34 MEMOIR OF 



liis friends remarked ; and amidst all the vicissitudes 

 of his fortune, and in all the various localities to 

 which he was driven by his necessities, he was ever 

 alive to the beauties of the feathered race, which 

 he never ceased to compare and contrast with those 

 of his native land. He had the good fortune at this 

 time to obtain the office of teacher at Gray's Ferry, 

 near Philadelphia, where he was introduced to 

 " Mr. Bartram, who kept the botanic garden situate 

 on the western bank of the Schuylkill, a sequestered 

 and very beautiful spot, where Wilson found him- 

 self translated, as it were, into a new sphere of ex- 

 istence. He had always been a lover of Nature, 

 and had derived more happiness from the contem- 

 plation of her simple beauties, than from any other 

 source of gratification, being hitherto a mere novice 

 in botany ; he was now about to receive instruc- 

 tions in that science from one, whom the experience 

 of a long life, spent in travel and rural retreat, had 

 qualified to teach." * 



Although now much improved in his circum- 

 stances, a severe illness, from which he had lately 

 but partially recovered, had such an effect on his 

 constitution, as to occasion serious apprehensions on 

 the part of his friends, who succeeded in inducing 

 him to relinquish for a time his poetical studies, and 

 the indulgence in music of a description too sen- 

 timental, during his solitary walks, and to betake 

 himself, in his leisure hours, to drawing. His first 

 attempts were directed to the human figure and 

 * Orel's Life, p. xxvii. 2d edit. 



