wii^son's uterary writings 135 



not their only virtues, for frequently there are 

 flashes of real poetry. 



Of the other Scotch poems which were included 

 in the 1790 volume a few words will suffice. "The 

 Pack" is a dreary dialogue between a peddler and 

 his pack, the former recounting his woes, the 

 latter expostulating and reminding the other of 

 what he has for which to be thankful. "Verses 

 on Seeing Two Men Sawing Timber," "Rabby's 

 Mistake," "Callamphithre's Elegy," the "Epi- 

 taph on Auld Jenet," and the "Address to the 

 Ragged Specter, Poverty," are all equally trivial 

 and worthless. The two elegies, one on the "Un- 

 fortunate Tailor," the other on the "Long Ex- 

 pected Death of a Wretched Miser," are coarse 

 and without merit. The "Verses to a Stationer" 

 are very poor, but the lines on "Daybreak" are 

 full of suggestiveness in the pictures which are 

 drawn of the awakening life of the city. 



There were, besides the Scotch poems, fifty- 

 one others in the first volume of Wilson's, written 

 in English verse. They are, taken collectively, 

 far inferior to the vernacular pieces, and it would 

 be bootless to consider them all individually. It 

 is more convenient to group them and consider 

 the better pieces in each group. They consist 

 of epistles, descriptive verses, fables, and songs 

 chiefly. Those which are not included in these 

 divisions we may speak of under the head of mis- 

 cellaneous pieces. 



The epistles have none of the distinction of in- 

 dividuality which marked several of those which 

 he wrote in Scotch. Commonplace in thought 



