ALEXANDER WILSON. ^ r 



ing, etc., clung to him till manhood. He is known to have 

 struggled with his backwardness in arithmetic after emigrating 

 to America. His handwriting was called excellent, and his lan- 

 guage was simple and idiomatic. The taste for reading, which 

 he early developed, largely made up for his scanty schooling. 

 At one time he was sent to be a herd on a farm called Baker- 

 field, not far from Paisley, where he remained probably not 

 more than a single summer. It is said that " he was a very 

 careless herd, letting the kye transgress on the corn, being 

 very often busied with some book." 



In his thirteenth year he was bound apprentice as a weaver, 

 for three years, to his brother-in-law, William Duncan. Hav- 

 ing served out his time in 1782, he continued a weaver "by 

 constraint, not willingly," for four years, living part of the 

 time under his father's roof in Paisley and in Lochwinnoch, 

 and finally with his brother-in-law at Queensferry. His taste 

 was for outdoor life, and he had inherited a feeble constitution 

 from his mother, so that the loom was irksome to him both 

 mentally and physically. During this period young Wilson 

 began to contribute verses to the local newspapers. His best 

 piece, however, Watty and Meg, was published in 1792, as a 

 penny chap-book, without his name, and was ascribed to Robert 

 Burns. The latter, who lived not far away, and was but six 

 years older, strengthened the compliment by avowing that he 

 should have been glad to be its author. Wilson's descriptive 

 pieces are interesting, from the evidence they give of his natu- 

 ral fondness for the woods and fields. 



After a while Duncan decided to " travel " as a peddler 

 through the eastern districts of Scotland, and invited Alexander 

 to accompany him. Accordingly, the two abandoned the loom 

 and entered upon their new occupation. The Scotch peddler 

 of that time was generally a man of shrewdness and common 

 sense, probably resembling the best type of our own departed 

 Yankee peddler, and was generally respected by the common 

 people, but often suspected and despised by the wealthier. 

 This occupation, although it delivered Wilson from the con- 

 finement of the weaving room, was not all sunshine. It in- 

 volved trials and rebuffs, which to a man, as Grosart* calls 



* The Poems and Literary Prose of Alexander Wilson, edited with memorial 

 introduction, essay, etc., by the Rev. Alexander B. Grosart, two vols., Paisley, 

 1876. 



