134 AI^UXANDE^R WII.SON: POET-NATURAI,IST 



familiar verses of Picken, is yet too genuinely 

 Scotch and too full of individuality not to be no- 

 ticed among his Scottish pieces. 



There are a number of other epistles which are 

 not especially noteworthy, because there is 

 neither particular poetic beauty about them, nor 

 yet any prominence of the individual note that 

 might otherwise make them of interest. The two 

 epistles to James Dobie are perhaps the best of 

 these. The first gives a realistic picture of Wil- 

 son's attic, the second, were it not for its harrow- 

 ing description of the filth of Edinburgh, would 

 be one of the best of the epistles. The remainder 

 of his Scotch verse-letters, which includes two 

 others to William Mitchell, one to James Ken- 

 nedy, and a second one to Andrew Clark, are in 

 the main commonplace and uninteresting. 



In the better of his epistles Wilson attained to 

 a manner quite his own, although he used the 

 stanza forms which were familiarly associated 

 with the name of Robert Fergusson and which at 

 the very time when he was writing in them were 

 being consecrated by the genius of Robert Burns. 

 Both Burns and Fergusson wrote their epistles 

 in an easy, facile style that Wilson never gained, 

 and their poetic genius gave to them the unmis- 

 takable stamp of beauty and freshness that was 

 also beyond him. Nevertheless, there is merit 

 in Wilson's epistles when they are considered 

 apart from the work of these greater masters. 

 He succeeded remarkably well in reproducing the 

 atmosphere of the places which he described, and 

 their bright, cheerful and aptly turned phrases are 



