One of the most remarkable men of our day was Professor Wilson, the Editor of _Blackwood’s Magazine_, in the pages of which he is thus characterised, from his bust in the Crystal Palace at Sydenham: he was born at Paisley, in Scotland, in 1785; and died at Edinburgh, in 1854. The head tells the story of the whole man. It is the head of an athlete, but an athlete possessing a soul, the grace of Apollo sitting on the thews of Hercules. Such a man, you would say at once, was none of your sedentary _litterati_, who appear to have the cramp in their limbs whenever they move abroad, but one who could, like the Greeks of old, ride, run, wrestle, box, dive, or throw the discus at need, or put the stone like Ulysses himself, or one who could do the same things, and in addition to them steer, pull an oar, shoot, fish, follow hounds, or make a good score at cricket, like a true Briton of modern times, in spite of all our physical and intellectual degeneracy, about which, indeed, we have a right to be sceptical, when we know that such an unmistakable man as Wilson was living in the reign of Queen Victoria. It is an honour to Scotland that she produced such a critic on Homer, only second to that which is hers in having produced that poet who, of all the moderns, has composed poetry the most Homeric—even Walter Scott. --------------------- Footnote 112: Such a room as Mr. Egg has painted in his masterly picture of “The Death of Chatterton;” and, curiously enough, the house above referred to was nearly upon the same spot. Footnote 113: This was William, first Marquis of Lansdowne, who, as Earl of Shelburne, was Prime Minister in 1782; the date of Mr. Britton’s visit was 1798. By the Marquis’s kindness, he tells us that he left Bowood for Chippenham loaded with books, and a copy of a large Survey of Wiltshire, in eighteen folio sheets. The Marquis was a liberal patron of Art, and commenced at Bowood and Shelburne House the formation of a gallery of modern art; and his fine taste was amply inherited by his son Henry, the third Marquis, who died at Bowood in January 1863. Footnote 114: We remember a similarly gratifying incident in early life. We had scarcely reached twenty-one, when we had occasion to wait upon Mr. Chamberlain Clark, to request of him some particulars of the house of Cowley the poet, at Chertsey, which was then in Mr. Clark’s tenancy. The bland old Chamberlain inquired if we had ever written a book; to which the reply was, that we had a volume of topography in the press. “Then please to put down my name for a copy,” kindly rejoined the Chamberlain, although the work was merely of local interest. What kindness in one who was the chastener of refractory apprentices and the terror of evil-doers! Footnote 115: Mr. P. Cunningham, in the _Builder_, Feb. 14, 1863, writes as follows: