Burns — On Alexander Wilson. 137 



who have gone before me"; but he was subject to periods of 

 despondency, and Colonel Carr, who bad it from Wilson him- 

 self, relates to Ord that, "while he labored under great depres- 

 sion of spirits, in order to soothe his mind, he one day rambled 

 with his gun. The piece by accident slipped from his hands, 

 and in making an effort to regain it, the lock was cocked. At 

 that moment had the gun gone off, it is niore than probable 

 that he would have lost his life,_ as the muzzle was opposite to 

 his breast. When Wilson reflected on the danger which he 

 had escaped, he shuddered at the idea of the imputatiou of 

 suicide, which a fatal occurrence, to one in his frame of mind, 

 would have occasioned. There is room to conjecture that 

 many have accidentally met their end, whose memories have 

 been sullied by the alleged crime of self-murder." ^ Mr. Law- 

 son, the engraver, advised Wilson to turn his attention to 

 drawing in his moments of leisure, in place of his flute-playing 

 and verse-making; as being conducive to the restoration of his 

 mental equilibrium ; and a recent acquaintance with the ven- 

 erable William Bartram induced him to make the effort, open- 

 ing up new channels of thought and vistas of beauty ; not the 

 least of which was Bartram 's fair niece. 



Verily, like cures like ! The episode I am about to relate 

 could scarcely have been unknown to Ord, although he makes 

 no allusion to it other than the publication of Wilson's letters 

 to Bartram ; and while it must have been patent to every close 

 student of Wilson's life and works, the fact of his love for Ann 

 Bartram and of the positive disapproval of his suit by her 

 father ; was first published a little more than a decade ago by a 

 young Scotchman, at the time connected with the public press ; 

 and was based upon a paper on the family traditions prepared 

 by William Middleton Bartram, but suppressed for family rea- 

 sons. Although Mr. Bartram informicd me that a portion of 

 this newspaper article ^ was authentic, I find it glaringly inac- 

 curate in many respects, as well as far too highly colored and 

 theatrical to^ make its preservation worth while; and as Wil- 

 liam M. Bartram died before his contemplated history of the 

 Bartram Garden and Family had taken shape, whatever was 

 * Ord's Life of Wilson. 



