38 AIvEXANDER WII.SON: POEIT-NATURAUST 



table in the tavern of the suave old host, John 

 Dowie, from which the revellers sometimes with- 

 drew to find relaxation in the music of Handel or 

 Corelli at St. Cecelia's Music Hall in Edinburgh, 

 Their tempestuous lives often came to tragic ends. 

 Robert Tannahill, the gifted young poet of Paisley, 

 escaped a fate like that of Fergusson by taking his 

 own life, and perhaps even Wilson was saved by his 

 timely emigration. 



The day was one of fierce agitation along all 

 lines, but it justified itself by producing such men as 

 Adam Smith and Robert Burns ; and England — the 

 England which had shared in Dr. Johnson's opin- 

 ion of Scotch affairs — learned at last that many 

 good things could come out of Scotland. 



In such a period of social, industrial, political, re- 

 ligious and philosophical revolution as this, Alex- 

 ander Wilson was born and lived his early life. In 

 him we have a representative of the time and na- 

 tion in which his being and character took form. 

 Could we indeed "pluck out the stops" and learn 

 and understand this man we should know much of 

 the potentiality of the Scotland of the eighteenth 

 century. Nor is it possible that we can understand 

 the sources of the strength of his later nature until 

 we have learned something of the difficulties which 

 he overcame, the temptations which he resisted, in 

 those early years in Scotland. 



