WILSON THE ORNITHOLOGIST 
 
 A NEW CHAPTER 
 
 IN HIS 
 
 LIFE. 
 
 ( Embodying many Letters hitherto unpublished. ) 
 
 BY 
 
 ALLAN PARK PATON. 
 
 '1 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 LONGMAN, GREEN & COMPANY. 
 
 1863. 
 
V\/7A-<b p 
 
 ALEXANDER WILSON. 
 
 Through the love and study of Birds, two names have become 
 strangely associated in Natural History. They are to be 
 found in the title of a work which stands at the head of its 
 class : “ American Ornithology, by Alexander Wilson and 
 Charles Lucien Bonaparte;” the one originally a Paisley 
 weaver and packman, in whose Journal kept in 1789 are 
 these words, “ I have this day, I believe, measured the height 
 of a hundred stairs and explored the recesses of twice that 
 number of miserable habitations, and what have I gained by it? 
 only two shillings of worldly pelf and the other a Prince, 
 a nephew of the great Napoleon. Here they are in close and 
 constant fellowship, and the Prince often speaking of the 
 Pedlar in terms like these : “ All his pencil or pen has touched 
 is established incontestibly ; by the plate, description and his- 
 tory he has always determined his bird so obviously as to defy 
 criticism and prevent future mistake.” 
 
 Although about half a century has passed since Alexander 
 Wilson was, with public honours, laid in his grave beyond the 
 Atlantic, the Sculptor (Mossman of Glasgow) is, while these 
 remarks are being written, modelling a Statue of him to be 
 erected in his native town, and the design for which represents 
 the Naturalist, his gun slung on his hack and his sketch book 
 and pet parrot at his feet, gazing on a bird which he has just 
 shot and lifted. It seems, therefore, an appropriate time to 
 add, as we are enabled to do, a new Chapter to his brief Life. 
 
 h 55001 
 
4 
 
 With the biographical memoirs connected with the various 
 editions of the Ornithology and his Poems — for the subject 
 of our remarks was also a poet of no mean genius — about 
 sixteen letters of Wilson have been published. About an 
 equal number, with one exception, never published, so far as 
 we are aware, and certainly not incorporated in any of the 
 Lives of him, now lie before us. They were written by him 
 while labouring obscurely as a village schoolmaster in the 
 Backwoods, and were addressed to a fellow countryman, 
 Charles Orr, also an exile in the New World, and engaged 
 in teaching in Philadelphia. One of his biographers, and 
 we think the best of them, has said, “ It is unfortunate that 
 as the life of Wilson becomes interesting, the materials for 
 writing it become more scant and meagre. We arrive at a 
 period, 1794, when we are compelled to draw our authorities 
 from a few letters of his own, written at considerable intervals, 
 and mostly addressed to such individuals as were more in- 
 terested in knowing the state of his domestic circumstances, 
 than the history of his public life and adventures and again, 
 “ From 1798 there is an interval of no less thayi seven years , 
 in which we lose sight of him entirely , and only learn from 
 his next epistle, dated 1st June, 1803, that his occupation was 
 that of a teacher.” The letters we refer to were written in 
 1 7 99, 1 800, 1801, and 1802, and, therefore, are valuable new 
 materials, and must go far to fill up this gap in his history. 
 
 A brief statement of Wilson’s Life, as already known, will 
 enable the reader who may be ignorant or forgetful of it, to 
 appreciate the new Chapter now to be added. 
 
 Alexander Wilson was born in Paisley, on the 6th of July, 
 1766. His father, an unusually intelligent and highly re 
 spected man, was a handloom weaver : he survived his illus- 
 trious son three years, dying in 1816, and had the pleasure 
 of receiving on its publication a copy of the first volume of the 
 American Ornithology — to which every monarch in Europe 
 was a subscriber — bearing the words, “ To my aged father, 
 from his affectionate son, the author.” It was intended that 
 Alexander Wilson — one of a family of six — should be edu- 
 
5 
 
 cated for the Church, and he accordingly was sent to the 
 grammar school, where he first obtained that literary taste 
 and love of study by which he was characterised. When he 
 was about ten years old his mother died, and his father, finding 
 it necessary for the sake of his young family, married again. 
 His circumstances were thereafter changed, and his former 
 purpose connected with his son was abandoned. The hoy 
 was, therefore, at the age of thirteen, hound apprentice for 
 three years to his brother-in-law, a weaver, and, after fulfilling 
 his indenture, wrought as a journeyman weaver for four years. 
 It was principally during this time that he wrote his Poems, 
 some of which were attributed to Burns, with whom Wilson 
 afterwards became acquainted. To one so fond of liberty and 
 nature the occupation of handloom weaving must have been, 
 through its confinement and monotony, peculiarly painful and 
 fretting. We can imagine how often he, who afterwards roved 
 freely ten thousand miles in what he calls “ the western woody 
 world,” in an enthusiastic study of the beautiful, would, while 
 “handling the pin,” lift his eyes from the weary warp to steal 
 a glance at the blue sky. In his twentieth year, however, his 
 restless and independent spirit rebelled, and, throwing aside 
 the shuttle, he rose, stored and strapped a green pack on his 
 shoulders, took a hazel stalf in his hand, and started as a 
 Pedlar. For three years he now travelled Scotland like a 
 second Autolycus, with muslins “ of all the colours of the 
 rainbow,” and “ songs for men and women of all sizes,” for, 
 proposing to publish a volume of Poems, he carried samples 
 of them, saying in a metrical handbill of his stock, which he 
 circulated: 
 
 “ Now, ye Fair, if ye elmse my piece to peruse, 
 
 With pleasure I’ll instantly show it ; 
 
 If the Pedlar should fail to be favour’d with sale, 
 
 Then I hope you’ll encourage the Poet.” 
 
 lie was by no means successful in his new vocation, either as 
 regards his goods or his verses, and his volume, published in 
 1790, made small progress. Disappointed greatly, he re- 
 luctantly returned to his former trade. Continuing to write 
 in the interval, Wilson, in 1793, committed a sad mistake bv 
 
6 
 
 indulging in a personal satire against a respectable manufac- 
 turer in Paisley. For this he was prosecuted, and not only 
 was imprisoned three days, but was obliged to burn the ob- 
 noxious production on the stair in front of the jail, within 
 a trifling distance of the site of the proposed statue. It has 
 been asserted that it was while he was confined in the tolbooth 
 that he wrote his best poem, “ Watty and Meg,” of which it is 
 said a hundred thousand copies were sold in a few weeks. This 
 was publicly ascribed to Burns, and Mrs Burns, the poet’s 
 widow, told, in the presence of Mr Robert Chambers, (whose 
 Life and Works of our national bard seems to have been a true 
 labour of love,) that, as her husband sat one day at his desk by 
 the window, a hawker of repute called Bishop passed, looking 
 we suppose “ before and after,” according to the manner of his 
 kind, and bawling “Watty and Meg, a new Ballad by Robert 
 Burns!” whereon Robin looked out, and said, “That’s a lee , 
 Andrew, but I would make your plack a bawbee if it were 
 mine.” In connexion with the libellous stanzas for which 
 Wilson paid so dearly, it is now understood that, taken in his 
 sourness, he acted in this matter as the tool of others. Before 
 leaving Paisley for America, he called on the party against 
 whom his lines had been directed, and begged to be forgiven ; 
 and when a brother, who, with the prospect of joining him 
 abroad, had carefully gathered all his pieces of a satirical cast, 
 produced them at their meeting, believing that they would form 
 an acceptable gift, Wilson, the instant he received them, pushed 
 them into the fire, with the words, “ These were the sins of my 
 youth, and bad I taken my good old father’s advice, they would 
 never have seen the light.” 
 
