[ Mary Wilson Gordon / Christopher North, a Memoir of John Wilson ]
Mary Wilson (later Gordon) was one of the five children of John Wilson (1785 - 1854), the prolific Scottish writer, editor, and university professor. Most of John Wilson's literary output was under the pseudonym "Christopher North," hence the title of this biography. John Wilson is perhaps best remembered now as the editor of Blackwood's Edinburgh Review, a highly influential literary and cultural magazine throughout the 19th Century.
I have been able to find very little information regarding Mary Wilson Gordon, though it does appear that this biography of her father was the only book she wrote. It was first published in 1863; the text here is from the 1875 edition published by W. J Widdleton (New York).
In her biography, Mary Wilson Gordon discusses her father's love of and consideration for animals, particularly dogs, of which John Wilson owned a number during his life. One of those was a Newfoundland named Brontë (though not named after the famed Brontë sisters). John Wilson discusses Brontë in some of his own works, a series of imaginary dialogues among a group of friends that, despite the fictional premise, do seem to present real details about Wilson's Newf. You can read that fictionalized discussion of Wilson's Newfoundland here at The Cultured Newf.
Mary Wilson Gordon mentions Brontë only once in her biography, in Chapter 15, when she ventures upon an accounting of some of the more notable dogs her father owned.
Brontë comes first on the list. He came, I think, into the family in the year 1826, a soft, shapeless mass of puppyhood, and grew up a beautiful Newfoundland dog. "Purple-black was he all over, except the star on his breast, as the raven's wing. Strength and sagacity emboldened his bounding beauty, and a fierceess lay deep down within the quiet lustre o' his een that tauld you, even when he laid his head upon your knees, and smiled up to your face like a verra intellectual and moral creature — as he was — that had he been angered, he could have torn in pieces a lion." He was brave and gentle in disposition, and we all loved him, but he was my father's peculiar property, of which he was, by the way, quite aware; he evinced for him a constancy that gained in return the confidence and attention of his master. Every day for several years did Brontë walk by his side to and from the College, where he was soon as well known as the Professor himself. This fine dog came to an untimely end. There was good reason to believe that he had been poisoned by some members of Dr. Knox's class, in revenge for the remarks made by my father on the Burke and Hare murders. I remember the morning we missed Brontë from the breakfast-room, a half-formed presentiment told us that something was wrong; we called, but no bounding step answered the summons. I went to look for him in the schoolroom, and there he lay lifeless. I could not believe it, and touched him gently with my foot; he did not move. I bent down and laid my hand on his head, but it was cold; poor Brontë was dead! "No bark like his now belongs to the world of sound;" and so passed Brontë "to the land of hereafter." It was some time ere he found a successor; but there was no living without dogs, and the next was Rover. . . . (389)
In the very next paragraph Mary Wilson Gordon mentions another Newfoundland of her father's acquaintance:
The house in Gloucester Place was a rendezvous for all kinds of dogs. My father's kindliness of nature made him open his house for his four-footed friends, who were too numerous to describe. There was Professor Jameson's Neptune, a Newfoundland dog....
Gordon will remark, in the following paragraph (p. 391), that John Wilson gave up owning dogs after a subsequent dog of his, of unspecified breed but so small he could fit in the pocket of Wilson's jacket — "he was a cosy, coaxing, mysterious, half-mouse, half-bird-like dog" — died suddenly. Wilson "was very sad when he died, and vowed he never would have any more dogs — and he kept his vow. (392)