Wilson's ivarly years in Scotland 49 



panion of the loom, David Brodie, eccentric but 

 clever and popular; Ebenezer Picken, a Univer- 

 sity of Glasgow man who forsook his possible 

 career in the church for poetry, became later 

 a teacher and edited a "Scottish Dictionary," 

 but died in poverty in 181 5 or '16; James 

 Kennedy, a poet of small local reputation; 

 William McGavin, author of the "Protest- 

 ant," and good old Thomas Crichton, who of all 

 Wilson's Scottish friends was the truest and most 

 leal. Crichton was born in 1761 and was, there- 

 fore, five years Wilson's senior; by profession he 

 was a teacher ; he became master of Town's Hospi- 

 tal in 1 791 and was elder in Middle Church. He 

 was also a friend of the distinguished President of 

 Princeton University, John Witherspoon, and he did 

 honor to the memory of both of his friends by his 

 reminiscences. He lived to a good old age, not 

 dying until November 18, 1844. It was during 

 these years, too, that Wilson most probably formed 

 the acquaintance of Burns. Dr. Hetherington 

 quotes Mr. P. A. Ramsey of Paisley as authority for 

 the statement that Wilson visited Burns in Ayrshire, 

 and described his visit "in the most rapturous 

 terms." From Wilson's two poems on Burns we 

 know that they knew each other and that Wilson 

 held Burns in the highest personal esteem. 



Wilson's second edition of his poems was published 

 in 1 79 1 and was merely the remainder of the old 

 unsold edition with a new title page and some omis- 

 sions and additions. The title page read, "Poems, 

 Humourous, Satirical, and Serious by Alexander 

 4 



