102 MEM OIK OF JOHN WILSON. 



poem, parts of it apparently written down for the first time, and 

 other parts being final copies of the work as sent for revision to his 

 friend Blair. The alterations in the first draught are more of entire 

 passages than of phrases. It is evident that he never composed 

 without first forming a clear conception of what he intended to 

 embody in each particular poem. The prose outlines of some pieces 

 in these books are sometimes so full as to require only their transla- 

 tion into verse to entitle them to the name of poems. Of this the 

 sketch entitled " Red Tarn," already given, may be taken as a 

 specimen. The contents of these books show, in fact, that poetry 

 was not a mere amusement with him, but a serious study, and that 

 he had in those days very extensive plans of composition, on which 

 he entered with an earnest desire to use well the gifts with which 

 he had been endowed.* 



His first communication on the subject to Mr. Smith is from 

 Edinburgh, and is as follows : — 



" Edinburgh, 53 Queen Street, 

 Wednesday Evening, December 13, 1810. 

 " Dear Sir : — I have, during the last three years, written a num- 

 ber of poems on various subjects, from which I intend to form a 

 selection for the press. The principal poem, entitled The Isle of 

 Palms, which will give its name to the volume, is descriptive of sea 

 and island scenery, and contains a love-story. It is nearly 2,000 

 lines. The second is entitled " The Anglers' Tent." It contains 

 nearly forty stanzas of seventeen lines each, in the same measure as 

 Collins' Ode on the Superstitions of the Highlands. The third is a 

 blank-verse poem upon Oxford. The rest it is needless to particu- 

 larize. I can furnish as many poems as will make a volume of 350 

 or 400 pages. As you have an opportunity of knowing the prob- 

 able merit of any works of mine from Finlay, Blair, and others, I 

 offer my poems in the first place to you. In a publication of such 



* Dr. Blair, in a letter, has expressed to me the following opinion : — " I have been always at 

 a loss to know why yonr father did not follow further his youthful impulsion towards verse. 

 I thought him endowed beyond all the youthful poets of his day, and in some powers beyond 

 any of his contemporaries. I believe he had more of absolute deep and glowing enthusiasm 

 than any of them. He might require a severe intellectual discipline and learned study to balance 

 that natural fire and energy for the composition of a great work. But he had both will and 

 ability for severe thought, and he had the capacity for searching and comprehensive inquiry, 

 and such a wonderful power of storing materials and of managing them to his use, that I never 

 could, nor can I now, understand why, loving poetry as he did, he left it. He had a flood of 

 eloquence which not one of the other poets who have lived in his day had or has." This is the 

 opinion of the man most familiar with my father's mind. 



