" THE PARADISE OF SCOTLAND. 5 



may speak in the gate to all gainsayers. In the latter 

 half of last century, when the wages of its weavers were 

 good ; when they had time to cultivate their little gardens, 

 and grow such polyanthuses and tulips as nowhere else 

 were seen ; when they had time to read the Bible and 

 pray with their families every day, and could at leisure 

 hours get through such books as "Henry's Exposition" 

 and the " Universal History," we need not wonder that 

 Rowland Hill should have pronounced Paisley " the Para- 

 dise of Scotland." When we add that — partly a result of 

 the disputatious humour inherent in Scotchmen, partly a 

 result of a gregarious or social tendency characteristic of 

 the place — a high degree of intelligence, edged with a 

 peculiar wit, distinguished the inhabitants, the reader will 

 congratulate Mr Wilson on being able to boast such a 

 birthplace, and will only regret that by a removal else- 

 where he forfeited its advantages in the second year of his 

 age.* 



The native of a country where birthdays are seldom 

 celebrated, the subject of this biography could never tell 



* It was the calamity of Mr Wilson's biographer to quit " the Paradise 

 of Scotland" at an age still more tender : it is therefore little that he 

 can add in the way of personal reminiscence. But in the days of his 

 youth he had a venerable relative (proprietor of the oldest spinning- 

 mill in Scotland) who used to say, that when he was young he knew 

 almost every "reeking lum" in Paisley, and that there was a time 

 every morning, when passing almost any door, you were sure to hear 

 the voice of prayer or of psalms. 



