Memoirs of the Life of James Wilson of Woodville

Although scarcely claimingto be a contribution to what is commonly called religious biography, it is hoped that there is room for a volume which tries to delineate, however 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 possible 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 Lady Emma Campbell; to the Hon. B. F. Primrose; to Sir John M’Neill; to P. S. Selby, Esq., Dr R. K. Greville, Professor Balfour, Adam White, Esq., and D. Crole, Esq.; to John Russell, Esq., Treasurer of the Royal Society of Edinburgh; to Adam Black, Esq., M. P., to John

Murray, Esq., John Blackwood, Esq., and W. P. Kennedy, 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 George Wilson for his personal communications; and we would especially commemorate the kindness of Sir William 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.

My heart leaps up when I behold

A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life 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 Edinburgh.”

“It ’s no that easy to forget Paisley when ye look at Embro’,” replied the offended cicerone. “Seest ‘ou?” and he pointed towards the University buildings; “that ’s Embro’ College, where they come from England and a’ pairts to learn to be doctors, and chancellors, and members 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 ye may have forgotten 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 singing; and Fse warrant ye 11 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 Register Office. Ye may say it ’s the key-stane o’ the kingdom; for lairds and lands a’ hing by it. But 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 particular, 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 Archbishop Adamson, Principal Smeton and President Witherspoon; which introduced to professional life “Watt, the laborious compiler of the” Bibliotheca Britannica;” and which from amongst her sons contributed to natural science Wilson, the American ornithologist; to sculpture, John Henning; and to poetry, Robert Tannahill and the 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 good; when they had time to cultivate their little gardens, and grow such polyanthuses and tulips as nowhere else were seen; when they had time to read the Bible and 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 Paradise 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 elsewhere 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. But in the days of his youth he had a venerable relative (proprietor of the oldest spinningmill in Scotland) who used to say, that when he was young he knew almost every “reeking lum” in Paisley, and that there was a time every morning, when passing almost any door, you were sure to hear the voice of prayer or of psalms.

which was the day when first he saw the light; and as it was Paisley, in the month of November, the likelihood is that there was not much light to be seen. He was born in the year 1795.

His father, a manufacturer in extensive business, and a banker, died before his youngest boy could be conscious of the loss; and, with her numerous sons and daughters, Mrs Wilson removed to Edinburgh, where so many Scottish families, in their day of desolation, seek a second home. Here, with comfortable resources, and with God’s blessing on her kind and sensible administration, she was permitted to see her children grow up; and, what seldom happens in our country, twice over did a son marry without migrating from under the maternal roof. Her house, No. 53 Queen Street, was the residence of her youngest son till the time of his own marriage.

Keep reading