ALEXANDER WILSON. 
XX111 
The extracts from this letter will shew that the principles of 
Divine Revelation had been well and early implanted in his mind, 
and his future writings bear witness that they were never uprooted. 
44 Driven by poverty and disease to the solitudes of retirement,* at 
the same period when the flush of youth, the thirst of fame, and 
the expected applause of the world, welcomed me to the field,” — - 
44 1 feel my body decay daily, my spirits and strength continually 
decrease, and something within me tells me that dissolution — 
dreadful dissolution, is not far distant. No heart can conceive the 
terrors of those who tremble under the apprehension of death. 
This increases their love of life, and every new advance of the King 
of Terrors overwhelms them with despair. How hard — how difficult 
— how happy to prepare for eternity ! and yet, how dreadful to live 
or to die unprepared ! Oh ! that I were enabled to make it my 
study to interest myself in His favour, who has the keys of hell 
and of death. Then all the vanities of life would appear what they 
really are, and the shades of death would brighten up a glorious 
path to everlasting mansions of felicity !” — 44 These are the sincere 
effusions of my soul, and I hope that, through the divine aid, they 
shall be my future delight, whether health shall again return, or 
death has left the commissioned dart.” For his recovery from 
this low state, he was as much indebted to the kind and salutary 
counsels of Mr Crichton, as to the prescriptions of his physicians ; 
but, as that gentleman remarks, he was “ soon up and soon down, 
and the air of the country, and temporary removal from Paisley, 
the scene of his distress,” in some measure recovered his bodily 
strength and wonted spirits. 
There is another circumstance which may have weighed on his 
mind. Although it has been said, by most of his biographers, 
44 that female attachments he had none,” were there no other proof, 
it would be almost impossible to conceive a young man of ardent 
temper and keen perceptions, totally insensible to the charms of 
female beauty. In his younger days, I have good authority for 
saying that he had several liaisons, and for some time had been 
attached to the sister of Mrs Witherspoon, a pretty and respectable 
girl, to whom he made frequent allusion in his poems, though two 
* He was now at Auchinbathie Tower. 
