So lived, so died Professor Wilson—in the union of his varied mental gifts, in the attractive and endearing qualities of his character, one of the most remarkable men whom Scotland, in the present or any other century, has produced. In our remarks we have confined ourselves to his services to this Magazine, and through that to literature. We have not referred to his other productions, nor to his academical prelections. If the value of the latter were to be estimated by the effect which they produced in stimulating the minds and awakening the interest of his auditory, they would be entitled to a high rank; but as yet there exist no materials from which a deliberate judgment as to their merits can be formed. In other respects, opinion has given the preference to his prose over his poetry, and to his essays over his narrative fictions. The judgment has been so general that it is probably just. In poetry, in prose fiction, he seems overmatched by other men: in the field of the discursive essay, with its “numerous prose,” he is felt to be unique and unapproachable—without a prototype, and in all probability without a successor. We are aware that in what we have said we have uttered nothing new; that the marking lines of Professor Wilson’s literary character and compositions have been often drawn before; that his characteristics as a man have been indicated by worthier hands. But our object now is, not to say what is new, but to record what is true—true, as it presents itself to us, and true, as we should wish it to be for other times. The public has already pronounced its judgment, and with sufficient approach to unanimity, on Professor Wilson’s genius; it has formed and expressed its estimate of him as a man: in both cases we are content to accept the verdict as it stands; for in both we think it generous as well as just—we ask only to be allowed to register it in our pages. _Printed by William Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh._ Footnote 1: Else why quote that gentleman’s evidence in full?—See Report, p. 183. Footnote 2: See his evidence appended to Hebdomadal Committee’s Report, p. 74. Footnote 3: Evidence, p. 187. Footnote 4: See Recommendation 13. Footnote 5: Hebdomadal Report, p. 11. Footnote 6: _Blackwood’s Magazine_, Nov. 1853, p. 584. Footnote 7: “A body of men as accomplished and as industrious [as the professors], and to whom he would wish to tender his most earnest feelings of gratitude and respect—he referred to the private tutors of the University—for he could not help hoping that some from among that body would be chosen to assist in the government of Oxford.”—Speech on the second reading, April 2. Footnote 8: _Blackwood’s Magazine_, December 1853, p. 697. Footnote 9: Hebdomadal Report—Mr Gordon’s Evidence, p. 202. Footnote 10: Suggestions, &c., p. 81. Footnote 11: _Letter to Endemus_, &c., p. 15. Footnote 12: Hebdomadal Report, p. 175, (Evid.) Footnote 13: