Their wames are swell’d beyond dimension,
Their shapes!—ye hae nae comprehension.
Sic a sicht!—their tails are curly,
Their houghs sae round, their necks sae burly;
In the warld there’s naething bigger
Than the tane—except the tither.”
The next prominent among Scottish poet-humourists that occurs here is Professor Wilson, whose claim is made perfect by the unique and incomparable “Noctes Ambrosianæ,” originally contributed to Blackwood’s Magazine under the pen name of “Christopher North.” Here there is humour to the knees, humour to the loins, humour to swim in—a great river! But we dare not enter, even though the temptation is strong. One solitary example of Wilson’s genial humour, gleaned outside of the “Noctes,” must serve here. It involves the name of another poet-humourist of almost equal renown—namely, Professor Aytoun, author of the celebrated Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers and joint-author with Sir Theodore Martin of the Bon Gaultier Ballads. Aytoun, as everybody knows, married Wilson’s daughter, Miss Emily Jane. When, after the usual preliminaries, he made a proposal of marriage to her, the young lady, as a matter of course, referred him to her father. Aytoun was uncommonly diffident, and said, “Emily, my dear, you must speak for me. I could not summon courage to speak to the Professor on the subject.”
“Papa is in the library,” remarked the lady.
“Then you had better go to him,” said the suitor, “and I will wait here for you.”
There being apparently no help for it, the lady proceeded to the library, and, taking her father affectionately by the hand, mentioned that Aytoun had asked her in marriage, and added, “Shall I accept his offer, papa; he is so shy and diffident that he cannot speak to you himself?”