90 INTllODUCTION. 



held in deserved estimation. A few names are also added 

 from Wilson's American Ornithology^ a work of singular 

 merit, to which he owes the tribute of his thanks. To Dr. 

 Latham's work he is also, on this account, under some 

 obligation. 



Of Andrew Wilson, as he has long since paid the debt 

 of nature, and who has been little heard of in this country, 

 the following particulars may be here acceptable. He was 

 born of poor parents, at Paisley, in Scotland, in 1766 ; his 

 education was, of course, scanty, but considerably better 

 than falls to the lot of persons of his condition in England. 

 He was apprenticed to a weaver, his brother-in-law, the 

 pursuit of whose trade he followed for many years; he 

 subsequently shouldered his pack and became an itinerant 

 pedlar. Becoming disgusted with trade, he wrote some 

 papers for the Bee, a periodical work edited by Dr- 

 Anderson ; he wrote also a libel, for which he was pro- 

 secuted, and, for a short time, imprisoned, and sentenced 

 besides to burn, with his own hands, the obnoxious work 

 at the public high-cross at Paisley ! 



In 1792, he published, anonymously, a characteristic 

 Poem, entitled " Watty and Meg,"" which was attributed 

 to Burns. Disliking Scotland, in 1794, he went to 

 America ; there, encountering various fate, he became a 

 teacher in a school ; and, subsequently, formed an ac- 

 quaintance with the venerable naturalist, William Bartram, 

 by whom he was excited to devote his attention to the 



them in the third volume of Brixton's Beauties of Wilt- 

 shire, lately published ; a volume replete with antiquarian and 

 biographical information; not the least interesting portion of 

 which consists of an auto-biographical memoir of Mr. Britton 

 himself, one of the most industrious of our literary bees. 



