late Professor of Practical Astronomy in Glasgow. 5 



quish, as soon as it could be done with propriety, all other 

 pursuits, and unite their exertions in prosecuting the business 

 of letter- founding upon an improved plan. 



It was not long ere they were enabled to carry into effect 

 this resolution, and they first established a small type-foundery 

 at St Andrews, and one on a larger scale, two years after- 

 wards, at Camlachie, a village near Glasgow. 



In this situation, Mr Wilson had contracted habits of inti- 

 macy and friendship with several persons of the most respec- 

 table character, particularly with the Professors belonging to 

 the University of Glasgow, and with Messrs Robert and An- 

 drew Foulis, university printers. The growing reputation of 

 the university press, conducted by these gentlemen, gave ad- 

 ditional scope to Mr Wilson to exert his abilities in construct- 

 ing their types, and being now left entirely to follow his own 

 judgment and taste, his talents as an artist became every year 

 more conspicuous. When the design was formed by the gen- 

 tleman of the university, together with Messrs Foulis, to print 

 splendid editions of the Greek classics, he, with great alacrity, 

 undertook to execute new types upon a model highly improved. 

 This he accomplished at an expence of time and labour which 

 could not be recompensed by any profits arising from the sale 

 of the types themselves. Such disinterested zeal for the honour 

 of the university press was, however, upon this occasion so well 

 understood, as to induce the university, in the preface to the 

 folio Homer, to mention Mr Wilson in terms as honourable to 

 him as they were just. 



Though he thus continued to prosecute letter-founding as 

 his chief business, yet, from his great temperance, domestic 

 habits, and activity, he was enabled now and then to command 

 intervals of leisure, which he never failed to fill up by some 

 useful or ingenious employment. One of these, in which he 

 took great delight, was the constructing of reflecting telescopes ; 

 an art which he cultivated with unwearied attention, and in the 

 end with much success. 



Among the more advanced students, who, in the years 1748 

 and 1749, attended the lectures on divinity in the university, 

 was Mr Thomas Melvill, so well known by his mathematical ta- 

 lents, and by those fine specimens of genius which are to be 