 This unpleasant episode further darkening his home pros- 
 pects, he now resolved to emigrate, and, with this fixed 
 object, sat down to his loom again. His determination and 
 self denial are manifested in the fact, that he limited the 
 expense of bis living to one shilling a week, till he had 
 accumulated the passage money. Then, bidding his rela- 
 tives and friends farewell, he walked to Port Patrick — 
 nearly a hundred miles — crossed to Belfast, took ship (the 
 “Swift,” with 350 passengers), and sailed on the 23d of May, 
 
7 
 
 1794. About the 14th of July, “the sun rising, they found 
 themselves within the Capes of the Delawares, the shores on 
 land having the appearance of being quite flat, and only a 
 complete forest of trees.” These are his words, and Provi- 
 dence had arranged, that in that “ complete forest of trees” he 
 should be a solitary and wandering student for years. Many 
 a night was he to lie down, alone, in that leafy wilderness, 
 “ with his gun in his hand and his pistols in his bosom,” and 
 many a long day was he to spend there, Indian-like, tracking 
 its strange and precious forms of beauty, and patiently gather- 
 ing the materials for that noble work, on which his fame now 
 rests so securely. Landing at Newcastle, with not a line of 
 introduction to a creature, and with only a few shillings lent 
 him by a fellow passenger, Wilson, excited with the appearance 
 of the new land, and filled with fresh hope, set off*, gun on 
 shoulder — how much was that gun to do, and what treasures 
 of delight and knowledge was it to be the means of gaining ! — 
 for Philadelphia, thirty-three miles away. Upon the road, 
 everything delighted him, particularly the plumage of the 
 birds, and he inaugurated his destined career by shooting a 
 red-headed woodpecker, “ than which,” to use after words, “no 
 bird in North America is more universally known. His tri- 
 coloured plumage, red, white, and black, glossed with steel blue, 
 is so striking and characteristic ; and his predatory habits in 
 the orchards and cornfields, added to his numbers, and fond- 
 ness for hovering along the fences, so very notorious, that 
 almost every child is acquainted with the red-headed wood- 
 pecker.” Reaching the city of Franklin, he sought anxiously, 
 but unsuccessfully, for employment at the old “stand by” of 
 weaving, and wrought for a short time with a countryman 
 who was a copper-plate printer. When, ten years after, we 
 find him, in writing to Mr Bartram, the botanist and naturalist, 
 and one of his best friends, say, “ J^haveJbeen amusing myself 
 this some time in attempting to etch ; I will send you the first 
 impression I receive after I finish the plate,” we think we see 
 the meaning of this odd passage in his story. He soon gave 
 up the strange work, and, engaged by a person living about ten 
 miles from the city, again sat down to the hated, but we may 
 
8 
 
 now almost say, faithful loom, so constant a drudge was it unto 
 him, serving him at his sore need. Restlessness, however, pre- 
 vailed once more, and again, wallet on back and staff in hand 
 — this time not the hazel — he traversed a great portion of the 
 State of New Jersey. This tour was more successful than the 
 Scottish ones which we have noticed, and the results may have 
 assisted him in finally abandoning the web, and adopting an 
 occupation more in keeping with his tastes and ambition, 
 namely, that of a schoolmaster. It is from him, as a teacher 
 in Milestown, in August, 1798, that we have the last letter 
 previous to those contained in these pages. It was a long one 
 to his father, ending with this sentence, “I must now bid you 
 farewell, as my paper is almost done. May Providence con- 
 tinue to bless you with health, peace, and content, and, when 
 the tragic-comic scene of life is over, may all meet in regions 
 of bliss and immortality. I am till death, dear father, your 
 affectionate son, Alex. Wilson and, among the news in it 
 which he thought would be interesting from the New World, is 
 this, “ Mr Orr, of King’s Street, writing master, is well this 
 being the friend to whom the unpublished letters were addressed. 
 
 Here, therefore, seems the proper place to introduce them. 
 
 The first of our materials is but a fragment, without date, 
 and now wanting the signature. It was evidently written 
 some time after the 28th of April, 1799, and, there having 
 been on Wilson’s part, and as regards him, a dead silence since 
 August in the previous year, this — abrupt and unfinished — 
 suggests the sudden and imperfectly caught sound of a voice 
 from the forest, and the voice of “ a man living manlike.” 
 
 “ Hear Sir, — Will you please to call at Mr Biggs, mathe- 
 matical instrument maker, No. 81 Front Street, and employ 
 him to make me a stile of brass l-6th of an inch thick, exactly 
 corresponding with the enclosed pattern. I suppose he may 
 
 be able to finish it before Mr leaves town, and who will 
 
 pay you. I finished the other dial completely to my mind, 
 and employed a clumsy blacksmith to make me a stile, who 
 ruined the whole marble in driving it in, and I broke it to 
 
9 
 
 pieces. If Biggs cannot finish it in time, I shall wait until 
 you find an opportunity of sending it, or shall bring it out 
 yourself. I had a letter from my nephew, dated Ap. 28, at 
 which time he was in excellent health, sweeping away and 
 burning down the woods. I am” 
 
 The earliest complete letter is distinctly the cry of a social 
 and intellectual man feeling the want and necessity of com- 
 panionship ; and it is a fair specimen of that essayish style of 
 letter-writing which characterised the epistles of Burns and 
 Wilson, following the manner of Johnson and others of his 
 time. 
 
 “ Mr Charles Orr, 
 
 At Mr Dobson’s Book Store, 
 
 Second Street between Market and Chesnut Street. 
 
 Milestown, May 25, ’99. 
 
 Sir, — Considering the short distance between this and 
 Philadelphia, the many pressing invitations you have received 
 to come and see me, and the friendship and respect I most 
 sincerely declare I have for you, it is matter of regret to me 
 that you seem insensible to them all, nor ever do me the 
 pleasure of one visit. Have I injured you? Am I unworthy 
 your acquaintance? Are you afraid of contaminating your- 
 self with the rusticity of my manners and address ? I have 
 liv’d, to be sure, five years in the woods, pursuing a business 
 the most apt of any to render peevish and pedantic the best 
 disposition in the world, and it were vain indeed in me to hope 
 that I had escaped without a touch of both the one and the 
 other; but what of that? Have not we all our failings and 
 vanities ? and ought we not rather to smile at and forgive, 
 than to be too sensible and feeling on these occasions ? Come 
 out, Mr Orr, and see me ; you shall find an open and frank 
 hospitality such as my brother or best friend would receive. 
 The sight of the green meadows, the singing of birds, the 
 fragrance of flowers and blossoms, and the conversation of 
 myself and the rest of our clod-hoppers, will be an excellent 
 contrast to the burning streets, the growling oyster men, the 
 
10 
 
 stinking sewers and polite company of Philadelphia. You 
 will receive from the bearer the money you paid for me to the 
 mathematical instrument maker, with my thanks for your 
 trouble; and if you are determined never to visit me, your good 
 disposition, I hope, will not refuse to let me know by letter 
 what I have done to deserve such neglect and contempt, that 
 I may correct myself for the future, if I have done amiss. 
 
 I believe this is the first letter I ever wrote to you. You 
 used to visit me, — perhaps I seemed sorry to see you and 
 happy when you went away. If so, may every soul that I 
 visit spit in my face and kick me from their company. If 
 otherwise (which your own heart must testify) may every 
 friend I love receive me with as sincere pleasure as Wilson has 
 received and would receive Orr. — I am with respect, Sir, your 
 obedient servant, Alex. Wilson.” 
 
 More than a year again elapses before we learn aught fur- 
 ther of Wilson, but then come three letters written close upon 
 each other, and from their being addressed to Mr Orr at Miles- 
 town, we are led to believe that the latter had, about the 10th 
 of July, 1800, left the city on a fortnight’s visit, and that, 
 even while they were together, Wilson had proposed and car- 
 ried on this correspondence for the purpose of improvement. 
 In the volume of Wilson’s Poetical Works there is included an 
 “Epistle to C. Orr,” of the date we have just mentioned, in- 
 viting him to visit him, and this invitation he accepted. The 
 original of this poem lies now before us ; it is nearly twice 
 as long as the version published, and is, in our opinion, much 
 more beautiful. 
 
 
 “Mr Charles Orr, Philomath, 
 
 Milestown. 
 
