ALEXANDER WILSON. xx |ii 



Terrors overwhelms them with despair. How hard — how difficult 

 — how happy to prepare for eternity ! and yet, how dreadful to live 

 or to die unprepared ! Oh ! that I were enabled to make it my 

 study to interest myself in His favour, who has the keys of hell and 

 of death. Then all the vanities of life would appear what they 

 really are, and the shades of death would brighten up a glorious 

 path to everlasting mansions of felicity ! " — " These are the sincere 

 effusions of my soul, and I hope that, through the divine aid, they 

 shall be my future delight, whether health shall again return, or 

 death has left the commissioned dart." For his recovery from this 

 low state, he was as much indebted to the kind and salutary coun- 

 sels of Mr Crichton, as to the prescriptions of his physicians ; but, 

 as that gentleman remarks, he was " soon up and soon down, and 

 the air of the country, and temporary removal from Paisley, the 

 scene of his distress," in some measure recovered his bodily strength 

 and wonted spirits. 



There is another circumstance which may have weighed on his 

 mind. Although it has been said, by most of his biographers, 

 " that female attachments he had none," were there no other proof, 

 it would be almost impossible to conceive a young man of ardent 

 temper and keen perceptions, totally insensible to the charms of 

 female beauty. In his younger days, I have good authority for 

 saying that he had several liaisons, and for some time had been 

 attached to the sister of Mrs Witherspoon, a pretty and respectable 

 girl, to whom he made frequent allusion in his poems, though two 

 only of those published contain any reference to her ; and there can 

 be little doubt that Martha Maclean bore an influence in his fits of 

 despondency. In the New World he formed new attachments, and, 

 had he lived, was to have married Miss Miller, daughter of a con- 

 siderable proprietor in the vicinity of Winterton, and whom he 

 appointed his executrix. 



His spirits being roused by the counsels and exertions of his 

 friends, he again commenced travelling, still carrying with him the 

 pack and poems ; and, as another resource, endeavoured to procure 

 some employment by writing for the periodicals of the day. He 

 also projected a work, to be edited and conducted by himself, and 

 to be called the Paisley Repositary. Of this, a prospectus was 

 printed and circulated ; but the advice of Mr Crichton and of Mr 



