ALEXANDER WILSON. 
49 
be justly ranked with any similar publication either 
of ancient or modem date, while in his descriptions 
he has few rivals, or, indeed, competitors. After 
his death, Charles Luoien Bonaparte, Prince of 
Musignano, gave to the world a continuation in 
one volume, got up on the same scale, which forms 
the ninth volume of this Work. It contains twenty- 
one plates, upon which are given fifty-three figures 
with their descriptions. It is therefore as an Orni- 
thologist that Wilson’s fame will he handed down 
to a late posterity ; for although as a Poet his essays 
.are replete with originality and character, and at 
the time called forth the deserved encomiums of his 
fond friends and admirers, while tho persons intro- 
duced in such effusions were alive, his genius in 
that art was likely to be prized beyond its real 
merit, which the lapse of a few years will cause to 
be criticised with more severity, or probably alto- 
gether neglected and forgotten. In short, Wilson 
himself never appears to have studied with a view 
to writing any thing approximating to a regular 
poem, and his offerings to the Muses seem more to 
have been hasty improvisatore lucubrations, than 
carefully studied productions. 
As a private friend, in early life, his character 
was most affectionately cherished, and bore the 
highest stamp amongst his youthful companions; 
and in his more mature years, amongst his literary 
friends in the country of his adoption, the kindness 
and warmth of his disposition, together with his 
extraordinary acquirements, secured to him both 
D 
