LIFE OF WILSON. clxxxix 
remembered just so long as is the ephemeral sheet, or magazine, the 
columns of which they adorn, one can form no high expectations of 
the long life of that poetry which seldom rises beyond mediocrity, 
which sometimes sinks greatly below it, and which is indebted, in 
no small degree, to the adventitious aid of a name, resplendent in 
another walk of literature, for that countenance and support, which 
its own intrinsic merits, singly, could never claim, 
I am aware that these brief observations on the poetry of Wil- 
son are not calculated to give pleasure to those of his friends who 
have been in the habit of regarding him as one possessing no small 
claim to the inspiration of the Muses. But let such remember the 
determination of a profound critic, that » no question can be more 
innocently discussed than a dead poet’s pretensions to renown ; 
and little regard is due to that bigotry which sets candour higher 
than truth.”* 
When Wilson commenced the publication of his History of 
the Birds of the United States he was quite a novice in the study 
of the Science of Ornithology. This arose fj*om two causes : his 
poverty, which prevented him from owning the works of those 
authors who had particularly attended to the classification and no- 
menclature of birds, and his contempt of the labours of closet na- 
turalists, whose dry descriptions convey any thing but pleasure to 
that mind which has been disciplined in the school of Nature. But 
the difficulties under which he laboured soon convinced him of the 
necessity of those helps which only books can supply; and his re- 
pugnance to systems, as repulsive as they are at the first view, gra- 
dually gave place to more enlarged notions on the course to be 
pursued by him who would not only attain to knowledge by the 
readiest means, but who would impart that knowledge in the most 
effective manner to others. 
* Johnson’s Preface to Shakspeare. 
3 B 
VOL. IX. 
