nd the
spirituality of poesy. He could turn everything into a hook on which to
hang a frolic. No dark care bestrode the horse behind this perennial
youth. No haggard spectre, reflected from a turbid soul, sat moping
in the prow of his boat, or kept step with him in the race. Like
the Sun-god, he was buoyant and beautiful, careless, free, elastic,
unfading. Years never cramped his bounding spirits, or dimmed the lustre
of his soul. He was ever ready for prank and pastime, for freak and
fun. Of all his loves at Elleray, boating was the chief. He was the
Lord-High-Admiral of all the neighboring waters, and had a navy at his
beck. He never wearied of the lake: whether she smiled or frowned on her
devotee, he worshipped all the same. Time and season and weather were
all alike to the sturdy skipper. One howling winter's night he was still
at his post, when Billy Balmer brought tidings that "his master was
wellnigh frozen to death, and had icicles a finger-length hanging from
his hair and beard." Though there was storm without, the great child had
his undying sunshine within.

In 1811, he married Miss Jane Penny, of Ambleside, described as the
belle of that region,--a woman of rare beauty of mind and person,
gentle, true, and loving. She was either a pedestrian by nature, or
converted by the arguments of her husband; for, a few years after
marriage, they took a long, leisurely stroll on foot among the
Highlands, making some three hundred and fifty miles in seven weeks. The
union of these two bright spirits was singularly happy and congenial,--a
pleasing exception to the long list of mismated authors. Nought was
known between them but the tenderest attachment and unwearied devotion
to each other. For nearly forty years they were true lovers; and when
death took her, a void was left which nothing could fill. The bereaved
survivor mourned her sincerely for more than seventeen years,--never,
for an instant, forgetting her, until his own summons came. Some one
has related the following touching incident. "When Wilson first met his
class, in the University, after his wife's death, he had to adjudicate
on the comparative merits of various essays which had been sent in on
competition for a prize. He bowed to his class, and, in as firm voice as
he could command, apologized for not having examined the essays,--'for,'
said he, 'I could not see to read them in the darkness of the shadow of
the Valley of Death.' As he spoke, the tears roll