clxxxviii 
LIFE OF WILSON. 
The description of the Dutch farmer, and his habitation, would 
not disgrace the author of Rip Van Winkle. 
In the enumeration of the miseries of a country schoolmaster 
there is much truth ; and the picture is vividly and feelingly drawn 
from nature. Few had more experience than Wilson of the de- 
graded condition of a teacher, when under the control of the vul- 
gar and ignorant; a state, compared with which the lot of the hewer 
of wood and drawer of water is truly enviable. 
The account of daddy Squares, the settler, and that of Pat 
Dougherty, the shopkeeper and publican, contain some humour. 
The latter is a disgusting exhibition of one of those barbarians 
whom the traveller often meets with in the interior of our coun- 
try ; and whose ignorance, bestiality and vice, have the tendency 
to disabuse one on the subject of the virtue and happiness usually 
attributed to the inhabitants remote from our large cities, which, 
instead of being the only nurseries of corruption, as is believed 
and affirmed, are the great schools wherein science, literature, pie- 
ty and manners, are most effectively taught, and most beneficially 
practised. 
The sketch of the Indian hunter is entitled to praise, as being 
vigorous and picturesque; and the description of the Bald or Gray 
Eagles, sailing amid the mist of the Cataract of Niagara, is a pic- 
ture drawn with fidelity — it is poetical and sublime. 
After this superficial review of the poems of Wilson, the ques- 
tion will naturally arise, ought we to consider him as one endued 
with those requisites, which entitle his productions to rank with 
the works of the poets, properly so called ? To write smooth and 
agreeable verses is an art of no very difficult purchase ; we see it 
daily exemplified by persons of education, whose leisure permits 
them to beguile a lonely hour with an employment at once delight- 
ful and instructive. But when one considers the temporary nature 
of the great mass of these fugitive essays, that they are read and 
