



LIFE OF WILSON. xx iii 



which grew into an uncommon friendship, and continued with- 

 out the least abatement until severed by death. Here it was 

 that Wilson found himself translated, if we may so speak, into 

 a new existence. He had long been a lover of the works of 

 Nature, and had derived more happiness from the contempla- 

 tion of her simple beauties, than from any other source of gra- 

 tification. But he had hitherto been a mere novice; he was 

 now about to receive instructions from one, whom the expe- 

 rience of a long life, spent in travel and rural retirement, had 

 rendered qualified to teach. Mr. Bartram soon perceived the 

 bent of his friend's mind, and its congeniality to his own; and 

 took every pains to encourage him in a study, which, while it 

 expands the faculties, and purifies the heart, insensibly leads to 

 the contemplation of the glorious Author of nature himself. 

 From his youth Wilson had been an observer of the manners 

 of birds; and since his arrival in America he had found them 

 objects of uncommon interest; but he had not yet viewed them 

 with the eye of a naturalist. 



Mr. Bartram possessed some works on natural history, par- 

 ticularly those of Catesby and Edwards. Wilson perused them 

 attentively; and found himself enabled, even with his slender 

 stock of information, to detect errors and absurdities into which 

 these authors had fallen, from a defective mode of studying 

 nature : a mode, which, while it led them to the repositories of 

 dried skins and preparations, and to a reliance on hearsay evi- 

 dence, subjected them to the imputation of ignorance, which 

 their lives, devoted to the cultivation and promotion of science, 

 certainly would not justify. Wilson's improvement was now 

 rapid; and the judicious criticisms which he made on the above- 

 mentioned authors, gratified his friend and instructor, who re- 

 doubled his encouraging assistance, in order to further him in 

 a pursuit for which his genius, now beginning to develop it- 

 self, was evidently fitted. 





