And who that

the rich and glowing, and fertile and forgetive imagination of a poet. Chalmers has a style of much energy but limited resources, Wilson is copious to a fault. Chalmers speaks with more rapidity—is more fluent-carries you more triumphantly away at the moment; Wilson does not strike you as so eloquent at the time, but there is a slow and solemn music in his voice, which fills at once the ear and the soul; he plants stings within you which can be plucked out only with the last bleeding fibres of the heart; his very tones linger in your ear-the very glances of his eye, years after, haunt your memory-the magic of his eloquence makes you its slave for life. Never shall we forget the manner in which he pronounced the final words of Thomson, "the melancholy main," with deep lingering accents, as if his soul were swelling forth on the sound, while his look seemed to mirror" the great bright eye" of old Ocean. has heard him describe Cæsar weeping at the tomb of Alexander, can cease to remember the very tremor of the voice, which brought out so finely his conception of that noble scene? The tones in which he uttered the words, "fading youth," will be with us to our dying day. They involved in them a world of sentiment and pathos. In recitation of poetry, he is altogether unrivalled. His whole man-eye, lip, chest, arms, voice, become surcharged and overflowing with the spirit of the particular composition. He reads it as the poet's own soul would wish it read. And you say, as you listen, now what an actor, and now what a preacher, would he have made. The main current, indeed, of his nature is rapt and religious. In proof of this, we have heard, that on one occasion, he was crossing the hills from St. Mary's Loch to Moffat. It was a misty morning; but, as he ascended, the mist began to break into columns before the radiant finger of the rising sun. Wilson's feelings be

came too much excited for silence, and he began to speak, and, from speaking, began to pray; and prayed aloud and alone, for thirty miles together in the misty morn. We can conceive what a prayer it would be, and with what awe some passing shepherd may have heard the incarnate voice, "sounding on its dim and perilous way."

It has often appeared to us, that Wilson is somewhat damped by the imperfect sympathies of his audience. A large proportion of his general hearers is, necessarily, composed of plodding ethical inquirers, who come to get information, not to hear eloquence. Sitting, note-book and pencil in hand, fresh from Reid and Stewart, how can they relish those deep allusions in which he indulges? how can they worship that strange fire which has come from its far volcanic sources, to lighten on his brow and eye? To produce his highest style of impression, he would require an audience of poets. With a sympathizing and discriminating auditory he could work wonders of excitement,-move passions which Chalmers could not touch,-bring a glow to the brows of prepared spirits, like the sunset hues of a higher heaven. As it is, his true power, as a public speaker, is not fully felt. He is, indeed, always eloquent,-eloquent alike at the professorial desk, in the public meeting, amid the uproarious atmosphere of the after-dinner party, in the private circle, every motion of his spirit, every where, is eloquence, but, not unfrequently, it misses by overshooting its mark, and the oratory, which might enthral angels, fails to rouse

men.

Into his merits, or demerits, as a political partizan, the plan of this publication does not permit us to enter. Let us turn, rather, to glance at him in the more pleasing light of a critic. His generous judgment of the essays written by the young men of his class, must not be overlooked.

His praise is not conveyed in scanty and envious driblets; it is not meted out with mean and narrow-minded parsimony, -it is not confined in the conduit-pipes of set and formal phrases; it is the free outpouring of a catholic and noble nature, intensely sympathizing with all excellence, and fear

lessly expressing that sympathy. His blame is open,

honest, as to the matter of it,-gentle and measured as to the language. The author is justified, by the experience of hundreds of students of Edinburgh University, in declaring that a more gentlemanly, just, and honourable distributor of honours is not to be imagined; and, in thanking him for the encouragement, sympathy, and praise which he has bestowed upon numberless deserving and struggling scholars, each and all of whom regard his compliments "as equal to an house or estate."

