34 
MEMOIR OF 
his friends remarked ; and amidst all the vicissitudes 
of his fortune, and in all the various localities to 
which he was driven by his necessities, he was ever 
alive to the beauties of the feathered race, which 
he never ceased to compare and contrast with those 
of his native land. He had the good fortune at this 
time to obtain the office of teacher at Gray’s Ferry, 
near Philadelphia, where he was introduced to 
“ Mr. Bartram, who kept the botanic garden situate 
on the western bank of the Schuylkill, a sequestered 
and very beautiful spot, where Wilson found him- 
self translated, as it were, into a new sphere of ex- 
istence. He had always been a lover of Nature, 
and had derived more happiness from the contem- 
plation of her simple beauties, than from any other 
source of gratification, — being hitherto a mere novice 
in botany ; he was now about to receive instruc- 
tions in that science from one, whom the experience 
of a long life, spent in travel and rural retreat, had 
qualified to teach."* 
Although now much improved in his circum- 
stances, a severe illness, from which he had lately 
but partially recovered, had such an effect on his 
constitution, as to occasion serious apprehensions on 
the part of his friends, who succeeded in inducing 
him to relinquish for a time his poetical studies, and 
the indulgence in music of a description too sen- 
timental, during his solitary walks, and to betake 
himself, in his leisure hours, to drawing. His first 
attempts were directed to the human figure and 
* Ord's Life, p. xxvii. 2d edit. 
