14 EARLY YEARS. 



entailed no fatigue, and left no compunction. Nor did it 

 greatly matter in what embodiment the visitation came. 

 The first swallow — a bee coaxed forth by early warmth — 

 a flight of aerial passengers on their clangorous way through 

 the windy clouds— a rainbow, and above all things a sun- 

 set, would surcharge his spirit with irrepressible emotion, 

 and, if it did not lift him off this earthly clod altogether, 

 it sent him home with heart elate, and full of unutterable 

 musings. During those first years, it was a struggle be- 

 tween the poet and the naturalist ; and although his early 

 rhymes have perished, we need them not to assure us that 

 the fellow-countryman of Thomson and Grahamc could 

 have added a worthy lay to "The Seasons " and "The 

 Birds of Scotland." 



Although the more practical element at last prevailed, 

 there always remained a poetical tincture in Mr Wilson's 

 science. Placed in circumstances which made no profes- 

 sion absolutely imperative, the recreation of his boyhood 

 became increasingly the labour of his love ; and whilst 

 coming more and more to value exactitude and method, 

 the delightful associations of those ardent days continued 

 to the last, and, even in the midst of the severest techni- 

 calities, rendered it impossible for him to become a scien- 

 tific Dryasdust, 



Mild, gentle, and affectionate as were James "Wilson's 

 earlier years, probably no one surmised what a "fountain 



