130 The Wilson Bulletin— No. 64. 



ALEXANDER WILSON, 

 in. The Unsuccessful Lover. 



BY FRANK L. BURNS. 



Quite early in his career, at the Pantheon, Edinburgh, Alex- 

 ander Wilson, in the character of a poor, love-lorn peddler, re- 

 cited some original verses entitled "The Loss of the Pack," in 

 a debate on the question as to "whether disappointment in love, 

 or the loss of a fortune is the hardest to bear" ; concluding with 

 the following: 



"Twas this, Sir President, that gart me start, • 

 Wi' meikle grief and sorrow at my heart, 



So gi'e my vote, frae sad experience, here 



That disappointed love is waur to bear 

 Ten thousand times than loss o' warld's gear." 



He afterwards experienced the pain and humiliation in the 

 train of the first condition ; but the enjoyment of even the most 

 ntodest competence, much less the shock and worry of a finan- 

 cial failure, were ever to remain a theory to him ; therefore, 

 without disputing his verdict, the fact remains that he was, 

 from experience, totally incompetent to judge comparatively. 



For the purpose of casting additionl light on the personal 

 character of Alexander Wilson ; as well as to assemble a more 

 or less important part of a number of closely related though 

 widely distributed papers exhibiting in a measure self-con- 

 scious pseudo-philosophic meditations, hysterical sentimental- 

 ism and morbid melancholia; and the rapid transformation, to 

 accurate observation, sane self-restraint and vigorous applica- 

 tion to a single design; the writer may, perhaps, be pardoned 

 for the narration of his love romances, fragmentary as they are ; 

 in cold matter-of-fact words without the usual garnature 

 deemed essential to a well-told tale of this nature. 



It has been said by one of his biographers : "He has never 

 yielded to the soft but patent sovereignty of love. In this re- 

 spect he is almost alone among the warm-hearted sons of song. 

 Rarely does he write of love ; and when he does, it is like a man 

 who might have thought about it, as about any other interest- 