 Dear Sir, — You and I have often conversed together on the 
 use and pleasure of epistolary correspondence, which is, in 
 fact, nothing more than artificial conversation, with this ad- 
 vantage, that we are in no danger of being interrupted by the 
 person we are in conversation with, and are always certain to 
 be listened to, whereas in verbal conversation it often happens 
 
11 
 
 that, through impatience to give vent to the ideas that strike 
 us while our friend is speaking, or from something advanced 
 by him that we think absurd, we can hardly hear him out, and 
 so the dispute becomes a mere battle of words , and instead of 
 producing pleasure or conviction to either party, begets ill- 
 will and bigoted obstinacy of opinion. Now, Mr Orr, as you 
 and I are both lovers of truth — as we are subject to the fail- 
 ings of human nature as well as others, and as we are both 
 capable of giving and receiving information and advice to each 
 other — why may we not avail ourselves of the advantages that 
 this method of communicating holds out ? I, for my part, 
 have many things to enquire of you, of which at different times 
 I form very different opinions, and at other times can form 
 no distinct decided opinion at all. Sometimes they appear 
 dark and impenetrable ; sometimes I think I see a little better 
 into them ; now I see them as plain as broad day, and again 
 they are as dark to me as midnight. In short, the moon puts 
 not on more variety of appearance to the eye than many sub- 
 jects do to my apprehension, and yet in themselves they still 
 remain the same. 
 
 I have also many things of a more interesting and secret 
 nature which I will in confidence entrust to your examination, 
 that may at least afford you matter of diversion to laugh at, 
 and an opportunity of laughing me out of them likewise. 
 
 I have nothing more at heart at present than the propriety 
 of pursuing a plan of economy, and of observing the strictest 
 frugality for the future in all my proceedings. Tell me if you 
 think my resolutions laudable, and what advantages I may ex- 
 pect to reap from a rigid adherence to them. You see I have 
 only scrawled this hasty preparatory billet. Do you the same. 
 It is the matter, not the manner, I care for. — I am with sin- 
 cerity, yours affectionately, Alex. Wilson. 
 
 Monday, noon, July 21, 1800.” 
 
 “ Mr Charles Orr, 
 
 Milestown. 
 
 Dear Sir, — We don’t always feel in a mood for conversa- 
 tion. Just so it is in writing. Sometimes the sprightly ideas 
 
12 
 
 flow out irresistibly. At other times we sit scratching our 
 stupified noddles for some dull idea, which is dragged out like 
 a thief to the gallows. This is the situation at this time with 
 my pericranium. You will therefore forgive me if I trouble 
 you no farther than just to acknowledge the receipt of yours 
 of the 21st. I congratulate you, sir, on the specimen of 
 epistolary correspondence with which you honoured me on 
 Monday. The sentiments are just, well expressed, and per- 
 fectly correspond with my own. And that, you know, is a 
 pretty handsome compliment from one like me, who thinks 
 so much of my own self, my own performances and my own 
 opinions. 
 
 I troubled you yesterday with the subject of Frugality” — 
 that letter of Tuesday the 2 2d has perhaps been lost — “I shall 
 now ask your opinion on a still more interesting subject, and 
 shall first relate the circumstances that impressed this subject 
 so strongly on my mind. 
 
 It was about the middle of last May, one morning in taking 
 my usual rounds, I was delighted with the luxuriance of nature 
 that everywhere smiled around me. The trees were covered 
 with blossoms, enclosing the infant fruit that was, at some 
 future day, to give existence to others. The birds, in pairs, 
 were busily engaged in preparing their nests to accommodate 
 their little offspring. The colt pranced by the side of its 
 dam ; the bleating of lambs was heard from every farm ; and 
 insects, in thousands, were preparing to usher their multitudes 
 into being. In short, all nature, every living thing around 
 me, seemed cheerfully engaged in fulfilling that great com- 
 mand, 4 Multiply and replenish the earth,’ excepting myself. 
 I stood like a blank in this interesting scene, like a note of 
 discord in this universal harmony of love and self-propaga- 
 tion, everything I saw seemed to reproach me as an unsocial 
 wretch separated from the great chain of nature, and living 
 only for myself. No endearing female regarded me as her 
 other self, no infant called me its father, I was like a dead 
 tree in the midst of a* green forest, or like a blasted ear amidst 
 the yellow harvest. Full of these mortifying reflexions, I wan - 
 dered homewards, and entered my lodging ; there my land- 
 
13 
 
 lord and his amiable spouse were playing with their children 
 and smiling on each other with looks of mutual affection and 
 parental pride. ‘0 despicable wretch,’ said I to myself, 
 ‘ what is all thy learning, books, or boasted acquisitions, to a 
 companion like that, or innocents like these whom thou could’st 
 call thine own ? By all that’s good,’ cry’d I, ‘ I shall share 
 these pleasures though ten thousand unseen distresses lurk 
 among them.” 
 
 To you, Mr Orr, who know me so well, it is unnecessary to 
 add that these resolutions were soon forgot in study and 
 abandoned for some algebraic solution or mathematical pur- 
 suit. But I have to ask you, is it not criminal to persist in 
 a state of celibacy ? And how comes it, that those whom 
 science allures in her train, and whose hearts are most sus- 
 ceptible of the finer feelings of the soul, are so forgetful of 
 this first and most exquisite of all human enjoyments, the 
 enjoyment of a virtuous wife and little innocents in whom they 
 can trace their own features blended together? 
 
 I beg pardon for detaining you so long. I have been 
 unintentionally led away into a train of speculations which I 
 only intended to hint at, and which all I can say in their favor 
 is that they are absolutely sincere. 
 
 Excuse all blunders, and believe me to be with great regard, 
 yours sincerely, 
 
 Alex. Wilson. 
 
 Wednesday, July 23, 1800.” 
 
 “ To Mi* Charles Orr, Professor of Astronomy, Mathematics, 
 Algebra, Geography, History, Poetry, Criticism, &c., &c., 
 and Practical Astronomy, on the School Green, Milestown. 
 Dear Sir, — Time has always been accounted among wise 
 men the most precious gift of God to man ; and has been, 
 generally speaking, received and used as the most worthless 
 and despicable. 0 ungrateful return for such invaluable 
 bounty ! But let us, my friend, profit by our past prodigality 
 and husband well this precious commodity ; who knows how 
 soon it may be taken from us ! 
 
 I have been led to these reflections by a retrospect of this 
 
 V 
 
 \ 
 
14 
 
 day. Rose half an hour before day. Sauntered abroad, sur- 
 veying the appearance of the fields, and contemplating the 
 progressive advances of morning, the appearance of the moon, 
 &c., without suggesting or having suggested one sentiment of 
 grateful adoration to the great Architect of the Universe, 
 without learning one truth that I was before ignorant of. 
 Wrought one solitary problem before breakfast, composed 
 eight lines of rhyme at noon, and am now writing these ob- 
 servations near evening. Thus fourteen hours have passed 
 almost unimproved away, and thus have thousands of precious 
 hours so perished ! Not one prayer said, not one thought of 
 matrimony entered my mind. An old bachelor, verging to the 
 gloomy regions of celibacy and old age, and clusters of dimple- 
 cheeked, soft-eyed females in every log hut around, and sighing 
 for a husband. 0 shame ! By the Immortal Gods, time and 
 youth and opportunities were not given to be so thrown away. 
 We must improve time. We must make advances in some 
 one or all of these important duties, which, Mr Sterne says, de- 
 void of, a human being is undeserving the name Man. That is, 
 to write a book, plant a tree, beget a child (I ought to have 
 said marry a wife first), build a house, and learn something 
 every day that he did not before know. Without this done, 
 Sterne won’t allow us to lay claim even to the name of 
 Man. But while I am thus reprobating the waste of time, 
 I am guilty of a double crime this moment, in losing my own 
 time to write, what perhaps you will consider also lost time 
 in reading. 
 
 Excuse blunders. — I am, my dear friend, yours sincerely, 
 
 Alex. Wilson. 
 
 Milestown Monastery, August 6, 1800.” 
 
