one year later than John Neilson; he
settled in Quebec in 1803, and died here on the 10th May, 1851.
Among those present this evening, I
see some of his for mer pupils. Alas! the frost of years has silvered
their locks! Dr. Wilkie "broke the bread of science" to several youths,
who subsequently won honor among their fellow men. Among the illustrious
dead, might be recalled (in the days when the able member for Birmingham,
England,. John Arthur Roebuck was indentured, at Quebec in 1818, as law
student, to Thos. Gugy, Esq., Barrister, brother of Col. B. C. A. Gugy,
late of Darnoc, Beauport,) a favorite pupil of the Doctor, the late Hon.
Judge Hy. Black, as well as that eminent jurist and scholar, Alex. C.
Buchanan, Q.C., late of Montreal; Hon. Mr. Justice T. C. Aylwin, Judge Chs.
Gates Holt. Among those still moving in our midst, one likes to point to
Chief Justice Duval, Judges Andrew Stuart, George Okill Stuart, and Hon.
J. Chapais, Hon. David A. Ross, Messrs. Francis and Henry Austin, Daniel
McPherson, N.P., R. H. Russel, M.D., and John Russel, of Toronto, M.D.
Dr. Wilkie’s pupils had the
following truthful words inscribed, on the monument they erected to their
patron in Mount Hermon cemetery;
"He was a learned scholar
And indefatigable student of philosophy and letters
An able and successful instructor of youth,
Of genuine uprightness and guileless simplicity
A devout, benevolent and public spirited man."
Some Scotch names are still
remembered in Montreal journalism, such as that of Robert Weir—of David
Kin-near—of James Moir Ferres.
Not many years back, the editorial
pen of our leading Journal, the