BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



OF 



ALEXANDER WILSON. 



ALEXANDER WILSON was born in the town of Paislev, 

 in Scotland;* and received the elements of a classical education 

 at a grammar school of his native place. About the age of ten, 

 he had the misfortune to lose his mother ; and his father, who 

 was closely engaged in the occupation of a distiller, feeling the 

 necessity of an adjunct in the governance of an infant family, 

 again entered into the matrimonial state. 



Young Wilson's father had designed him for a learned pro- 

 fession ; but this intention, how agreeable soever to parental feel- 

 ings, was not relished by the son, who had imbibed some preju- 

 dices, which were the cause of the project being abandoned. 



The introduction of a step-mother into Mr. Wilson's family, 

 as is too often the case, was productive of unhappiness. The 

 subject of this memoir became the object of aversion, through 

 some unknown cause, to his new guardian ; who employed her 

 influence to his disadvantage, with such effect, that the poor lad 

 was compelled to forsake his paternal roof, and to seek an asylum 

 under that of his brother-in-law, William Duncan, who resided at 

 Queen's ferry, on the Frith of Forth. Mr. Duncan was a weaver ; 



* The year in which he was born could not he ascertained hut it is conjectured hy his friends 

 that he was about five-and-forty at his decease. 



VOL. IX. D 