 The high spirits and prevailing sentftnent of this letter are 
 scarcely monastic, and were destined to receive an unexpected 
 and serious check ; for the next one, written about five weeks 
 after, and in a feeble hand that confirms its intelligence, in- 
 forms us of Wilson’s having had such an illness as induced him 
 to resign his situation. By the address, we learn that his 
 friend had returned to the city. 
 
15 
 
 “ Mr Charles Orr, 
 
 Care of Mr Dobson, Bookseller, second Street between 
 Market and Chesnut Street, Philadelphia. 
 
 Milestown, Sept. 15, 1800. 
 
 Dear Sir, — The day on which the Trustees were to meet 
 arrived, but I said not a word to either of them, partly through 
 shame and partly through pride. About five in the evening 
 they assembled, accompanied by a candidate for the school ; 
 a very genteel young man. They spoke of me looking much 
 better than I did a few days before. I talked with the can- 
 didate about the average income of the school, which he had 
 been told was at least fifty scholars a quarter. I told him 
 what it had nearly averaged me, which never amounted to 
 forty, one quarter with another. His own school contained 
 at present forty-five, with a good dwelling-house. The Trus- 
 tees said that I looked so well that, perhaps with a few days’ 
 more relaxation, I might be able to begin again myself. I 
 told them that I had twice given up the school from the same 
 reason, want of health, and if they could suit themselves with 
 a person with a constitution better fitted to encounter the hard 
 duties of a school, I was satisfied, but I was sorry still to part 
 with them. I was attached to the children and to the people, 
 and, if they would allow me one week more to ramble about, 
 I would once more engage, though I should die in their service. 
 My request was immediately acceded to, and I am once more 
 the dominie of Milestown school. — I am most sincerely yours, 
 
 Alex. Wilson.” 
 
 This is a valuable and interesting letter, and shews the 
 estimation in which he must have been held, both by the Trus- 
 tees and the inhabitants of the place. 
 
 About ten days afterwards, on his landlord’s visiting Phila- 
 delphia, he again writes Mr Orr to the same address : — 
 
 
 “ Dear Sir, — I take the opportunity of Mr ’s going to 
 
 town to write you a few lines by way of refreshing your me- 
 mory, as I am afraid that you have forgot the mutual agree- 
 ment we made, to correspond as often as convenient. I have 
 
16 
 
 begun the old way again, have about 30 scholars, which num- 
 ber may increase to 40 before the quarter is concluded. I 
 study none, and take my morning and evening ramble regu- 
 larly. Our debating society commences again on Saturday 
 first. The proposed question — “ Is the cultivation of the 
 vine an object worthy the attention of the American farmer!” 
 — will produce I think an agreeable debate. I am anxious 
 to hear from you. Do you spend any of your leisure hours 
 with the puzzling chaps, algebra, trigonometry, &c., or are 
 you wholly absorbed in the study of mechanics! You must 
 write me particularly. I think I shall take a ride 15 or 20 
 miles on Saturday. I find riding agrees better with me than 
 any other exercise. I always feel cheerful after it, and can 
 eat confoundedly. Have you made any new discoveries in the 
 Heaven above, or the earth beneath, with your telescope or 
 microscope ! I expect to hear from Billy in less than a week, 
 as two persons have gone up more than three weeks ago. Do 
 not forget to write. — Your sincere and affectionate friend, 
 
 Alex. Wilson. 
 
 Milestown, Sept. 24, 1800.” 
 
 For about eight months from this time, we again lose sight 
 of the future Ornithologist, although it is evident from the 
 commencement of the next letter of our series, that the cor- 
 respondence of the friends had been continued. This letter 
 has a special interest. In all the biographical memoirs of 
 Wilson now before the world, one circumstance is recorded as 
 being a strange one in the life of a man of such a temperament. 
 “ He had never ,” says one of these, “ yielded to the soft 
 hut potent sovereignty of love. In this respect he is almost 
 alone among the warm-hearted sons of song. Barely does he 
 write of love, and when he does* it is like a man who might 
 have thought about it, as about any other interesting mental 
 phenomenon, but had never experienced its subduing power.” 
 Another writes, “Like many sons of toil, he was not bound by 
 very strong ties of sentiment to his native country ; and what 
 is a little remarkable in a poet’s life, he never formed any 
 attachment of the heart ;” while a third tells us, “ His morals 
 
17 
 
 were correct, his piety sincere, and his affection for his natural 
 or adopted friends no change of time or place could influence 
 or alter. With the high born feelings of a poet, he had few 
 of the defects that cling to the poetic character. Female 
 attachments he had none , or he wisely allowed them to hold 
 him so lightly , as neither to interrupt his pursuits or disturb 
 his peace .” To those who have read the letters we have just 
 recorded, with apostrophising of “ sweet charmers,” “ endear- 
 ing females,” and “dimple-cheeked, soft-eyed maidens,” this 
 must sound somewhat strange. But, even supposing the 
 statement to hold good as regards his previous life, it has fallen 
 to us to shew that this element of romance was not to be want- 
 ing in the otherwise romantic life of Wilson, although there 
 may have been unfortunate circumstances connected with it, 
 as we are only allowed to gather. Of actual misconduct there 
 is no evidence whatever ; and in the too frequent instances of 
 similar attachments in the lives of eminent men, very few 
 indeed have acted with the same promptness and spirit of 
 honour as Wilson, who, as we shall see, at once sacrificed his 
 situation, and effectually and for ever, separated himself from 
 the object of his regard. That such a mutual feeling should 
 have insensibly grown, we can hardly wonder, when we con- 
 sider his peculiar temperament and isolated life, and, what 
 we believe was the fact, that the person referred to by him in 
 the following letters, was a woman characterised by many 
 excellent qualities. 
 
 “ Mr Charles Orr, 
 
 Writing Master, Dock Street, Philadelphia. 
 
 My Dear Sir, — I have received all the Orations. I am in- 
 deed much obliged to your friendship, and request that you 
 would come out this evening and stay with me till Sunday 
 evening. I have matters to lay before you that have almost 
 distracted me. Do come. I shall be so much obliged. Your 
 friendship and counsel may be of the utmost service to me. I 
 shall not remain here long. It is impossible I can. I have now 
 no friend but yourself, and one whose friendship has involved 
 
 B 
 
18 
 
 both in ruin or threatens to do so. You will find me in the 
 schoolhouse. — I am, most affectionately yours, 
 
 Alex. Wilson. 
 
 May 1st, 1 801.” 
 
 In one of the biographies of him it is recorded, that “ Wilson 
 next changed his residence at Milestown for the village of 
 Bloomfield, New Jersey;” and by another we are informed 
 that, “about the beginning of 1802, Wilson removed to the 
 village of Bloomfield, in the State of New Jersey, where he 
 again taught a school.” This is a mistake, for, as the reader 
 will presently see, he was settled there in the summer of 1801. 
 
 The reason of this change it has been our part to make thus 
 public. In his own words, “it was impossible he could remain 
 long” at Milestown, and accordingly, in little more than a 
 month, the scene has changed. 
 
 “ Mr Charles Orr, 
 
 Care of Mr Dobson, Bookseller, Philadelphia. 
 
 Bloomfield, near Newark, N. Jersey, 
 July 12th, 1801. 
 
 My dear Friend, — If this letter reach you it will inform you 
 that I keep school at 12s per quarter, York currency, with 
 35 scholars, and pay 12s per week for board, and 4s addi- 
 tional for washing, and 4s per week for my horse. After I 
 parted with , the Quakers not coming to any agree- 
 
 ment about engaging me, I left Wrightstown and steered for 
 New York through a country entirely unknown to me, visited 
 many wretched hovels of schools by the way; in four days 
 
 reached York, and from every person who knew the , 
 
 I received the most disagreeable accounts of them, viz., that 
 
 had by too great a fondness for gaming and sometimes 
 
 taking his scholars with him, entirely ruined his reputation 
 and lost his business, and from his own mouth I learned that 
 he expected jail every day for debts to a considerable amount. 
 
