xxiv LIFE OF WILSON. 



The scheme was unfolded to Mr. Lawson, and met his un- 

 qualified approbation. But he observed that there were several 

 considerations which should have their weight, in determining in 

 an affair of so much importance. These were frankly stated ; and 

 followed by advice, which did not quadrate with Wilson's tem- 

 perament ; who, vexed that his friend would not enter into his 

 feelings, expressed his scorn of the maxims of prudence with 

 which he was assailed, by styling them the offspring of a coldy 

 calculating, contemptible philosophy. Under date of March 12thy 

 1 804, he thus writes to the last named gentleman : 



" I dare say you begin to think me very ungenerous and un- 

 friendly in not seeing you for so long a time. I will simply state 

 the cause, and I know you will excuse me. Six days in one week 

 I have no more time than just to swallow my meals and return to 

 my Sanctum Sanctorum, Five days of the following week are oc- 

 cupied in the same routine of pedagoguing matters ; and the other 

 two are sacrificed to that itch for drawing, which I caught from 

 your honorable self. I never was more wishful to spend an after- 

 noon with you. In three weeks I shall have a few days vacancy, 

 and mean to be in town chief part of the time. I am most ear- 

 nestly bent on pursuing my plan of making a collection of all the 

 birds in this part of North America. Now I don't want you to 

 throw cold water, as Shakspeare says, on this notion, Quixotic as 

 it may appear. I have been so long accustomed to the building 

 of airy castles and brain windmills, that it has become one of my 

 earthly comforts, a sort of a rough bone, that amuses me when 

 sated with the dull drudgery of life." 



In the month of October, 1804, Mr. Wilson, accompanied by 

 two of his friends, set out on a pedestrian journey to visit the far- 

 famed Cataract of Niagara, whereof he had heard much, but which 

 he never before had an opportunity of beholding. The magnifi- 

 cent scenery of that beautiful river, as might be expected, filled 



