His elder brother, Richard, was an elegant scholar and antiquary, and was intimate with Mr.Marriott, of Rokeby; with Mr.Surtees, the beauty of whose forged ballads almost makes us forgive him for having palmed them off as genuine; and with Walter Scott, then chiefly known as "the compiler of the 'Border Minstrelsy,'" but who a few years later immortalized his friendship for Richard Heber by the sixth of his introductions to "Marmion,"-- the best known, as it contains the description of the Christmas of the olden time.

It concludes with the wish-- "Adieu, dear Heber, life and health! And store of literary wealth." Just as Reginald was finishing his prize poem, Scott was on a tour through England, and breakfasted at Richard Heber's rooms at Oxford, when on the way to lionize Blenheim.

The young brother's poem was brought forward and read aloud, and Scott's opinion was anxiously looked for.

It was thoroughly favourable, "but," said Scott, "you have missed one striking circumstance in your account of the building of the Temple, that no tools were used in its erection." Before the party broke up the lines had been added: "No workman's steel, no ponderous axes rung; Like some tall palm the noiseless fabric sprung; Majestic silence--" The prose essay on "Common Sense" was first recited from the rostrum in the Sheldonian theatre, and Wilson always remembered the hearty applause of the young man who sat waiting his turn.

But the effect of the recitation of "Palestine" was entirely unrivalled on that as on any other occasion.