747 



WILSON, FLORENCE. 



WILSON, HORACE HAYMAN. 



718 



ning of December, after a journey of 1257 miles, of which he walked 

 47 the last day. All the time he could spare was now devoted to the 

 examination of birds, and making drawings of them in colours. In 

 1806, Mr. Bradford, bookseller, of rhUadeli>hia, being about to publish 

 a new edition of Keen's ' Cyclopaedia,' engaged Wilson as assistant- 

 editor. Soon afterwards he explained to Bradford hia views of a large 

 work on American ornithology, and the bookseller undertook the 

 publication. 



Wilson was assiduous in attention to his duties as assistant-editor, 

 while at the same time he prosecuted the great undertaking which had 

 become the favourite object of his ambition with an enthusiasm which 

 was characteristic of him. At length, in September 1808, the first 

 volume of the ' American Ornithology' was published. From the date 

 of the first arrangement a prospectus had been put in circulation, in 

 which the nature and intended execution of the work were specified, 

 but no adequate idea had been formed of the book which was in pre- 

 paration, and when the superb volume made its appearance, the 

 American public were alike astonished and delighted. It was in folio, 

 with plates carefully eugraved from Wilson's own drawings, coloured 

 after nature, and with admirable letter-press descriptions ; the price 

 was 120 dollars. In the course of September 1808, Wilson journeyed 

 eastward and northward, and during the winter went through the 

 southern states, exhibiting his book and endeavouring to obtain sub- 

 scribers. He visited in fact every town within 150 miles of the Atlan- 

 tic coast, from the river St. Lawrence to St. Augustine in Florida. He 

 received much praise, but got few subscribers. Wilson however was 

 not depressed. 



The second volume was published in 1810, and soon afterwards he 

 set out for Pittsburg on a journey to New Orleans. From Pittsburg 

 he descended the Ohio by himself in a skiff. He started on the 24th 

 of February, and on the 17th of March moored his boat safely in Bear 

 Grass Creek, at the rapids of the Ohio, after a voyage of 720 miles. 

 His hands had suffered a good deal in rowing. He had made excur- 

 sions from the banks of the river, as he proceeded, with his gun and 

 drawing materials, in search of new species of birds, of which he made 

 drawings and wrote descriptions on the spot where he shot them. He 

 afterwards walked from Louisville to Lexington (73 miles), and on the 

 4th of May set out from Nashville for St. Louis through the wilder- 

 ness on horseback, with a loaded pistol in each pocket, a loaded fowling- 

 piece belted across hia shoulders, a pound of powder in his flask, and 

 five pounds of shot in his belt, and some biscuits and dried beef. On 

 the fourteenth day he arrived at Natchez, in Mississippi, after a journey 

 through swamps and across rivers, which had nearly killed both his 

 horse and himself. The other volumes of hia work were brought out 

 in succession, with astonishing rapidity and regularity ; the number of 

 his subscribers increased, and before his death included perhaps every 

 royal personage in Europe. In 1812 he was elected a member of the 

 American Philosophical Society. In 1813 he published the seventh 

 volume. He had completed the pictorial material for the eighth and 

 ninth when he was carried off by an attack of dysentery in his forty- 

 eighth year. He died August 23, 1813, at Philadelphia. The eighth 

 and ninth volumes were completed and published in 1814 by Mr. 

 George Ord, who had been his companion in many of his exploring 

 expeditions. Mr. Ord supplied the letter-press descriptions for these 

 two volumes, as well as a biography of Wilson in the ninth. Three 

 supplemental volumes were afterwards supplied by Charles Lucian 

 Bonaparte, folio, 1825-28. 



Wilson's pictorial representations of the birds are of great excellence. 

 His descriptions are not only technically accurate, but exceedingly 

 clear and graphic in whatever relates to their motions and ,characteris- 

 tic habits. It is a delightful book. The mind is so much absorbed 

 with the images and scenes as to be hardly conscious of the act of 

 reading. Wilson was about five feet ten or eleven inches in height, 

 handsome and vigorous, but rather slender. He was always distin- 

 guished by the neatness of hia dress and appearance. He was a man 

 of the strictest honesty and the most scrupulous regard for truth ; 

 social, affectionate, and benevolent, but somewhat irritable under con- 

 tradiction and critical objection. He was never married. 



(Memoir of Wilson, annexed to the American Ornithology, by Alex- 

 ander Wilson and-Charles Lucian Bonaparte, in Constable's Miscellany.) 



WILSON, FLORENCE, ia the name generally given to an author 

 who is spoken of by his contemporaries only by his Latinised desig- 

 nation, Florentius Volusenus or Voluzenus. The vernacular name 

 Wilson has been attributed to him solely because, being a Scotchman, 

 no other common to Scotland approaches BO near to that which he 

 assumed. It has been supposed that he was called Wolsey, because 

 he was patronised by the great cardinal, and in a vernacular letter 

 which has been preserved he signs himself Voluzene. He is supposed 

 to have been born near Elgin, in the county of Moray, about the 

 beginning of the 16th century, and to have studied at the University 

 (now King's College) of Aberdeen. He afterwards studied at the 

 University of Paris, where he became tutor to a son of Cardinal 

 Wolsey's brother. Losing this employment at the death, of the 

 cardinal in 1 530, he was patronised by the Cardinal of Lorraine, and 

 by Du Bellay, bishop of Paris. In 1534 the bishop went on an 

 embassy to Rome, but Wilson, who was to accompany him, was kept 

 by sickness at Avignon. Understanding that Cardinal Sadoleto 

 desired a Latin scholar to teach a grammar-school at Carpentras, the 



metropolis of his diocese, he proffered his services in that capacity. 