 And is lost for every good purpose in this world and 
 
 abandoned to the most shameful and excessive drinking, 
 
19 
 
 swearing and wretched company. He called on me last 
 Thursday morning in company with a hocus pocus man for 
 whom he plays the clarionet. New York swarms with newly 
 imported Irishmen of all descriptions, clerks, schoolmasters, 
 
 &c. The city is very sickly, and all the rest to whom 
 
 I spoke of you believed that your labour here would be even 
 more unsuccessful than in Philadelphia, and related so many 
 stories to that purpose that I was quite discouraged. Mr 
 
 attempted it there, but was obliged to remove, and is 
 
 now in Boston wandering through the streets insane. I staid 
 only one night in York, and being completely run out except 
 about 3 11 -penny bits, I took the first school from absolute 
 necessity that I could find. I live six miles north from Newark 
 and twelve miles from New York, in a settlement of canting, 
 preaching, praying and sniveling ignorant Presbyterians. 
 They pay their minister 250 pounds a year for preaching 
 twice a week, and their teacher 40 dollars a quarter for the 
 most spirit-sinking laborious work, 6, I may say 12 times 
 weekly. I have no company, and live unknowing and unknown. 
 I have lost all relish for this country, and, if Heaven spares 
 me, I shall soon see the shores of old Caledonia. How happy 
 I should be to have you beside me. I am exceedingly uneasy 
 to hear from you. Dear Orr, make no rash engagements that 
 may bind you for ever to this unworthy soil. I shall arrange 
 all my affairs with Billy as expeditiously as I can. In the 
 meantime I request you, my dear friend, to oblige me in one 
 
 thing if you wish me well. Go out on Saturday to * — ’s 
 
 and try to get intelligence how Mr ’s family comes on, 
 
 without letting any one know that you have heard from me. 
 Get all the particulars you can, what is said of me, and how 
 
 Mrs is, and every other information, and write me fully. 
 
 I assure you I am very wretched, and this would give me the 
 
 greatest satisfaction. will tell yon everything, but 
 
 mention nothing of me to any body on any account. Conceal 
 nothing that you hear, but inform me of everything. My dear 
 friend, I beg you would oblige me in this. I am very miser- 
 able on this unfortunate account. I shall write you more 
 fully on a variety of things I have to inform you of next week 
 
20 
 
 or as soon as I hear from you. Direct as above dated. I 
 shall try to get information from a friend in Albany how 
 matters would do there. — I am, most sincerely, your affec- 
 tionate friend while 
 
 Alex. Wilson. 
 
 P.S. — got the letter I wrote, hut was so swallowed 
 
 up in extravagance I suppose that he never replied to it. 
 
 Let us contrive a plan to leave this country and try old 
 Scotia once more in company. 
 
 The hones of a mammoth or some gigantic animal are 
 digging up here, of which I shall send the particulars in my 
 next. I shall superintend the whole process.” 
 
 He hears from his friend, and, ten days after, writes the 
 following letter, which is unusually interesting on many 
 accounts : — 
 
 “ Mr Charles Orr, 
 
 Care of Mr Dobson, Bookseller, Philadelphia. 
 
 Bloomfield, July 23, 1801. 
 
 My dear Friend, — I received yours last evening. 0 how 
 blessed it is to have one friend on whose affection, in the day 
 of adversity, we can confide ! As to the reports circulated 
 in the neighbourhood of Milestown, were I alone the subject of 
 them they would never disturb me, hut she who loved me dearer 
 than her own soul, whose image is for ever with me, whose 
 heart is broken for her friendship to me, — she must hear 
 all with not one friend to whom she dare unbosom her sorrows. 
 Of all the events of my life nothing ever gave me such inex- 
 pressible misery as this. 0 my dear friend, if you can hear 
 anything of her real situation, and whatever it be disguise no- 
 thing to me. Take a walk up to ’s, perhaps she has called 
 
 lately there, and go out to ’s on Saturday if possible. Let 
 
 nobody whatever know that you have heard anything of me. 
 
 In my last I told you was on the threshold of the jail. 
 
 He has now passed the threshold and is fairly cag’d. 
 
 is traversing the country with a hocus-pocus man in a poor 
 scurvy plight playing the clarionet. The gentleman who dis- 
 
21 
 
 covered the bones of which I spoke is a Mr Kenzie, who was 
 sinking a well for his paper mill in a swamp supposed 
 formerly to have been the bed of a small creek that runs near. 
 Six feet from the surface, under a stratum of sand 4 inches 
 deep, they found several bones apparently belonging to the 
 tail, 6 inches in breadth, with part of a leg-bone measuring 
 upwards of 7 inches diameter at the joint, part of a rib 4 
 feet long, and many fragments in a decayed state. For want 
 of hands no farther search has yet been made, but it is in- 
 tended to obtain the head and teeth if possible. The greatest 
 curiosity in this State is the Falls at Paterson where the river, 
 which is about 40 yards broad, flows along a bed of solid 
 rock. A sudden earthquake or some great convulsion has 
 split this rock asunder across the whole breadth of the river, 
 6 or 8 feet apart and upwards of 70 deep, down which the 
 whole river roars with a noise like thunder. This place is 
 but 8 miles distant, and I went alone on Saturday to see it. 
 The cotton works are completely deserted. I looked in at 
 the weaving shops and saw nothing but hens roosting on the 
 breast beams, and everything desolate. While I was in York 
 a teacher there offered me his school-room, benches, &c., with 
 all the scholars, amounting to 40 or 45, for 60 dollars cash, 
 as he wished to decline the business. It is needless to add 
 that I declined the honour of the bargain. The school-house 
 in which I teach is situated at the extremity of a spacious 
 level plain of sand thinly covered with grass. In the centre 
 of this plain stands a newly erected stone meeting-house, 80 
 feet by 60, which forms a striking contrast with my sanctum 
 sanctorum which has been framed of logs some 100 years ago, 
 and looks like an old sentry box. The scholars have been 
 accustomed to great liberties by their former teacher. They 
 used to put stones in his pocket, &c., &c. I was told that 
 the people did not like to have their children punished, but I 
 began with such a system of terror as soon established my 
 authority most effectually. I succeed in teaching them to 
 read, and I care for none of their objections. The following 
 anecdote will give you an idea of the people’s character. A 
 man was taken sick a few weeks ago and got deranged. It 
 
22 
 
 was universally said that he was bewitched by an old woman 
 who lived adjoining. This was the opinion of the Dutch 
 doctor who attended him, and at whose request a warrant was 
 procured from the Justice for bringing the witch before the 
 sick man, who, after tearing the old woman’s flesh with his 
 nails till the blood came, sent her home and afterwards re- 
 covered. This is a fact. The Justice who granted the 
 warrant went through among the people with me. I intend 
 to visit the poor woman myself and publish it to the world in 
 the Newark newspapers for the amusement of the enlightened 
 people of New Jersey. My dear Orr, I trust to your friend- 
 ship for the intelligence I mentioned ; write me fully as I will 
 
 you on receipt. I left my great-coat with a Mr in 
 
 Wrightstown where and I lodged. will tell you 
 
 his name. I wish you would write for it without letting 
 
 know anything of the matter. I left it in the stable. I owed 
 him nothing. I shall he much obliged if you drop a line to 
 him that it may he sent to Philadelphia, and this will he your 
 warrant. Farewell. I shall write more fully next time. — 
 Yours most sincerely, 
 
 Alex. Wilson.” 
 
 A fortnight" after, we have the following wanting the 
 address, hut what it was, he states in the immediately suc- 
 ceeding letter. 
 
 “Bloomfield, August 7, 1801. 
 
