A/T the end of last century, Paisley had a considerable body of high-class citizens who made money and benefited their town by turning cotton into gauze and other useful products.John Wilson was the son of one of these, and was born in 1785 in by no means a poetical spot in a dingy court at the head of the High Street.We can believe that the boy was " as beautiful and animated a creature as ever played in the sunshine." He received his education first in his native town, and then at the manse of Mearns, -- a bare, wild upland district fitted to call forth a sense of freedom, but with nothing grand or romantic in its scenery.On the death of his father he entered as a student in Glasgow University, and continued there till 1803.In future years he acknowledged in "Blackwood" his obligations to Jardine as "a person who, by the singular felicity of his tact in watching youthful minds, had done more good to a whole host of individuals, and gifted individuals too, than their utmost gratitude could ultimately repay.They spoke of him as a kind, intellectual father, to whom they were proud of acknowledging the eternal obligations of their intellectual being." He indulged freely in dinners, balls, and parties; but Glasgow College made its students work, and Wilson was an ardent student He began to keep a diary, and we have an entry: " Prize for the best specimens of the Socratic mode of reasoning given out in the logic." " Got the first prize in the logic class." Prizes have always been numerous, often not very discriminating in their subjects, in Glasgow College, and he records: " Prizes distributed;got three of them."
In all his youthful days he luxuriated in fishing and field sports, and nobody could match him at " hop, step, and jump." At an early age, when the " Edinburgh Review " was ridiculing Wordsworth, Wilson was seized with an admiration of him, and wrote him: " In all your poems you have adhered to natural feelings, and described what comes within the range of every one's observation.It is from following this plan that, in my estimation, you have surpassed every poet both of ancient and modern times." Yet he ventures to hint a fault." No feeling, no state of mind, ought, in my mind, to become the subject of poetry that does not please." {411} In 1803 he entered, as a gentleman commoner, Magdalen College, Oxford, and participated ardently both in the high studies and in the boating and physical sports.Here he began a common-place book, which was doubtless of great use to him:
" In the following pages I propose to make such remarks upon the various subjects of polite literature as have been suggested to my mind during the course of my studies by the perusal of writers on the different branches of human knowledge; reflections upon law, history, philosophy, theology, and poetry, will be classed under separate heads."With regard to the department of poetry, original verses of my own composition will be frequently introduced." " Should any reflections upon men and authors occur in my mind, even with regard to the general characters of mankind, or the particular dispositions of acquaintances and friends, they shall be written down as they occur, without any embellishment.In short, this commonplace book, or whatever else it may be called, will contain, so far as it goes, a faithful representation of the state of my mind, both in its moments of study and retirement."At the close of his Oxford life he passed, in 1806, a brilliant examination."Sotheby was there, and declared it was worth while coming from London to hear him translate a Greek chorus." On leaving college, having, as he believed, an independent fortune, he betook himself to the Lake country of England, and purchased Elleray, within nine miles of Wordsworth, and henceforth may be regarded as one of the Lake poets.He now divided his activities between poetry and rural sports, and "had a small fleet on Windermere." By 1810he had written as many poems " as will make a volume Of 400pages," of which the principal was " The Isle of Palms,"descriptive of sea and island scenery, with a love story.In 1811 he was married to Miss Penny.A few years later he lost suddenly the fortune which his father had laid up for him so industriously.He bore the trial manfully, but had to remove to Edinburgh to the home of his mother, and he became an advocate.He did not acquire a large practice at the bar, and had time to write novels and poems, which were noticed favorably in the " Edinburgh Review."Jeffrey asked him to write for the " Edinburgh," and he furnished an article on Byron.But Wilson was destined to occupy a place of his own."Blackwood's Magazine" was started in 1817 by others, but did not become a power till it came under the control of Wilson.He was never formal editor.Blackwood retained the management in his own hand;and, knowing that literary men were commonly both needy and dilatory, he kept them to punctuality by not remunerating them till they produced the articles, and then paying them handsomely.But the winds and the sails were given to the vessel by Wilson, and "Blackwood " immediately became the best literary magazine of its day.