clxxxvi 
LIFE OF WILSON. 
have been better employed in writing a simple prose narrative of 
a journey, which was fruitful of interesting events, must be obvious 
to many of the readers of this poem, who are acquainted with the 
author’s talents for description, and his appropriate diction, of 
which we are presented with examples in his letters and his Orni- 
thology. On first reading this production such was my impression, 
and a re-perusal has not induced me to change my opinion. 
In his exordium he is not very happy: 
“ Sons of the city! ye whom crowds and noise 
Bereave of peace, and Nature’s rural joys.^^ 
The noise of a crowded city may bereave its inhabitants of peace, 
but it is difficult to conceive how it can have a tendency to deprive 
them of the delights of the country. 
In the account of his companions and himself he is too cir- 
cumstantial, details of this kind correspond not well with the dig- 
nity of poetry: 
“ An oilskin covering glittered round his head.” 
A knapsack crammed by Friendship’s generous care 
“ With cakes and cordials, drams, and dainty fare; 
“ Flasks filled with powder, leathern belts with shot, 
“ Clothes, colours, paper, pencils — and what not” 
Also in another place: 
“ Full-loaded peach trees drooping hung around, 
“ Their mellow fruit thick scatter’d o’er the ground; 
“ Six cents procured us a sufficient store, 
“ Our napkins crammed and pockets running o^er” 
Many of his rhymes are bad, particxdarly in the latter part of the 