 My dear Friend, — I received yours yesterday. I entreat you 
 keep me on the rack no longer. Can you not spare one day 
 to oblige me so much \ Collect every information you can, 
 hut drop not a hint that you know anything of me. If it were 
 possible you could see her or any one who had , it would he an 
 unspeakable satisfaction to me. My dear Orr, the world is 
 lost for ever to me and I to the world. No time nor distance 
 can ever banish her image from my mind. It is for ever 
 present with me, and my heart is broken with the most melan- 
 choly reflexions. Whatever you may think of me, my dear 
 friend, do not refuse me this favour to know how she is. Were 
 
23 
 
 your situation mine, I declare from the bottom of my soul I 
 would hazard everything to oblige you. I leave the manage- 
 ment of it to yourself. But do not forget me. ’s debts 
 
 amount, as I have been informed, to two or three hundred 
 
 pounds. is weaving in an old cellar at Elizabeth 
 
 Town. My school increases : it is now 40. I have done 
 nothing yet toward visiting the supposed witch. Some day 
 soon I shall make it my business. There is a copper mine 
 about 300 yards from my school-house which was lately 
 wrought and many tuns of ore obtained from it. It is now 
 neglected. Among the other effects of superstition here there 
 lives just beside me a man who, being the seventh son, has 
 power to cure the most inveterate 4 king’s evil’ by simply lay - 
 ing his hands on it. He has had three patients since my 
 coming, and tells me he has cured hundreds. He says he can 
 feel the disorder ascending his arms and commonly is indis- 
 posed while performing a cure on his patients. They have 
 come 100 miles to him. He is now a man of forty-five, and 
 has practised this ‘ laying on of hands’ since he was a boy. 
 The people with whom I live are the veriest zealots in religion, 
 in praying, singing psalms and hymns. I was urged to ask 
 blessing at table the first-day and refused, but was insisted on 
 till through mere shame I was obliged to perform, and am 
 obliged to officiate every evening. God forgive me, for my 
 heart is as distant from my lips then as from you to me. I 
 consider it a monstrous hardship. I read the few lines of 
 poetry you sent me to the old fellow, who wanted me to find 
 out a tune for them that he might have the godly comfort of 
 singing them by way of hymn, which shall certainly be done. 
 As for myself I have recourse to a thousand expedients to 
 unburden my mind. I am really sometimes almost distracted 
 on seeing how and where I am situated. Sometimes I try to 
 turn it over to diversion, as in the following verses which I 
 wrote this morning, and enclose without preface or apology 
 as you know my situation : — 
 
 Here ox-headed ignorance gapes and is courted, 
 
 And curst superstition with visage distorted ; 
 
 Sweet science and truth while these monsters they cherish, 
 
 Like the Babes in the Wood are abandoned to perish. 
 
24 
 
 Here ten times a day they are hymning and praying, 
 
 And 1 glory to God’ most religions paying. 
 
 Should misery implore — that’s a quite different story. 
 
 They lock up the cash — but to God give the glory. 
 
 Young Venus ne’er lent to our females her graces ; 
 
 Like a duck’s is their gait, like old Punkins their faces, 
 
 No heart-winning looks to decoy or to charm us, 
 
 Their teeth like corruption, — their breath, O enormous ! 
 
 Here old wither’d witches crawl round ev’ry cabin, 
 
 And butter from chums are eternally grabbing ; 
 
 Ghosts, wizards, seventh sons, too, to cure the king’s evil, 
 
 One touch of their hand — and ’tis gone to the Devil. 
 
 Here the grim man of God, with a voice like a trumpet, 
 
 His pulpit each Sunday bestampt and bethumpet, 
 
 On all but his own pours damnation and ruin, 
 
 And heaves them to Satan for roasting and stewing. 
 
 There lonely and sad in his centry box standing, 
 
 The windows unglazed, . . . 
 
 A wretched exile murmurs A. B. C. grieving, 
 
 In sounds slow and solemn from morning to even. 
 
 Before you write take a walk up to ’s as if to enquire 
 
 for me, and try if you can get any information there. I know 
 that she used sometimes to go and see her. Forgive me, my 
 dear friend, if in anything I have offended you. The more of 
 mankind I see the more sincerely I value your friendship, and 
 trust it shall only dissolve when time to me shall he no longer. 
 
 Alex. Wilson.” 
 
 About a month having passed, he again writes : 
 
 “ Mr Charles Orr, 
 
 Care of Mr Dobson, Bookseller, Philadelphia. 
 
 Bloomfield, Sept. 14, 1801. 
 
 My dear Friend, — The last letter I wrote you I fondly 
 thought would be answered, but I have waited now three 
 weeks in vain. It was directed to you at M‘Phail’s China 
 Store, Dock Street. I conjure you, my dear friend, by all 
 that friendship which I always flattered myself you had for 
 
 me that you will write me on receipt of this. ’s father 
 
 arrived here last week from Scotland and found his two sons, 
 one in drunkenness and poverty, the other in a jail. Think 
 with yourself what were the feelings of the poor old man on 
 
25 
 
 this occasion. is since liberated. I remain here per- 
 
 fectly secluded from the world. Your letters were all my 
 company and amusement, but you have deprived me of even 
 that. As I have now no hopes of ever being in Philadelphia, 
 I ask it as a last favour that you would go out to the house 
 where I lodged and request them to bring my trunk into 
 Philadelphia that you may send it to me to New York. If 
 my nephew has written me it will be in Mr M‘Innes’, where I 
 wish you would enquire. I again implore you to let me know 
 how the family I mentioned are doing. You promised you 
 would, and I shall take it as the utmost kindness. Orr, I 
 wish it were possible for you and I to unite our talents and 
 exertions as we have often thought of doing. Would it not 
 do by making a bold push? I can engage the reading, 
 grammatical, and what other parts we should agree on — you 
 the rest. I will with pleasure join you if you are willing, for 
 if I must teach I will strain every effort to make something of 
 it. This would be the best moment to attempt it. Think on 
 the business, and I shall dispose of my horse, and unite with 
 you to rise or fall together. There are hardly two on earth 
 better acquainted with each other, and I think in conscience, 
 without boasting of myself or flattering you, that we would do 
 well. It is want of confidence alone that has kept us from 
 both fame and fortune in our respective pursuits. At all 
 events write me per return of post. A French gentleman from 
 St Domingo has been with me to-day from Newark to teach 
 him English. He is almost unintelligible. I have amused 
 myself since I came here with writing detached pieces of poetry 
 for the Newark Centinel , and have grown into some repute 
 with the editor and his readers. A song entitled 4 My Land- 
 lady’s Nose’ has been reprinted in a New York paper, and in 
 a periodical publication called the Museum . Please to let 
 
 the circumstances of the ’s be confined to your own breast. 
 
 You may let know of the old gentleman’s arrival. 
 
 Once more I ask you to oblige me with an answer to this, and 
 to excuse the hurried way in which it has been sqribbled. In 
 return for your next, I will send you something more enter- 
 taining. I am so uneasy to know how you come on ; that I am 
 
26 
 
 every night conversing with you in my sleep. — I am, my dear 
 friend, yours most sincerely, 
 
 Alexander Wilson.” 
 
 Five months now pass before we hear further of the subject 
 of our notice, and then, after his recent statement of having no 
 expectations of ever being again in Philadelphia, we are sur- 
 prised to find him writing his next communication in that city. 
 We are told in the Lives of him, that, soon after going to 
 Bloomfield, he had heard of a more desirable situation at a 
 short distance from Grey’s Ferry, and within a few miles of 
 Philadelphia, and upon application to the Trustees of it had 
 been appointed. Here it was that the tide of his fortune was 
 to turn, and that he was to conceive the design and make a 
 commencement of his great undertaking. We now, through 
 this correspondence, learn definitely that he entered on his 
 professional duties at Grey’s Ferry on the 25th of February, 
 1802, and it is probable that it was during the time that he 
 was in the city on the matter of this situation that the two 
 following letters were written. We find also that a cloud had 
 fallen on the friendship between Wilson and Orr, and are led 
 to believe that, influenced by unfavourable reports connected 
 with the attachment formed at Milestown, the latter must have 
 received his friend coldly. 
 
 “Philadelphia, Feb. 7, 1802. 
 
