104 AI^EXANDER WII^ON : POET-NATURAUST 



credit should be given where credit is due, and Wil- 

 son will be cleared from the imputation of littleness 

 and falsehood. 



After leaving Louisville Wilson passed on 

 through Shelbyville and Frankfort to Lexington, 

 where he spent some most pleasant days. He was 

 introduced among the substantial people of the 

 place and was charmed with the ladies that he met. 

 The town itself he criticised severely, but prophesied 

 that all its faults would be corrected by time, and 

 declared the place a "monument of the enterprise, 

 courage and industry of its inhabitants." On his 

 way from Lexington to Nashville (about thirteen 

 miles from the latter place) he met with the rare case 

 of a landlord who refused to accept pay for his 

 lodgings. This hospitable man, of the good name 

 of Isaac Walton, declared that since Wilson was 

 traveling for the good of the world he should pay 

 nothing whenever he stopped at his place. Blessed 

 be his honorable memory! 



At Nashville Wilson wrote so interesting a letter 

 to his fiancee. Miss Sarah Miller, that it is worthy 

 of being quoted in full. It reveals the restraint 

 which Wilson held upon himself as a lover, as well 

 as the fact that he was among the earliest of aboli- 

 tionists in sympathies. It is well to bear in mind in 

 reading any of Wilson's letters, however, that he 

 was always too apt to judge a whole people by the 

 few examples that he might meet with. He was, 

 though, perfectly impartial in his criticisms. New 

 England, Georgia, Virginia, Kentucky, New Jer- 

 sey, the legislature of his own State, all come almost 

 equally under the stroke of his lash. Wherever he 



