VI 
LIFE OF WILSON. 
To Mr. WM. DUNCAN. 
lujigsessmg, February 20, 1805. 
“ I received yours of January 1, and wrote immediately ; but 
partly through negligence, and partly through accident, it has not 
been put into the post office ; and I now sit down to give you some 
additional particulars. 
This winter has been entirely lost to me, as well as to your- 
self. I shall on the twelfth of next month be scarcely able to col- 
lect a sufficiency to pay my board, having not more than twenty- 
seven scholars. Five or six families, who used to send me their 
children, have been almost in a state of starvation. The rivers 
Schuylkill and Delaware are still shut, and wagons are passing and 
repassing at this moment upon the ice. 
“ The solitary hours of this winter I have employed in com- 
pleting the poem which I originally intended for a description of 
your first journey to Ovid. It is now so altered as to bear little 
resemblance to the original ; and I have named it the Foresters.” 
It begins with a description of the Fall or Indian Summer, and re- 
lates, minutely, our peregrinations and adventures until our arrival 
at Catharine Landing, occupying ten hundred and thirty lines. 
The remainder will occupy nearly as much ; and as I shall, if ever 
I publish it, insert numerous notes, I should be glad, if, while you 
are on the spot, you would collect every interesting anecdote you 
can of the country, and of the places which we passed through. 
Hunting stories, &c., peculiar to the would be acceptable. 
I should be extremely glad to spend one afternoon with you for 
the benefit of your criticisms. I lent the poem to Mr. ^ ^ * 
our senator, Avho seems to think it worth reading ; and ^ ^ ^ 
has expressed many flattering compliments on my labours ; but I 