 Mr Orr, — I have no faults to reproach you with. If I had, 
 a consciousness of the number of my own would justly impose 
 silence on me. My disposition is to love those who love me 
 with all the warmth of enthusiasm, but to feel with the keenest 
 sensibility the smallest appearance of neglect or contempt 
 from those I regard. Of your friendship I have a thousand 
 times been truly proud, have boasted of your intimacy with 
 me and your professional abilities almost wherever I went. I 
 have poured out my soul into your bosom. If I have met or 
 only supposed that I have in the moments of anxiety and deep 
 mental perturbation met with cold indifference from the only 
 quarter where I expected the sweets of friendship, they little 
 
27 
 
 know my heart who would expect it to make no impression on 
 me. But Mr Orr, you can never make me your enemy, and 
 alas I have friendship for no one. Distress preys continually 
 on my mind. I have no friend, I ask for none. No friend 
 on earth can ever remove my source of misery, and my 
 acquaintance with you would but distress you. I wish you 
 every happiness possible, and I doubt not but much is reserved 
 for you. Above all I wish you to banish from your mind all 
 suspicions of disesteem. I entertain none. I know there are 
 people who are happy in insinuating their ideas to you, but I 
 regard their love or hatred with equal indifference. I think 
 so much necessary as explanation, but no more. You shall 
 always share the good wishes and regard of 
 
 Alexander Wilson. 
 
 Mr Charles Orr.” 
 
 Whatever its cause, this difference between the friends was 
 not to be of much longer duration. In a week the shadow had 
 entirely passed. 
 
 “ Mr Charles Orr, Philadelphia. 
 
 Philadelphia, Feb. 14, 1802. 
 
 Dear Sir, — It is too much. I cannot part from you after 
 what you have said. I renounce with pleasure every harsh 
 thought I hastily entertained of you. From this moment let 
 all past grievances be eternally forgotten. For myself I give 
 them to the winds. I know the value of a friend, and of such 
 a friend, too well to hope ever again for another on losing you. 
 What is the world to that solitary being whose happiness only 
 glads his own bosom and who weeps neglected? Its joys to 
 such an insulated wretch are tasteless, its sad reverses almost 
 insupportable. Friendship sweetens the most common occur* 
 rences of life, multiplies all our pleasures, lightens all our 
 losses. When the sun of our prosperity sinks even in the 
 deepest midnight of misfortune friendship sheds its cheering 
 radiance around the unhappy wanderer, fills his heart with 
 serenity, and points to happier prospects. I hope, my dear 
 sir, you will excuse the melancholy turn my letter has taken. 
 
28 
 
 I cannot help it. It is always so, this sometime. I never 
 spent ten weeks more unhappy than these have been, and it 
 will be some time before my mind recovers itself. Past hopes, 
 present difficulties, and a gloomy futurity have almost disar- 
 ranged my ideas and too deeply affected me. The conduct and 
 conversation of those who perhaps think me a dependant for re- 
 sidence is such that my spirit can never assimilate with. Amidst 
 all these your friendship returns to me once more like the 
 blessed beams of heaven after a night of clouds and darkness. 
 Let us now, dear sir, mutually forgive and henceforth enjoy 
 the sweet interchange of conversation and unreserved socia- 
 bility. Pocks and islands may separate for a while the stream 
 that has long been united, but these past, the congenial waters 
 will again meet, mingle, and be blended together. A small 
 accident may break a bone, but once judiciously reunited it is 
 stronger than ever, so be our friendship. I shall leave this 
 at your lodgings to-night, and to-morrow evening after nine 
 shall call on you and take a walk together. On the 25th of 
 this month I remove to the schoolhouse beyond Gray’s Ferry 
 to succeed the present teacher there. I shall recommence 
 that painful profession once more with the same gloomy sullen 
 resignation that a prisoner re-enters his dungeon or a male- 
 factor mounts the scaffold; fate urges him, necessity me. 
 The agreement between us is, they engage to make the school 
 equal to 100 dollars per quarter, but not more than 50 are 
 to be admitted. The present pedagogue is a noisy, outrageous 
 fat old captain of a ship, who has taught these ten years in 
 different places. You may hear him bawling 300 yards oft'. 
 The boys seem to pay as little regard to it as ducks to the 
 rumbling of a stream under them. I shall have many diffi- 
 culties to overcome in establishing my own rules and authority. 
 But perseverance overcometh all things. — I am, with sincere 
 esteem, your still affectionate friend, 
 
 Alex. Wilson. 
 
 P.S. — Your coming up this afternoon has altered my reso- 
 lution of not calling on you till to-morrow evening, Let it 
 be this afternoon or evening. I am a little engaged till then. 
 —A. W.” 
 
29 
 
 We now come to our last letter, written at Gray’s Ferry 
 within a year of the date of the next letter of Wilson that we 
 know of, June 1803, and in which we have the very earliest 
 intimation of his purpose with regard to the Ornithology of 
 his adopted land. “ Close application to the duties of my 
 profession, which I have followed since November 1795, has 
 deeply injured my constitution ; the more so that my rambling 
 disposition was the worst calculated of any one in the world 
 for the austere regularity of a teacher’s life. I have had 
 many pursuits since I left Scotland, — mathematics, the Ger- 
 man language, music, drawing, &c., and I am about to make 
 a collection of all our forest birds f At the period of the 
 letter now to be inserted, his ambition evidently pointed in 
 another direction.* 
 
 “ Mr Charles Orr, 
 
 At Mr Dixon’s, Dock Street, Philadelphia. 
 
 July 15, 1802, Gray’s Ferry. 
 
 My worthy Friend, — I expected you all last Sunday, and 
 walked out towards the ferry several times to meet you. I 
 hope you were entertained more to your satisfaction than you 
 could have been in the company of an insignificant country 
 dominie rendered peevish and melancholy by the daily cares 
 and confinement of a most consuming employment. However, 
 as I once told you before, I have a variety of resources in 
 times of irritation and perplexity, but in none have I found 
 consolation such as to banish every pedantic pesteration as 
 in renewing my old pursuit of the Muses. My harp is new 
 strung, and my soul glows with more ardour than ever to 
 emulate those immortal bards who have gone before me. I 
 have transcribed a variety of old pieces that have never been 
 published, at least not in my book, which gave me the most 
 exquisite sensations, not from their excellence, but by recall- 
 ing ideas, and interesting ones too, that have been, I may say, 
 forgotten ever since my arrival in America. I have also 
 collected all my productions since ’94 ; these I intend to polish 
 
 * This letter was published several years ago in one of the volumes of the Glas- 
 gow University Album. 
 
30 
 
 and improve occasionally, and to add to them all those con- 
 tained in my last edition which I think meritorious, and to 
 copy the whole when corrected to my mind in one volume. I 
 have an irresistible desire, which seems to come from inspira- 
 tion alone, to attempt some Scots pastorals descriptive of the 
 customs and rural manners of our native country, interspersed 
 with scenes of humour, love and tenderness. In Burns, 
 Ferguson, Bamsay, and all our Scottish songs these are the 
 charms that captivate every heart. I believe a Scotsman 
 better fitted for descriptions of rural scenes than those of 
 any other nation on earth. His country affords the most 
 picturesque and striking scenery ; his heart and imagination 
 warm and animated, strong and rapid in its conceptions, its 
 attachments, and even prejudices, his taste is highly improved 
 by the numberless pathetic ballads and songs handed down 
 from generation to generation. There is not an ignorant 
 ploughman in Scotland but who has a better taste and relish 
 for a pastoral, particularly if interwoven with a love intrigue, 
 than most of the pretended literati of America. Where is 
 the country that has ever equalled Scotland in the genuine 
 effusion of the pastoral muse, or where so many tears of joy, 
 sympathy, and admiration have been shed by the humblest 
 peasants over her bewitching strains X Had Thomson not 
 possessed this ardent spirit of enthusiasm his Seasons would 
 never have seen that immortality to which they are so justly 
 entitled; but he was a Scotsman and glow’d with all their 
 energy of enthusiasm while ranging o’er the beauties of 
 nature. But both Thomson and Burns, Bamsay and Fergu- 
 son, with all who have yet followed them, have left a thousand 
 themes unsung equally interesting with the best of their de- 
 scriptions, a thousand pictures of rustic felicity that will yet be 
 pourtrayed by the striking pencil of some future genius. My 
 heart swells, my soul rises to an elevation I cannot express, 
 to think I may yet produce some of these glowing wilds of 
 rural scenery — some new Paties, Bogers, Glauds, and Simons, 
 that will rank with these favourites of my country when their 
 author has mixed with his kindred clay; that my name will 
 be familiar in farms and cottages, in circles of taste and at 
 
31 
 
 scenes of merriment five hundred years lienee, when the statues 
 of bloody ambition are mouldered and forgotten. By heavens ! 
 the idea is transporting, and such a recompense is worth all 
 the misfortunes, penury, and deprivations here that the most 
 wretched sons of science have ever suffered. But I beg pardon 
 for occupying so much of your time. Come out on Saturday 
 or Sunday morning. Leave that cursed town at least one 
 day. It is the most striking emblem of purgatory, at least 
 to me, that exists. No poor soul is happier to escape from 
 bridewell than I to smell the fresh air and gaze over the green 
 fields after a day or two’s residence in Philadelphia, were it 
 not attended by the regret of parting from my friend, whose 
 obliged and unalterable brother I am while 
 
 Alex. Wilson.” 
 