 Sadoleto has left an interesting account of his interview with the 

 wandering student, and of his surprise in finding one so well versed in 

 polite learning coming from so distant and obscure a country as Scot- 

 land. Wilson received the appointment with an annual salary of 

 seventy crowns, and entered, on his duties in the year 1535. His 

 earliest work, the publication of which is only known from its being 

 entered in the ' Bibliotheca Thuana,' and mentioned by Gesner, was 

 published at Lyon in 1535. It is called ' Conimentatio quaedam 

 Theologica qua) eadem prsecatio est, in Aphorismos dissecta.' In 1543 

 Le published the work by which he is best known, ' De Animi Tran- 

 quillitate Dialogus.' The scene is laid in a garden near Lyon, and 

 three interlocutors gently debate on the subject of tranquillity of mind, 

 iu the manner of the dialogues of Cicero. It was republished at 

 Lyon in 1C37. A third edition was published at Edinburgh in 170", 

 under the superintendence of Ruddiman, and a fourth at Edinburgh 

 in 1751, edited by Principal Wishart. In 1546 Wilson formed the 

 design of returning to Scotland, but he only reached Vienne in Dau- 

 phiny, where he died, " quam procul a, patria," as Buchanan laments 

 iu some laudatory lines addressed to his memory. Dempster mentions 

 among Wilson's works, ' Philosophise Aristotelicae Synopsis,' but, 

 unsupported, he is insufficient authority for such a work having 

 existed. 



* WILSON, HORACE HAYMAN, Professor of Sanskrit at Oxford 

 University, was born in London in the year 1786, and after receiving 

 a professional education, was appointed an assistant-surgeon on the 

 Bengal establishment of the East India Company. He arrived in 

 India in the year 1808, and his general kuowledge and versatility of 

 talent soon made him known in Calcutta Society, where his powers as 

 an amateur actor, and musician, were highly appreciated. Stimulated 

 by the splendid example of Sir W. Jones, he entered zealously upon 

 the study of the Sanskrit language, and in 1813 he gave to the 

 world the first fruits of hia studies in a translation into English 

 verse of the ' Megha-duta,' or 'Cloud-messenger,' a short standard 

 Sanskrit poem, highly esteemed by Hindu scholars. He next pub- 

 lished, in 1819, a 'Dictionary Sanskrit and English,' compiled with 

 the help of Pundits from a great variety of Sanskrit authorities. 

 These two works established his reputation as a Sanskrit scholar; 

 the former was admired for its faithfulness and elegance, and the 

 latter was hailed as an invaluable boon to scholars, which in due 

 time greatly promoted Sanskrit learning in Europe. In 1816 he was 

 elected secretary of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, and in 1819 he was 

 appointed member of a commission instituted to reform and remodel 

 the Sanskrit College at Benares. From this time hia contributions to 

 Oriental learning were constant, numerous, and diversified. In the 

 ' Asiatic Researches ' appeared a History of Cashmere, compiled from 

 Sanskrit authorities ; also an Account of the Religious Sects of the 

 Hindus, which was justly deemed one of the most valuable papers 

 ever published in the Researches, and which has remained to the 

 present time the chief authority on the subject of which it treats. 

 He now directed hia attention to the Sanskrit drama, a specimen of 

 which Sir W. Jones, had made known to Europe in hia translation of 

 ' Sakoontala",' and in the years 1826-27 he published a translation in 

 prose and verse of six entire dramas, with analytical descriptions and 

 specimens of twenty-three other dramatic compositions. This work 

 waa everywhere received with the higheat favour, and has been trans- 

 lated into French and German. His next work was a ' Descriptive 

 Catalogue of the Oriental MSS. collected by Colonel Mackenzie,' to 

 which he prefixed some learned dissertations on the languages and 

 history of India. In 1827 he published also an 'Historical Account 

 of the Burmese War.' While thus laboriously engaged in literary 

 pursuits, his official position as assay-master and secretary of the mint . 

 at Calcutta entailed upon him highly responsible duties, and from the 

 records of his office he published in 1830 a statistical work upon the 

 external commerce of Bengal. After the publication of the ' Asiatic 

 Researches ' was closed, he continued his aid to their successor, the 

 ' Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,' in the early volumes of 

 which are some valuable contributions from his pen. To the ' Trans- 

 actions of the Royal Asiatic Society ' he supplied an ' Analysis of the 

 Pancha Tantra,' and in Calcutta, as secretary of the Committee of 

 Public Instruction, he superintended and revised the publication of 

 many standard Sanskrit texts. The 'Calcutta Quarterly Oriental 

 Magazine ' also benefited largely by his constant supply of articles. 

 In the year 1831, while yet in India, he became a candidate for the 

 Boden Professorship of Sanskrit at Oxford, an office which had been 

 lately founded by Colonel Boden, with the view of extending a know- 

 ledge of the Sanskrit language in Europe. Three other candidates 

 appeared, but two eventually withdrew, leaving Mr. Wilson and Dr. 

 Mill, then principal of Bishop's College, Calcutta, the only candidates. 

 After a sharp contest, the former was elected by a majority of 207 

 over 200, the choice undoubtedly falling upon the man who, in tho 

 words of the founder, possessed the most " general and critical know- 

 ledge of the Sanskrit language." Soon after his arrival in England 

 Professor Wilson succeeded the late Sir C. Wilkins as librarian at tho 

 India House, aud Sir E. T. Colebrooke as Director of the Royal Asiatic 

 Society. In 1840 he published a translation of the ' Vishnu Purdua,' 

 with copious notes and illustrations, which make it quite a mine of 

 Hindu learning. The results deducible from the great discoveries of 



