34 AI.EXANDER WILSON : POET-NATURAI.IST 



son, the weaver, the carpenter, who could in 1750 

 only earn his 6d. a day, in 1790 made his is. or is. 

 2d."* Expenses, however, had increased even more 

 rapidly, so that even then the poor Scotchman was 

 confronted still by hard and exacting conditions. 



In literature Scotland was now producing men 

 that the world had to reckon with. Not a few had 

 accepted the high-road to England as their "noblest 

 prospect" and merely gave to their country the 

 brightness of their names. Of such men were 

 Thomson and Smollett. James Thomson set out 

 for England in 1725 with his poem on "Winter" in 

 his pocket, and eleven years later Smollett came to 

 London by packhorse with a bag containing a set 

 of surgeon's lancets and "The Regicide." Many 

 other men of sterling worth, like President Wither- 

 spoon of the College of New Jersey, and later Alex- 

 ander Wilson, left their native land for America; 

 but nevertheless quite a number of literary men re- 

 mained in Scotland. The school of philosophy, 

 which found strong representatives in David Hume, 

 James Beattie, Thomas Reid, Dugald Stewart and 

 such men, was especially remarkable as indicating 

 the intellectual awakening of the country, and 

 artists like the second Allen Ramsay were winning 

 renown at home and abroad. 



In the earlier part of the century literature had 

 found its most representative types in the authors 

 of the old chap-books, men of great local reputation. 

 Patrick Walker, a sedate Covenanter peddler^ was 

 the disseminator of what little news or literature 

 there was to find its way over the roads familiar to 



• Graham's "Social Life," II, p. 26ii, 



