Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

102 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD.
and fine of feature, more like a Spaniard than a
Saxon, a perfect contrast to the Berserker hero by
his side. They were both of that class which we
flatter ourselves in Scotland produces many of the
finest flowers of humanity, the mingled product of
the double nation — pure Scot by birth and early
training, with the additional polish and breadth of
the highest English education : Glasgow College, as
it was then usual to call that abode of learning, with
Oxford University to complete and elaborate the
strain. Wilson was of Magdalen, Lockhart of Balliol,
a Snell scholar, the best that Scotland could send to
England. The career of both had been perhaps more
brilliant than studious ; but both had left Oxford in
all the glories of success, first-class men, the pride of
dons and tutors.
They had both come to Edinburgh a year or two
before—Lockhart in the fulfilment of his natural
career, Wilson in consequence of the loss of his
fortune. Wilson was considerably the elder of the
two, and had enjoyed a few careless happy years at his
house of EUeray on Windermere, a young married man,
writing poetry, and with no anxiety about his career,
before he lost his money and was obliged to turn to
work as a source of income. They were both newly
fledged advocates, members of the numberless and
jocular band who trod the courts of the Parliament-
House, waiting for the briefs which there, as elsewhere,
are so slow to come. Little recked these young and
laughing philosophers of the absence of fees and
steady work. They were young enough to prefer
their freedom and boundless opportunity of making
fun of everybody to all that was serious and usefiil.