The literature of his country is indebted to Wilson for a series of the most eloquent criticisms ever penned, from which passages of every variety of merit might be selected, in a style of execution altogether unparalleled, combining much of Macaulay's point, Hazlitt's gorgeousness, Jeffrey's vivacity, Sidney Smith's broad humour, with a freedom, force, variety, and rush of sounding words, and glow of whirling images, quite peculiar to himself. How powerful and fearless his criticisms on Moore's Byron! With what a trumpet tongue did he talk of Homer and his translators! With what a fine tact did he plunge us into the "witch element" of Spenser! What beautiful morsels, moreover, of rich critical dust did his prodigal genius scatter amid the broad fun, the inextinguishable laughter, the Shakspearean imagination of the Noctes! With what masterly ease, and sovereign good humour did he extinguish the author of The Age, Henry Sewell Stokes, &c., and clip the wings, though he could not, altogether, arrest the flight of Edwin Atherston!

And what a fine, fresh, and frank spirit did there breathe out from his reviews of William Howitt, Ebenezer Elliott, and others, of a school of politics directly opposite to his own! "Be mine," said Gray, "to read eternal novels of Marivaux and Crebillon." Give us eternal criticisms of Wilson.

His poetry is not, perhaps, his strongest claim to immortality, but there is much of it which must survive. It has not the stern and concentrated energy of Byron's verse, nor the depth and grand simplicity of Wordsworth's, nor the tumultuous glow and transcendental graces of Shelley's, nor the wild Ezekiel-like mystic energy of Coleridge's, nor the stately march and sounding eloquence of Croly's, nor the homely vigour of Crabbe's, nor the holy charm of Montgomery's, nor the robust and masculine strength of Ebenezer Elliott's. It is a poetry altogether distinct from that of any other author, living or dead. The sole spring of its inspiration is a kind of apostolic meekness or love, which overflows from his heart, as a centre, and colours all things with its own soft and fairy lustre. The result is, either a glad diffusion or a pensive melancholy. We find the former in "The Isle of Palms." Deficient as that poem is in profound purpose and overwhelming power, its beauty, like that of the child in "We are seven," makes us glad. A fairy world surrounds us; "strange and star-bright" flowers bloom around; humming-birds flutter amid the leaves; palms, undisturbed since the deluge, are stirred to make a music over our heads; unknown stars peep down upon us through the many-coloured foliage; breezes, sweet as those which awoke from their slumbers the roses of Eden, breathe a balm upon our brows. It is the very clime and home of love.

"An isle, under Atlantic skies,'

Beautiful as the wreck of Paradise."

The whole performance is, indeed, the first dizzy and dazzling leap of a fine and youthful fancy-the first sweet sin of a poetical genius; and therefore, we doat upon "The Isle of Palms."

"The City of the Plague" is a more mature and elaborate production; and though it has failed in obtaining a general and giddy popularity, it is rising slowly and surely to its level in public estimation. It does not, perhaps, come up to the ideal of a great poem in the subject. It must not be named with the description of that dire calamity in Boccaccio, for picturesque interest; nor with the picture of it by De Foe, in homely horror; nor with the sketch of it in "The Revolt of Islam," in ideal grandeur. It does not conduct us, with a throbbing heart and trembling footsteps, from bedside to bedside of the pest, till the minute, by multiplication, waxes into the magnificent; nor does it, on the other hand, show us, in distinct perspective, the plague-poison hanging in the air over the "high-viced city," leaving it to imagination to tell us what is going on under that canopy of Fear. Between the two modes of painting the pest, the poem, we think, fails. It wants the literal interest of the one, and the high and bold relief of the other. It neither gives the harrowing disgust, nor the sublime moral of the evil. It has caught, however, a variety of the more pathetic and beautiful aspects of the scene, and steeped them in the rich dyes of fancy, and painted them with a tender and touching hand. We do not quarrel with the author of this exquisite poetical drama, for not combining all the qualities requisite to an ideal painter of the plague. Shakspeare alone would have been this; and, had he turned his mind to the theme, would have united more than the literal distinctness of De Foe to more than the fine picturesque of Boccaccio, and more than the lofty imagination of Shelley. But our complaint of Wil