ALEXANDER WILSON. 
XXXI 
in Paisley, and ever ready to redress what he imagined wrongs, 
was too easily wrought upon; and, entering into the feelings and 
prejudices of the operatives, at the solicitation of others, produced 
a number of poetical squibs which held up the subjects of popular 
dislike to contempt and ridicule. The principal ones went under 
the designations of “ The Pedlar Insulted,” “ Hab’s Door, or the 
Temple of Terror,” “ The Hollander, or Light Weights,” and “ The 
Shark, or Long Mills Detected ;” the titles bearing reference to 
local circumstances of the times, and persons, which are now of no 
consequence. For one of these he underwent a trial, but the charge 
could not be proved, and for the last, written against a respectable 
and wealthy manufacturer, perhaps containing some truths, he was 
prosecuted, and sentenced to imprisonment in the jail of Paisley, 
and to burn the offensive poem with his own hand. It will be 
sufficient to say, that he deserved the punishment, having behaved 
with neither propriety nor honour in the transaction. Of this he 
was himself sensible, and deeply regretted his error ; and such was 
the opinion even of his prosecutors, that the sentence would have 
been averted, if possible, after the verdict had been pronounced : 
it was, however, carried into execution in the most private and 
gentle manner, a very few of his intimate friends only seeing 
him burn the obnoxious pamphlet in question. In those his evil 
days, he seems to have been carried off by the persuasions of his 
companions, or, as he says, “ led astray ” by his too keen “ imagi- 
nation,” without considering the pain or injury he inflicted on 
the objects of his satire, or the evil consequences it might bring 
upon himself. His future opinions were very different. In a copy 
of his poems, in possession of Mr Ord, his able editor, there is 
written by himself, — “ I published these poems when only twenty- 
two, an age more abundant in sail than ballast. Reader, let this 
soften the rigour of criticism a little. — 1804.” In a letter to his 
father of a later date, he says, “ In youth I had wrong ideas of 
life ; imagination too often led me astray. You will find me much 
altered from the son you knew me in Paisley, more diffident of 
myself, and less precipitate, though often wrong.” And when 
copies of these poems were afterwards brought to him, in America, 
by a friend, he threw them into the fire, saying, “ Ay, David,* 
* David Wilson, the poet’s half brother. 