 The next published letters after this, — to Mr Lawson, the 
 engineer, and Mr Bartram, the naturalist and botanist, whose 
 gardens and residence were in the neighbourhood of Wilson’s 
 school, — show him, to use his own language, “ earnestly bent 
 on pursuing his plan of making a collection of all the birds in 
 that part of America.” Henceforward he had a great fixed 
 aim, and in it the sympathy and assistance of eminent men. 
 His American biographer recording the fact of his being liable 
 to seasons of great despondency and depression, and attributing 
 it to his being “addicted to the writing of verses and to music,” 
 says that his friends, seeing his dangerous state through this 
 dejection, suggested drawing as a substitute for these pur- 
 suits, and that Mr Bartram recommended him to attempt the 
 sketching of birds, which succeeded beyond all expectation. 
 This new chapter of Wilson’s life has given a better reason for 
 his mental trouble. 
 
 After traversing about ten thousand miles, and enduring 
 alone the most trying perils, privations, and fatigue for many 
 years, Wilson had concluded the materials of his nine noble 
 volumes, and seen all of them but the last published, when his 
 death suddenly occurred on the 23d of August, 1813, and 
 when he was 4ikyears old. As his first act on landing in 
 America, in thvshooting of a red-lieaded woodpecker, was an 
 
32 
 
 appropriate commencement to his career, so the reported cir- 
 cumstances causing his death close it fittingly. He was 
 sitting in a friend’s house at the window one day, we are told, 
 when his keen eye caught a glimpse of a rare bird that he had 
 long yearned to see. Seizing his gun, he rushed out, and 
 was soon engaged in an exciting pursuit of it, during which 
 he swam across a river. He succeeded in securing it, hut at 
 the cost of his life. A severe cold had been caught, which 
 was succeeded by dysentery, and in ten days the sensitive and 
 intellectual countenance, and tall graceful form, of our enthu- 
 siastic fellow countryman, lay silent under the hand of death. 
 It had been his wish to be “ buried in some rural spot where 
 the birds might sing over his grave but this was not known 
 in time to be acted on, and his dust lies in the Cemetery of 
 the Swedish Church in Southwark, Philadelphia, whither his 
 remains were conveyed with public honours. 
 
 at 
 
 A. Mackenzie & Co., Printers, Greenock/ 
 
. • 
 
 The life of Alexander Wil 80 N — a man whom we esteem, and an author whose 
 works will always occupy an important rank among the writings on Natural 
 History — exhibits the complete triumph of genius over the want of education, 
 t and of persevering industiy over the evils o£ poverty. Without any. other 
 reliance than on his own faculties, and with a force of exertion Which nothiiig 
 could check or retard, he has obtained a celebrity in science to which, few men 
 in this country can aspire ; although many may be more highly favoured with 
 the endowments of genius, and more extensively gifted with the advantages of 
 early education, and' the bounties of fortune. 
 
 The life of Wilson shows, conclusively, that the temple of fame is open 
 to the most humble individual in the community, if he only attempts it with 
 zeal and industry and with sc judicious selection of the part which he intends 
 to act on the theatre of the world : and it may not be amiss to add, in opposi- 
 tion to the complaints of his biographer, that notwithstanding be experienced, 
 in some few instances, the slights of ignorance, and the sneers of impertinence, 
 •yet that a liberal and enlightened community bore witness to his merits by a 
 munificent subscription which, after satisfying all expenses, would have placed 
 him, if living, on the enviable ground of independence. 
 
 He has, with unparalleled industiy, and singular sagacity of observa- 
 tion, surmounted numerous disadvantages, and availed himself of all pos- 
 sible sources' of information. 
 
 Every State in the Union has witnessed his labours; on pur Alpine 
 hills, in our most distant forests, on the borders of bur rivers and lakes, on 
 the shores of the Atlantic, the footsteps of his enterprising industry may be 
 seen. He first examined the feathered creation with his own eyes ; he traced 
 them in their most.'secluded haunts ; he watched their migrations ; he observed 
 their seasons of song and of love, and of incubation ; he. noticed their food, 
 their instinct, and thoir habits. 
 
 After having explored this source of information, he next had recourse to • 
 cabinets of natural history-, to the aviaries of amateurs, and to the observations 
 of inquisitive arv^^enjou s men. The museum of Peale furnished him with -va- 
 rious and extensYp^rnowledge ? the methodical and comprehensive writings of 
 

 Linnaeus ; the extensive information of Pennant, Brisson, Edwards, and Latham, 
 and the splendid elucidations of Buff on, were also familiar to him. 
 
 Thus furnished with information, he has produced a work which excels all 
 that precedes it, whether we have reference to the style and matter or the ' 
 drawings. It is in vain to attempt to form ideas from written descriptions of 
 animals, sufficiently distinct, so as to distinguish them in all cases from each 
 other : we must have recourse to the delineations of the pencil, and to. the pre- 
 ■ servations of the museum. The number of species of birds has undoubtedly 
 been greatly multiplied from, the generality and confusion of descriptions ; let. 
 the same bird be described after the Linnaean manner by two different persons, 
 and it is an equal chance if they do not vary in some essential respect's.; but a 
 faithful representation of the pencil will at once remove all ambiguity. The 
 delineations of Wilson are done in such a masterly style, that the bird is at once 
 recognised. He also excels in his account of the manners of birds ; although 
 he cannot boast of the splendid eloquence of Buffori, yet there is such a fascina- 
 tion in his style, such a simplicity in-his manner, arid so much truth and nature 
 in all his remarks, that we are compelled to give him the preference. 
 
 be Witt Clinton, LL.D., President of the Literary and Philosophical 
 Society, of New York , 1814. ’ 
 
 How vastly more strange and extravagant looking truth is than fiction ! 
 Our Edinburgh reviewers deemed it one of the gravest among the many grave 
 offences of W ordswoi th, that he should have made the hero of the ‘ ‘ Excursion” 
 a pedlar ; and if so severe on the mere choice -of so humble a h ero, what would 
 they not have said had the poet ventured to represent his pedlar not only as a 
 wise- and meditative man, but also, as an accomplished writer, and a successful 
 cultivator of natural science-— the author of a great national work, eloquent as 
 that of BuFPpN, and incomparably more true in its facts and observations? 
 Nay, what would they have said if, rising to the extreme of extravagance, he 
 had ventured to relate that the pedlar, having left the -magnificent work un- 
 finished at his death, an accomplished Prince— the nephew of by far the most 
 • puissant monarch of modem times — took it up, and completed it. in a volume, 
 bearing honourable reference and testimony, in almost every page, to the ability 
 and singular faithfulness of his humbler predecessor, tile “ Wanderer?” 
 ri t And yet, this, strange story would be exactly that of the Paisley pedlar, 
 Alexander W ilson. . 
 
 History of the Bass Rock , (Ly £/fr/% jjf'Ucr ’andqthers. ) 
 
 ■ ' m.