Presented to the library of the UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO by Mrs. Tisdall MEMOIRS OF JAMES WILSON, ESQ m o v )\ OF JAMES HAMILTON, D. D. LIFE IN EARNEST, 30 cents. THE MOUNT OF OLIVES Lectures on 30 ; Prayer, cents. HARP ON THE WILLOWS, 30 cents. THANKFULNESS. 30 cents. EMBLEMS FROM EDEN. 18mo, 30 cents. HAPPY HOME. Illustrated, 50 cents. LIFE OF LADY COLQUHOUN of Luss, 50 cents. THE ROYAL PREACHER Lectures on 85 ; Ecclesiastes, cents. " Ihere is so a in quick sympathy with the beautiful nature and art : so inexhaust- ible a of illustration from all of so fertility departments knowledge ; pictorial a vivid- ness of his language, that pages move before us like some glittering summer landscape glowing in the light of a gorgeous sunset."— Observer. THE LAMP AND THE LANTERN; or, Light for the Tent and the Traveller. 18mo, 40 cents. " This book belongs to the delicacies of relfgious literature, which one consumes with relish. It is written with that rich of unusual glow thought and fancy that sufus I Dr. Hamilton's writings, and give him a place of his own, among the authors of our * * * day it, is a volume of gems."— Watchman. MEMOIR OF RICHARD WILLIAMS. Surgeon in the Missionary Expedition to Patagonia, Terra del Fuego, 75 cents. LESSONS FROM THE GREAT BIOGRAPHY. 16mo, 75 cents. " With frreat delight we welcome a new volume from Hie pen of the author of ' Life in Earnest.' And all the more welcome is it because it illustrates the life of Ji Christ, a theme on which the author glows with his wannest thoughts, and moves the heart of every Christian reader. It is full of precious truths, told in words of tender- ness and beauty.''—N. Y. Obs. OUR CHRISTIAN CLASSICS; or, Reading from the best British Divines of the 1 7th and 18th Centuries, with brief biographical Notices. 4 vols. 12mo, $4.00. " Dr. Hamilton has here done a noble service to the memory of the great and g 1 of many generations, anil a most valuable service for those of tins generation who have little means or leisure for delving in the mines of our earlier Christian literature. It is a treasury of rare spiritual and literary gems."— Independent. MEMOIIiS OF THE LTFE OF JAMES WILSON, Esq.. of Wood- ville. 12mo, $1.00. \ \ ' ^7<^^2--Z-7 6/ i/Z^^z MEMOIRS OP THE LIFE OF JAMES WILSON, ESQ. F.R.S.E., M.W.S. OF WOODVILLE. BY JAMES HAMILTON, D.D., F.L.S., AUTHOR OF NEW YORK: ROBERT CARTER & BROTHERS, No. 530 BROADWAY. 1859. PREFACE. - Although scarcely claiming to be a contribution to what is commonly called religious biography, it is hoped that there is room for a volume which tries to delineate, how- ever imperfectly, a Christian gentleman, and which shews how honourably and usefully an accomplished mind may fill up a life of leisure. It may possibly strike some readers that the style is neither so solemn nor so stately as befits a tribute to departed worth. If so. our apology must be, that the book is neither an elegy nor a funeral oration. It is an attempt to reproduce, as nearly as pos- sible in its own tone, a life which is now continued and ennobled elsewhere, and of which the aspect, as it met our eye, was very bright and cheerful and beneficent. Many of Mr. Wilson's friends have helped us in this effort, and for valuable information we tender our best acknowledgments to His Grace the Duke of Argyll, and the Emma to the Hon. B. F. Primrose Lady Campbell ; ; M'Neill to P. S. Dr R. K. to Sir John ; Selby, Esq., Gre- ville, Professor Balfour, Adam White, Esq., and D. Crole, to John Russell, Treasurer of the So- Esq. ; Esq., Royal to Adam M. ciety of Edinburgh ; Black, Esq., P., to John VI PREFACE. Murray, Esq., John Blackwood, Esq., and W. P. Kenne- dy, Esq. Besides all the assistance derived from hia own beautiful and comprehensive sketch of Mr. Wilson's character, we are under great obligations to Professor Wilson for his communications and we George personal ; would especially commemorate the kindness of Sir Wil- liam Jardine, who placed at our disposal a collection of seventy-two letters, which scientific readers will only regret that we have not used more freely. Nor can we forbear to add,*that the book owes its existence and its best materials to the affectionate zeal with which the compiler has been aided by the members of Mr. Wilson's family. 48 Euston Square, London, April, 16, 1859. CONTENTS. I—EARLY TEARS, 1 " H—A CONTINENTAL TOUR, - - - - - -23 HI—INVALIDISM AND ITALY. 