22 ALEXANDE;r WILSON: poet-naturaust 



an increase of £600.* William Creech, writing of 

 the period about 1783, declared that "every quarter 

 of the city and suburbs was infested with multitudes 

 of females abandoned to vice, and a great many at 

 a very early period of life, before passion could mis- 

 lead or reason teach them right from wrong."t 



It is a dark picture that I have drawn of Scot- 

 land's moral condition, but I believe none too dark, 

 and it illustrates better than anything else can do 

 the obstacles which such men as Burns and Fer- 

 gusson, Wilson and Tannahill had to contend 

 against. For the effects of the conditions per- 

 meated everything and everywhere, even to the tone 

 and subjects of the conversation of the day. They 

 were times when men called "a. spade a spade," and 

 without the least sense of impropriety they intro- 

 duced the coarse and revolting into their conversa- 

 tions and writings. The old "chap-books" and the 

 poems of the day show that this fondness for the 

 vulgar continued to the very end of the century; 

 being illustrated even in many of the verses, written 

 before he left Scotland, by the young Alexander 

 Wilson. 



There was another feature of Scotch life in that 

 day that should not be overlooked, the extent of 

 drunkenness. This, as we are to see, was the last of 

 the old national vices to be rolled away before the 

 waves of progress and enlightenment which were 

 beginning to sweep over Scotland toward the close 

 of the century. That it was so universal is the less 



* Letters to Sir John Sinclair in "Edinburgh Fugitive Pieces^" by 

 William Creech, reprinted 1785. 



t Ibid. 



