cii • LIFE OF WILSON. 



"Devote your whole time, except what is proper for needful exercise, tc 

 rendering yourself completely master of your business. For this purpose rise 

 by the peep of dawn ; take your regular walk ;• and then commence your 

 stated studies. Be under no anxiety to hear what people think of you, or of 

 your tutorship ; but study the improvement, and watch over the good conduct, 

 of their children consigned to your care, as if they were your own. Mingle 

 respect and affability with your orders and arrangements. Never show your- 

 self feverish or irritated; but preserve a firm and dignified, a just and ener- 

 getic deportment, in every emergency. To be completely master of one's 

 business, and ever anxious to discharge it with fidelity and honor, is to be 

 great, beloved, respectable, and happy. 



" 1 could have wished that you had been accommodated with a room and 

 boarding in a more private and retired situation, where your time and jreflec- 

 tions would have been more your own ; and perhaps these may be obtained 

 hereafter. Try to discover your own defects, and labor with all your energy 

 to supply them. Respect yourself, and fear nothing but vice and idleness. If 

 one had no other reward for doing one's duty, but the grateful sensations arising 

 therefrom on the retrospection, the recompense would be abundant, as these 

 alone are able to bear us up amidst every reverse. 



" At present I cannot enlarge further, my own mind being harassed with 

 difficulties relative to my publication. I have now no further dependence on 

 Murray ; and I mean to make it consistent both with the fame, and the inter- 

 est, of Lawson to do his best for me. I hope you will continue to let me hear 

 from you, from time to time. I anticipate much pleasure from the improve- 

 ments which I have no doubt you will now make in the several necessary 

 departments of your business. Wishing you every success in your endeavors 

 to excel, I remain, with sincere regard, &c." 



In the early part of the year 1812, Wilson published his fifth volume; and, 

 as the preface is interesting, we here insert an extract from it, for the gratifi- 

 cation of the reader. 



" The fifth volume of this extensive work is submitted to the public with all 

 due deference and respect; and the author having now, as he conjectures, 

 reached the middle stage of his journey, or in traveller's phrase, the ' half-way 

 house,' may be permitted to indulge himself with a slight retrospect of the 

 ground he has already traversed, and a glimpse of that which still lies before 

 him. 



" The whole of our Land Birds (those of the sixth volume included, which 

 are nearly ready for the press) have now been figured and described, probably 

 a very few excepted, which, it is hoped, will also shortly be obtained. These 

 have been gleaned up from an extensive territory of woods and fields, unfre- 

 quented forests, solitary ranges of mountains, swamps and morasses, by succes- 

 sive journeys and excursions of more than ten thousand miles. With all the 

 industry which a single individual could possibly exert, several species have 

 doubtless escaped him. These, future expeditions may enable him. to procure ; 

 or the kindness of his distant literary friends obligingly supply him with. 



