. entitled Noctes Ambro-
sianae. in the composition of which
others, indeed, occasionally took a hand.
but to which he contributed the form and
spirit as well as mos of the best work.
The form of the Noctes is the symposium
Of Plato but here it is raised to the high
est pitch of fun, frolic and merriment,
broad Scotch humor. genuine wit tenn
pering almost Gargantuan feats OF eating
and drinking. Among the dramatis per-N
sonae were the Ettrie shepherd the Eng
fish opium eater. Christopher North him
self in which are gently satirized the
actual persons who bore these soubriquets
at the same time that they delivered
their opinions upon the affairs OF tic uni
verse and of Edinburgh
Wilson's contributions wcre so varied