MEMOIR OF 
xiv 
for all his own privations, than to see the son of his affec- 
tion become the messenger of Heaven. 
Unfortunately for Wilson, his mother died when he 
was about ten years old, leaving his father embarrassed 
with the charge of a young family, to minister to the wants 
of which, the heart and the habits, the tenderness and the 
enduring patience of woman alone are adequate. In the 
higher and wealthier ranks, female aid may be procured ; 
but, in humble life, nothing can be more deplorably deso- 
late than the condition of a young motherless family. It 
is, therefore, almost a matter of absolute necessity for the 
poor man to seek the aid of a second wife ; though the 
result of doing so is usually the burden of an additional 
family. Wilson’s father soon married again ; and all his 
son’s prospects of a liberal education were speedily overcast. 
What progress he had made cannot now be discovered ; 
though, from the statements of his early friends, and 
the incorrectness of his first productions, it may be 
inferred, that his attainments were only limited. The 
bias, however, had been given ; a taste for literature had 
been communicated, by which the whole of his after life 
was more or less characterized. Of this he was himself 
aware, as appears by his letters to his father, written from 
America, after his perseverance had won for him that 
rich reward, for which alone he toiled, — honest, inde- 
pendent fame. In a letter, dated 25th Feb. 1811, the 
following passage occurs: — “ The publication of the 
Ornithology , though it has swallowed up all the little I 
have saved, has procured me the honour of many friends, 
eminent in this country, and the esteem of the public at 
large, for which I have to thank the goodness of a kind 
father, whose attention to my education in early life, as 
well as the books then put into my hands, first gave my 
mind a bias towards relishing the paths of literature, and 
the charms and magnificence of nature. These, it is 
true, particularly the latter, have made me a wanderer in 
