Eighteen hundred and twenty-four was the year which 

 changed the imaginary " cousin " of the foregoing cor- 

 respondence into an actual wife, and commenced the 

 happier half of Mr Wilson's history. 



With a very superior understanding, and with accom- 

 plishments of a high order, Mrs Wilson was able to appre- 

 ciate her husband's rare endowments. Fond of natural 

 history herself, she entered, with wifely zeal, into his va- 

 rious pursuits — his gardening, his literary labours, his 

 zoological friendships ; and there was nothing beautiful in 

 nature or grand in authorship of which her appreciation, 

 so quick and true, did not double the enjoyment. At the 

 same time, as already indicated, her earlier experience of 

 the hopes and consolations conveyed in the gospel made 

 her pre-eminently a help-meet to one whose spirit was now 

 prepared to welcome a joy which the world can neither 

 give nor take away, and whose reserved but keenly obser- 

 vant nature required, rather than sermons or books, the 

 light of a living epistle ; and, long before going hence, she 



had the happiness of knowing how entire was that unison 



H 



