xxxviii LIFE OF 



Wilson remained only a little while at Bloomfield ; for, hearing of 

 a better situation, he applied for it, and obtained an engagement 

 from the trustees of the Union School, a short way from Gray's 

 Ferry on the Schuylkill, and about four miles from Philadelphia. 

 Upon his first arrival in America, nothing appears to have struck 

 him so much as the birds. The variety of their forms and rich 

 colours had at once impressed his mind. The difference of the 

 feathered race from those of his native country, is noticed in his 

 first letter to his parents, written only a few days after his arrival ; 

 and his sensations on viewing the first bird that presented itself as 

 he entered the forests of Delaware, were most vivid : it was a red- 

 headed woodpecker, which he shot, and considered the most beau- 

 tiful bird he had ever beheld. The acquisition of this situation, 

 therefore, may be looked upon as the most important era in his 

 whole life, — it commenced his acquaintance with the venerable 

 Bartram. " His school-house and residence lay but a short distance 

 from Bartram's botanic garden, situated on the western bank of the 

 Schuylkill, — a sequestered spot, possessing attractions of no ordinary 

 kind. An acquaintance was soon contracted with that venerable 

 naturalist, which grew into an uncommon friendship, and continued, 

 without the least abatement, until severed by death. Here it was 

 that Wilson found himself translated, if we may so speak, into a 

 new existence. He had long been a lover of nature, and had derived 

 more happiness from the contemplation of her simple beauties, than 

 from any other source of gratification. But he had hitherto been a 

 mere novice ; he was now about to receive instructions from one, 

 whom the experience of a long life, spent in travel and rural retreat, 

 had qualified to teach."* 



Notwithstanding this improved condition in life, his mind, per- 

 haps weakened by his late illness, was ill at rest, still brooding over 

 his dependent situation, and, as we learn from his letters to Mr 

 Ord, upon circumstances of a private nature, which it would be 

 useless to introduce here. So much was he depressed that his 

 anxious friends began even to dread the safety of his understand- 

 ing; and Mr Lawson, the engraver, who enjoyed his confidence, 

 succeeded in prevailing upon him, for a time, to lay aside music 

 and poetry, in which he indulged during his solitary walks, and to 

 * Ord's Life, p. xxvii. 2d edit. 



