“CHRISTOPHER NORTH”—MR. BLACKWOOD—THE ETTRICK SHEPHERD—LOCKHART
—NOCTES AMBROSIANÆ—WORDSWORTH—SOUTHEY—CAPTAIN HAMILTON AND
HIS BOOK ON AMERICA—PROFESSOR WILSON’S FAMILY, ETC.
One of my most valued letters to Scotland was an introduction to
Professor Wilson—the “Christopher North” of Blackwood, and the well
known poet. The acknowledgment of the reception of my note came with an
invitation to breakfast the following morning, at the early hour of
nine.
The professor’s family were at a summer residence in the country, and he
was alone in his house in Gloucester-place, having come to town on the
melancholy errand of a visit to poor Blackwood—(since dead.) I was
punctual to my hour, and found the poet standing before the fire with
his coat skirts expanded—a large, muscular man, something slovenly in
his dress, but with a manner and face of high good humor, and remarkably
frank and prepossessing address. While he was finding me a chair, and
saying civil things of the noble friend who had been the medium of our
acquaintance, I was trying to reconcile my idea of him, gathered from
portraits and descriptions, with the person before me. I had imagined a
thinner and more scholar-like looking man, with a much paler face, and a
much more polished exterior. His head is exceedingly ample, his eye blue
and restless, his mouth full of character, and his hair, of a very light
sandy color, is brushed up to cover an incipient baldness, but takes
very much its own way, and has the wildness of a highlander’s. He has
the stamp upon him of a remarkable man to a degree seldom seen, and is,
on the whole, fine-looking and certainly a gentleman in his appearance;
but (I know not whether the impression is common) I expected in
Christopher North, a finished and rather over-refined man of the world
of the old school, and I was so far disappointed.
The tea was made, and the breakfast smoked upon the table, but the
professor showed no signs of being aware of the fact, and talked away
famously, getting up and sitting down, walking to the window and
standing before the fire, and apparently carried quite away with his own
too rapid process of thought. He talked of the American poets, praised
Percival and Pierpont more particularly; expressed great pleasure at the
criticisms of his own works that had appeared in the American papers and
magazines—and still the toast was getting cold, and with every move he
seemed less and less aware of the presence of breakfast. There were
plates and cups but for two, so that he was not waiting for another
guest,—and after half an hour had thus elapsed, I began to fear he
thought he had already breakfasted. If I had wished to have reminded him
of it, however, I should have had no opportunity, for the stream of his
eloquence ran on without a break; and eloquence it certainly was. His
accent is very broadly Scotch, but his words are singularly well chosen,
and his illustrations more novel and poetical than those of any man I
ever conversed with. He spoke of Blackwood, returning to the subject
repeatedly, and always with a softened tone of voice and a more
impressive manner, as if his feelings were entirely engrossed by the
circumstances of his illness. “Poor Blackwood,” he said, setting his
hands together and fixing his eyes on the wall, as if he were
soliloquising with the picture of the sick man vividly before him,
“there never was a more honest creature, or a better friend. I have
known him intimately for years, and owe him much; and I could lose no
friend that would affect me more nearly. There is something quite awful
in the striking down thus of a familiar companion by your side—the
passing away—the death—the end forever of a man you have been
accustomed to meet as surely as the morning or evening, and have grown
to consider a part of your existence almost. To have the share he took
in your thoughts thrown back upon you—and his aid and counsel and
company with you no more. His own mind is in a very singular state. He
knows he is to die, and he has made every preparation in the most
composed and sensible manner, and if the subject is alluded to directly,
does not even express a hope of recovery; yet, the moment the theme is
changed, he talks as if death were as far from him as ever, and looks
forward, and mingles himself up in his remarks on the future, as if he
were here to see this and the other thing completed, and share with you
the advantages for years to come. What a strange thing it is—this
balancing between death and life—standing on the edge of the grave, and
turning, first to look into its approaching darkness, and then back on
the familiar and pleasant world, yet with a certain downward progress,
and no hope of life, beyond the day over your head!”