143 The Wilson Bulletin — No. 64. 



O happy he who slowly strays, 



On Sumnier's eve these shades among ; 



While Phcebns sheds his yellow raj's, 

 And thrushes pipe their evening song. 



But happier he, supremely blest, 



Beyond what proudest peers have known ; 



Who finds a friend in Anna's breast. 

 And calls that lovely plant his own." 



Wilson was soon to be awakened from his pleasant dream of 

 domestic felicity. Notwithstanding the Bartram family being 

 Friends, they boasted a coat of arms and were justly proud of 

 their lineage and of their beautiful estate upon which so much 

 care and. taste had been lavished. When the father said "Mr. 

 Wilson is my friend, but not my choice for my daughter's hus- 

 band," there was little thought of rebellion, for "Honor thy 

 father and thy mother that thy days may be long upon the land 

 that the Lord thy God giveth thee," in the simple form of wor- 

 ship in which the daughter had been reared, was firmly en- 

 grained. It doubtless required but a gentle hint on the part of 

 the father to. the sensitive Scotchman, to cause an entire aban- 

 donment of his aspirations in that quarter, before the affair had 

 progressed very far; and that he finally died of a broken heart 

 as the anonymous writer would have us believe, is absurd. 



This must have occurred a little while previous to his trip to 

 the Niagara Falls in October, perhaps it cccasfoned it; result- 

 ing in the composition of his longest poem, "The Foresters." 

 Coues advises every one to read this narrative, not as a poem 

 (poets do not walk from Philadelphia to Niagara Falls and 

 back in the late fall) but for the interesting facts it contains. 

 Henceforth in the cordial relation existing between Wilson and 

 Bartram, the old fashioned pet name of the niece is no longer 

 penned. Soon after his return from the twelve hundred mile 

 tramp, he writes to Bartram in a letter dated December 14th, 

 1804, " ... With no family to enchain my affections, no ties 

 but that of friendship ; and the most ardeilt love for my adopted 

 country — with a constitution which hardens amidst fatigue ; 

 and a disposition sociable and open, which can find itself at 

 home by an Indian fire in the depths of the woods, as well as in 



