418 Biographical Sketch of {[June, 
fact which may cause our native city to feel the glow of shame. Of 
all her literati, her men of benevolence, taste, and riches, seventy 
only, to the period of the author's decease, had the liberality to 
countenance him by a subscription, more than half of whom were 
tradesmen, artists, and those of the middle class of society; whilst 
the little city of New Orleans, in the short space of seventeen days, 
furnished sixty subscribers to the American Ornithology ! 
Mr. Wilson was possessed of the nicest sense of honour. In all 
his dealings he was not only scrupulously just, but highly generous. 
His veneration for truth was exemplary. His disposition was social 
and affectionate. His benevolence extensive. He was remarkably 
temperate in eating and drinking: his love of retirement preserving 
him from the contaminating influence of the convivial circle. And, 
unlike the majority of his countrymen, he abstained from the use 
of tobacco in every shape. But as no one is perfect, Mr. Wilson, 
in a small degree partook of the weakness of humanity. He was 
of the genus irrilabile, and was obstinate in opinion. It ever gave 
him pleasure to acknowledge error when the conviction resulted 
from his own judgment alone, but he could not endure to be told 
ef his mistakes, Hence his associates had to be sparing of their 
criticisms, through a fear of forfeiting his friendship. With almost 
all his friends he had oceasionally, arising from a collision of 
opinion, some slight misunderstanding, which was soon passed over, 
leaving no disagreeable impression. But an act of disrespect, or 
wilful injury, he would seldom forgive. : 
Such was Alexander Wilson. When the writer of this humble 
biography indulges in retrospection, he again finds himself in the 
society of that amiable individual whose life was a series of those 
virtues which dignify human nature; he attends him in his wild- 
wood rambles, and listens to those charming observations which the 
magnificence of creation was wont to give birth to; he sits at his 
feet, and receives the instructions of one, in science, so competent 
to teach ; he beholds him in the social cirele, and notes the com- 
placency which his presence inspired in all around. But the tran- 
sition from the past to the present quickens that anguish with which 
his heart must be filled, who casts a melancholy look on those 
scenes a few months since graced with the presence of one, united 
to him by a conformity of taste, disposition, and pursuit; and who 
reflects that that beloved friend can revisit them no more. 
It was the intention of Mr. Wilson, on the completion of his 
ornithology, to publish an edition in four volumes octavo, the 
figures to be engraved on wood, somewhat after the manner of 
Bewick’s British Birds, and coloured with all the care that has been 
bestowed on the original plates. If he had lived to effect such a 
scheme, the public would have been put in possession of a work of 
considerable elegance as respects typography and _ illustrations ; 
wherein the subjects would have been arranged in systematical 
order, and the whole at a cost of not more than one-seventh part 
of the quarto edition. 
