ALEXANDER WILSON. 
XXI 
Now, ye Fair, if ye choose any piece to jferuse, 
With pleasure I’ll instantly shew it : 
If the Pedlar should fail to be favour’d with sale, 
Then I hope you’ll encourage the Poet.” 
Did our limits permit, we would willingly transcribe 
other passages from the above-mentioned journal, because 
it is not less faithful as a picture of his mind and 
feelings, than as a description of his wanderings. There 
breathes through it an indignant spirit of independence — 
a detestation of every thing mean and selfish, — -and a 
proud scorn of what he considered the overweening inso- 
lence of the wealthy and the vain. In his main object, 
however, which was evidently to procure subscribers for 
his poems, Wilson was almost totally disappointed, 
though he did not fail to study deeply the living page of 
man. We cannot resist the inclination to quote the 
conclusion of his journal, in which he thus sums up his 
toils and his gains : — 
“ I have this day, I believe, measured the height of an 
hundred stairs, and explored the recesses of twice that 
number of miserable habitations ; and what have I gained 
by it? — only two shillings of worldly pelf! but an 
invaluable treasure of observation. In this elegant dome, 
wrapt up in glittering silks, and stretched on the downy 
sofa, recline the fair daughters of wealth and indolence : 
the ample mirror, flowery floor, and magnificent couch, 
their surrounding attendants ; while, suspended in his 
wiry habitation above, the shrill-piped canary warbles to 
enchanting echoes. Within the confines of that sickly 
hovel, hung round with squadrons of his brother artists, 
the pale-faced weaver plies the resounding lay, or lanches 
the melancholy murmuring shuttle. Lifting this simple 
latch, and stooping for entrance to the miserable hut, 
there sits poverty and ever-moaning disease, clothed in 
dunghill rags, and ever shivering over the fireless chimney. 
