Burns — On Alexander Wilson. 167 



meals, and return to my Saiicfiiin Sanctorum. Five days of 

 the following- week are occupied in the same routine of pcda- 

 goguing matters ; and the other two are sacrificed to that itch 

 for drawing, which I caught from your honourable self. . . . 

 I am most earnestly bent on pursuing my plan of making a 

 collection of all the birds in this part of North America. . . .1 

 have been so long accustomed to the building of airy castles 

 and brain windmills, that it has become one of my earthly com- 

 forts, a sort of a rough bone, that amuses me when sated with 

 the dull drudgery of life." 



Seventeen days later, he writes to William Bartram : "I 

 send for your amusement a few attempts at some of our in- 

 digenous birds, hoping that your good nature will excuse their 

 deficiencies, while you point them out to me. . . .1 am almost 

 ashamed to send you these drawings ; but I know your gener- 

 ous disposition will induce you to encourage one in whom you 

 perceive a sincere and eager wish to do well. They were 

 chiefly colored by candle-light. I have now got my collection 

 of native birds considerably enlarged ; and shall endeavor, if 

 possible, to obtain all the smaller ones this summer. Be 

 pleased to mark on the drawings, with a pencil, the names of 

 each kind, as, except three or four, I do- not know them." 

 May 1st, 1804, he again writes : "... .1 send you a few imita- 

 tions of birds for your opinion, which I value beyond that of 

 anybody else, though I am seriously apprehensive that I am 

 troublesome. These are the last I shall draw for some time, 

 as the employment consumes every leisure moment, leaving 

 nothing for friendship or those rural recreations which I so 

 much delight in. Even poetry, whose heavenly enthusiasm I 

 used to glory in, can hardly ever find me at home, so much 

 has this bewitching amusement engrossed all my senses." 

 Poetry drew him aside for a time, however ; his "Rural 

 Walk," "The Solitary Tutor," and perhaps some other much 

 less meritorious rhymes came from his pen. 



The solitary hours of the following winter were devoted to 

 the partial composition of a long poem containing 3318 lines 

 descriptive of his journey the previous autumn to the Niagara 



