res of the Bay of Fundy, and chartering a
vessel at Eastport, sailed for the gulf of St. Lawrence, the Magdalen
Islands, and the coast of Labrador. Returning as the cold season
approached, he visited Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, and rejoining his
family proceeded to Charleston, where he spent the winter, and in the
spring, after nearly three years' travel and research, sailed a third
time for England.

Among the warmest of his British friends, was always the congenial
Wilson, great as a poet, greater as critic, and greatest of all as the
author of the _Noctes Ambrosianae_, which contain more wit and humor,
more sound theology, philosophy, and politics, and better and more
various literature, than any other man now living has furnished in a
single work. This almost universal genius, whose relish for the rod and
gun and wild wood was scarcely less than that he felt for the best
suppers of Ambrose, or the sharpest onslaught on the Whigs in
Parliament, thoroughly appreciated and heartily loved our illustrious
countryman, and in Blackwood's Magazine for January, 1835, he gives us
the following admirable sketch of the visit he now made to Edinburgh:

"We were sitting one night, lately, all alone by ourselves,
almost unconsciously eyeing the members, fire without flame, in
the many-visioned grate, but at times aware of the symbols and
emblems there beautifully built up, of the ongoings of human
life, when a knocking, not loud but resolute, came to the front
door, followed by the rustling thrill of the bell-wire, and
then by a tinkling far below, too gentle to waken the house
that continued to enjoy the undisturbed dream of its repose. At
first we supposed it might be but some late-home-going
knight-errant from a feast of shells, in a mood, 'between
malice and true-love,' seeking to disquiet the slumbers of Old
Christopher, in expectation of seeing his night-cap (which he
never wears) popped out of the window, and of hearing his voice
(of which he is charry in the open air) simulating a scold upon
the audacious sleep-breaker. So we benevolently laid back our
head on our easy-chair, and pursued our speculations on the
state of affairs in general--and more particularly on the
floundering fall of that inexplicable people--the Whigs. We had
been wondering, and of our wondering found no end, what could
have been their chief reasons