XXxiv LIFE OF WILSON. 



considerations which should have their weight, in determining 

 in an affair of so much importance. These were frankly stated ; 

 and followed by advice, which did not quadrate with the tempe- 

 rament of Wilson ; who, vexed that his friend would not enter 

 into his feelings, expressed his scorn of the maxims of pru- 

 dence with which he was assailed, by styling them the offspring 

 of a cold, calculating, selfish philosophy. Under date of 

 March 12th, 1804, he thus writes to the last named gentleman; 

 " I dare say you begin to think me very ungenerous and un- 

 friendly in not seeing you for so long a time. I will simply 

 state the cause, and I know you will excuse me. Six days in 

 one week I have no more time than just to swallow my meals, 

 and return to my Sanctum Sanctorum. Five days of the 

 following week are occupied in the same routine ofpedagogu- 

 ing matters; and the other two are sacrificed to that itch for 

 drawing, which I caught from your honourable self, I never 

 was more wishful to spend an afternoon with you. In three 

 weeks I shall have a few days vacancy, and mean to be in 

 town chief part of the time. I am most earnestly bent on pur- 

 suing my plan of making a collection of all the birds in this 

 part of North America. Now I don't want you to throw cold 

 water, as Shakspeare says, on this notion, Quixotic as it may 

 appear. I have been so long accustomed to the building of 

 airy castles and brain windmills, that it has become one of my 

 earthly comforts, a sort of a rough bone, that amuses me when 

 sated with the dull drudgery of life." 



TO MR. WM. BARTRAM. 



Marc/129, 1804. 



" Three months have passed away since I had the pleasure 

 of seeing you; and three dark and heavy months they have 

 been to your family. My heart has shared in your distress, 

 and sincerely sympathises with you for the loss you have sus- 

 tained. But Time, the great curer of every grief, will gradu- 

 ally heal those wounds which Misfortune has inflicted; and 



