LIFE OF WILSON. Ixxxiii 



without paying much attention to other passing objects; and, in 

 tracing the streets of Charlestown, was astonished and hurt at 

 the indifference with which the inhabitants directed me to the 

 place.* I inquired if there were any person still living here 

 who had been in the battle, and I was directed to a Mr. Miller, 

 who was a lieutenant in this memorable affair. He is a man of 

 about sixty stout, remarkably fresh coloured, with a benign 

 and manly countenance. I introduced myself without ceremo- 

 ny shook his hand with sincere cordiality, and said, with some 

 warmth, that I was proud of the honour of meeting with one 

 of the heroes of Bunker's Hill the first unconquerable cham- 

 pions of their country. He looked at me, pressed my hand in 

 his, and the tears instantly glistened in his eyes, which as in- 

 stantly called up corresponding ones in my own. In our way 

 to the place he called on a Mr. Carter, who he said was also in 

 the action, and might recollect some circumstances which he 

 had forgotten. With these two veterans I spent three hours, 

 the most interesting to me of any of my life. As they pointed 



* We have here a trait of character worthy of note. Wilson's enthusi- 

 asm did not permit him to reflect, that an object which presents uncommon 

 attractions to one who beholds it for the first time, can have no such effect 

 upon the minds of the multitude, accustomed to view it from their infancy; 

 and in whose breasts those chaste and exquisite feelings which result from 

 taste, refined by culture, can have no place. 



But what Wilson felt upon this occasion, was that which almost all men of 

 genius and sensibility experience when similarly situated that divine enthu- 

 siasm, which, exalts one, as it were, above mortality, and which commands 

 our respect in proportion as the subject of it is estimable or great. 



Who has not read, or having read, who can forget, that admirable passage 

 in Johnson's Journey to the Hebrides, wherein the illustrious traveller re- 

 lates his reflections on his landing upon the island of Icolmkill! " Far from 

 me, and from my friends," says he, " be such frigid philosophy as may con- 

 duct us indifferent and unmoved over any ground which has been dignified 

 by wisdom, bravery, or virtue." That this frigid philosophy was a stranger 

 to the soul of Wilson, we have his own declaration in evidence; and so little 

 skilled was he in the art of concealing his emotions, that, on any occasion 

 which awakened his sensibility, he would exhibit the impulse of simple na- 

 ture by weeping like a child. 



