We ask no help from Gascon or Guelph, When the wine is in, at times the wit And Giannone, who in his common mood But all the while that Giannone let fly We were all Englishmen there, you know, The thought like an arrow of fate struck home- If I doubted before the trade of your friend, So turning back with a look demure, As much as to say, "We must not care, "The trick is mine 'twas the knave I played." Now the snakes that in Italy's bosom lie And the nest they love the best of all Is where they were hatched-the Confessional. With the eyes of the priest and the eyes of the spy; Peter, who thrice denied his Lord, But worship only the powers that be; Save your children by plying your rods, And give up to Cæsar the things that are-God's. This is the creed that Giannone knew Better by far than I or you ; So no sooner the dread word "Spy" I spoke, And again with a laugh we heard him begin. "Sir Birichino, permit me now To introduce him-a friend of mine- A long black coat, whose rubbed seams shine, Long black coarse stockings and buckled shoes; Ah! so polite, with his bows and smiles, Let him say rose,' it will stink in his breath. Just for a strong word, spoken may be When the blood was hot and the tongue too free. But at last he reckoned without his host, And in throwing his dirty dice he lost; And one morning they found him taking his rest In the street, with a dagger stuck in his breast. And serve him right, say you and I, It was only too easy a death for a Spy." At this your friend threw down his card, That a dark suspicion in me awoke. So the good Giannone's arm I took, And crying, "I'm off-will you go with me?" And after a mile of midnight Rome, This, you'll say, and I'll confess, Was merely suspicion-no more nor less ; That something might happen by-and-by Two days after I went to see Whether Giannone would walk with me Two sharp bell-pulls at his door; No answer-gone out; then one pull more, "And where is the Signor Padrone ?" I cried. And they've rifled his desk of letters and all, But his mother and sisters are in such a fright, They've been weeping and praying the livelong night. There's some dreadful political business here; The servant's story was all too true; Begged, bribed, and petitioned, but all in vain. That now, for some six years or so, And there he will stay, despite the tears Of his mother and sisters, for long blank years, Wasting away his manhood's prime, And tortured by doubts and hopes and fears, Now, there are the facts for my suspicion W. W. S. JOHN WILSON. THERE are some men who receive their fame warm from the hearts of their contemporaries, and some to whom it is tardily meted out by the hands of posterity, that slow but certain arbiter of human greatness. It is rarely that the present and the future come to an immediate agreement in such cases; and the greatest of reputations generally suffer a momentary eclipse before their full magnitude is understood and acknowledged. After the personal fascination dies away, it is time to set forth in veritable lines of fact and history the character to which we are inclined to do but scanty justice, because our sires have glorified it so much; and it is perhaps only after the verdict of his contemporaries has been confirmed by their successors, that any man can be considered to have fully achieved his fame. This final and conclusive decision is now demanded from us in respect to the remarkable man whose name heads this page. John Wilson received the liberal applauses of his generation, during his own lifetime, to an extent rarely equalled. It remains for us now to confirm or to cancel that contemporary fame. What his exact place may come to be when this age, like all that have gone before it, shall have "orbed into its perfect star," we shall not venture to determine; but we are fully assured that his permanent reputation, when he is judged by his works, will not be less than it was when his living influence fascinated all around him. It is unnecessary for any one (and above all for us) to tell the world who and what he was. Perhaps no man of purely literary character ever so thoroughly pervaded his generation. Sir Walter Scott gave to our fathers and the universe the most remarkable and brilliant series of works known to modern times; Wordsworth and his brotherhood gave them a renewed and freshened stream of poetry; but Christopher North gave them their opinions, breathed the breath of life into their private estimate of the national literature, and threw the light of his genius with a lavish hand upon all things, worthy and unworthy, of the passing day. The veriest tyro in literature has some conception, however slight, of the exuberant, brilliant, irregular, and splendid critic, who threw such a fervour of life and spontaneity into his criticism as to carry that secondary and subordinate craft into the rank of an art. The very fact of this universal knowledge made it harder to write him down in calm portraiture, and disentangle his actual figure from the maze of shining mists in which it was wrapt. But the task has been tenderly and successfully accomplished in the volumes now before us. Mrs Gordon seems to have spared no pains to make the story of her father's life as complete and perfect as it was in her power to make it. She has investigated the early years in which his genius dawned and his troubles began, and has traced with a touch of love, which is better than art, his progress through all the struggles and honours of his maturer life. The gleam of extravagance which, in the popular imagination, mingled with all the wisdom and the wit of the author of the Noctes fades off from the real man as represented in this affectionate biography; where his virtuous and honourable domestic life sets the visionary dissipations of Ambrose's in their true light, and helps the reader to reconcile the tender poetic mus Christopher North: A Memoir of John Wilson, late Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh.' By his Daughter, Mrs GORDON. Edinburgh: Edmonston & Douglas. |