"_North._ Macaulay and Praed have written very good prize-poems. These
two young gentlemen ought to make a figure in the world."

Heber was a contemporary and friend of Wilson at Oxford; as was also
Lockhart, among others. The distant See of Calcutta interrupted the
intercourse of the former, in after-life, while Maga and party bound
the latter still closer to his old college-friend. One of Wilson's
college-mates has given an odd anecdote descriptive of his appearance at
their social gatherings:--

"I shall never forget his figure, sitting with a long earthen pipe, a
great tie-wig on. Those wigs had descended, I fancy, from the days of
Addison, (who had been a member of our college,) and were worn by
us all, (in order, I presume, to preserve our hair and dress, from
tobacco-smoke,) when smoking commenced after supper; and a strange
appearance we made in them."

Wilson left Oxford in 1807, after passing a highly creditable
examination for his degree. His disappointed affections had so weighed
upon him, that he had a nervous apprehension of being plucked,--which,
however, turned out to be quite unnecessary. He was now twenty-two
years of age, a man singularly favored both by Nature and by
fortune,--possessed of almost everything which might seem to insure the
fullest measure of health, happiness, success, and fame. Rarely, indeed,
do the gods give so freely of their good gifts to a single mortal. His
circumstances were easy: a fortune of some fifty thousand pounds having
come to him from his father, who had died while his son was a mere boy.
After visiting his mother at Edinburgh, and rambling largely here and
there, he purchased the beautiful estate of Elleray on Lake Windermere,
and there fixed his residence. These were the halcyon days of that noted