30 MEMOIR OF 



" Laurel disputed," or a comparison of the merits of 

 Allan Ramsay and Robert Fergusson. Having ob- 

 tained the loan of a copy of Fergusson's Poems, 

 which his crippled finances prevented him from 

 purchasing, and having with incredible exertion 

 finished a very long web of silk -gauze in a few days 

 (although the labour of a week to an ordinary 

 workman), he studied his author, composed his 

 essay, and with a light heart, and lighter purse, 

 walked to Edinburgh to be present on the eventful 

 evening when the disputants delivered their ora- 

 tions. There were seven candidates, and Wilson 

 carried the second prize ; although it was shrewdly 

 suspected that Mr. Gumming, the successful compe- 

 titor, had gained the first by packing the audience. 

 He had only seventeen votes above Wilson in an 

 assembly of fully five hundred persons, amongst 

 whom it was rumoured that his friends had pre- 

 sented forty tickets to ladies, and which, although 

 only sixpence each, was a mode of convassing be- 

 yond the limited means of our author ; who, even 

 had he possessed them, would have spurned such 

 an idea. 



Our limits force us to abstain from entering upon 

 many details of Wilson's history at this period. 

 Discouraged at the ill success of almost all his 

 undertakings, unsettled and unsteady in all his 

 determinations, and being surrounded with com- 

 panions whose opinions were dangerous in the ex- 

 treme, it is not to be wondered at that one of a 

 temperament so very sanguine should have been 



