LIFE OF WILSON. 
I long very much to hear from you ; and, with my best wishes for 
your health and happiness, am very truly 
Your sincere friend.” 
As soon as the seventh volume of the Ornithology was pub- 
lished, its author, and the writer of this sketch, set out on their last 
expedition to Great Egg-harbour. There they remained for nearly 
four weeks, constantly occupied in collecting materials for the 
eighth volume, which Wilson had resolved should in no respects 
fall short of the preceding ; but which should, if possible, enhance 
his reputation by the value of its details, and the beauty of its em- 
bellishments. 
Immediately on his return to Philadelphia, he engaged anew 
in his arduous avocation ; and by the month of August he had suc- 
ceeded in completing the letter-press of the eighth volume, though 
the whole of the plates were not finished. But unfortunately his 
great anxiety to conclude the work condemned him to an excess 
of toil, which, inflexible as was his mind, his bodily frame was 
unable to bear. He was likewise by this flood of business prevent- 
ed from residing in the country, where hours of mental lassitude 
might have been beguiled by a rural walk, or the rough but invi- 
gorating exercise of the gun. At length he was attacked by a dis- 
ease, which, perhaps, at another period of his life might not have 
been attended with fatal eflects, but which now, in his debilitated 
state of body, and harassed mind, proved a mighty foe, whose as- 
saults all the combined efforts of friendship, science and skill, 
could not repel. The Dysentery, after a sickness of ten days, 
closed the mortal career of Alexander Wilson, on the twenty-third 
of August, 1813. 
It may not be going too far to maintain, that in no age or na- 
tion has there ever arisen one more eminently qualified for a natu- 
ralist than the subject of these memoirs. He was not only an en- 
thusiastic admirer of the works of creation, but he was consistent 
