30 
MEMOIR OF 
“ Laurel disputed,” or a comparison of the merits of 
Allan Ramsay and Robert Fergusson. Having ob- 
tained tbe loan of a copy of Fergusson’s Poems, 
which his crippled finances prevented him from 
purchasing, and having with incredible exertion 
finished a very long web of silk -gauze in a few days 
(although the labour of a week to an ordinary 
workman), he studied his author, composed his 
essay, and with a light heart, and lighter purse, 
walked to Edinburgh to he present on the eventful 
evening when the disputants delivered their ora- 
tions. There were seven candidates, and "Wilson 
carriod the second prize ; although it was shrewdly 
suspected that Mr. Cumming, the successful compe- 
titor, had gained the first by packing the audience. 
He had only seventeen votes above Wilson in an 
assembly of fully five hundred persons, amongst 
whom it was rumoured that his friends had pre- 
sented forty tickets to ladies, and which, although 
only sixpence each, was a mode of convassing be- 
yond the limited means of our author ; who, even 
had he possessed them, would have spumed such 
an idea. 
Our limits force us to abstain from entering upon 
many details of Wilson’s history at this period. — 
Discouraged at the ill success of almost all his 
undertakings, — unsettled and unsteady in all his 
determinations, — and being surrounded with com- 
panions whose opinions were dangerous in the ex- 
treme, it is not to be wondered at that one of a 
temperament so very sanguine should have been 