79 - - IY—WOODYILLE : ITS PETS AND ITS PURSUITS, 111 Y—THE MOORS AND THE MOUNTAINS, - - - -13? VI—BUSINESS AXD RECREATION; SUNSHINE AND SHADOW, 191 VII—CRUISES IN THE PRINCESS ROYAL, THE DASHER, AND THE LUCIFER, 223 VIII—THE LAST SUMMERS AND WINTERS - - - 273 IX—GLIMPSES OP THE HIDDEN LIFE, AND CLOSE OP THE MORTAL PILGRIMAGE, - - - - 319 X—FACTS AND INFERENCES. GRAVE AND GAY, - 349 A LIST OF MR WILSON'S PUBLICATIONS, - - 397 CHAPTER I. foil) fears. My heart leaps up when I behold A rainbow in the sky : So was it when life my began ; So is it now I am a man ; So be it when I shall grow old, Or let me die ! The Child is father of the Man ; And I could wish my day3 to be Bound each to each by natural piety." —Wordsworth. " There are so many ways of writing biography, that it is vain to inquire which is the best. One canon, however, may be safely insisted on, namely, That the record of a man's career should correspond in tone to the character of him whose life it chronicles."—Dr George Wilson. Some thirty years ago, an English tourist was standing on the Castle Rock, with a lank, keen-visaged Scotchman for interpreter and guide. " " Now, my good friend," said the Southron, you have talked quite enough about your native town. Pray, forget Paisley for a moment, and let us look at Edin- » burgh." " It 's no that easy to forget Paisley when ye look at Embro'," replied the offended cicerone. "Seest 'ou?" " and he towards the that 's pointed University buildings ; Embro' College, where they come from England and a' pairts to learn to be doctors, and chancellors, and mem- bers o' Parliament ; and it has the cleverest men in the three kingdoms for its professors : but far the cleverest of them a' is ane John Wilson, and he's a Paisley man. And seest 'ou?" pointing to a distant spire; "yon's the steeple o' North Leith. It 's the best stipend in Scotland, and at this present it 's allowed to have the best preacher in Scotland for its minister. Ye must have heard tell of the Piev. James Buchanan but have ; ye may forgotten 4 EAELY YEAES. that he's a Paisley man. And seest 'ou that kirk wi' the doom on 't ? That 's St George's, where a' the gentry attend for the sake of the and Fse warrant 11 singing ; ye no hear the like o' the precentor in a' England. They ca' him R A. Smith, and he 's a Paisley man. And seest 'ou where a' thae coaches are waiting to start ? That 's the Eegister Office. Ye may say it 's the key-stane o' the for lairds and lands a' it. But kingdom ; hing by though it 's the place where dukes and earls keep their titles, and the King himself keeps his papers, every day, when the clerks gae hame, and the door is steekit, the entire place is left in charge of an auld wife, and she 's a Paisley woman." Without vouching for the accuracy of this last par- ticular, and whilst begging a little indulgence for the vanity of our fellow-townsman, we must claim for Paisley the rights which its neighbour cities are not sufficiently ready to recognise. But the town which has numbered amongst its ministers Boyd of Troehrig and Arch- bishop Adamson, Principal Smeton and President Wither- which introduced to life the spoon ; professional "Watt, " laborious compiler of the Bibliotheca Britannica ;" and which from amongst her sons contributed to natural science the American to Wilson, ornithologist ; sculpture, John and to Robert Tannahill and the Henning ; poetry, " author of The Isle of Palms,"—need not be ashamed, but " THE PARADISE OF SCOTLAND. 5 may speak in the gate to all gainsayers. In the latter half of last century, when the wages of its weavers were when had time to cultivate their little good ; they gardens, and grow such polyanthuses and tulips as nowhere else were seen when had time to read the Bible and ; they pray with their families every day, and could at leisure hours get through such books as "Henry's Exposition" " and the Universal History," we need not wonder that " Rowland Hill should have pronounced Paisley the Para- dise of Scotland." When we add that—partly a result of the disputatious humour inherent in Scotchmen, partly a result of a gregarious or social tendency characteristic of the place—a high degree of intelligence, edged with a peculiar wit, distinguished the inhabitants, the reader will congratulate Mr Wilson on being able to boast such a birthplace, and will only regret that by a removal else- where he forfeited its advantages in the second year of his age.* The native of a country where birthdays are seldom celebrated, the subject of this biography could never tell * " It was the calamity of Mr Wilson's biographer to quit the Paradise of Scotland" at an age still more tender : it is therefore little that he can add in the way of personal reminiscence.