ALEXANDER WILSON. 
Ixxxi 
who was well qualified to perform this office for his 
deceased friend, having been his companion in several 
expeditions for procuring specimens, and collecting the 
information from which the descriptions of the birds were 
drawn up. This concluding volume contained a Life of 
Wilson, from the pen of the editor. 
As it has been all along our object to place Wilson 
before the reader, either as he represented himself in his 
journals and letters, or as he was represented by those who, 
being personally acquainted with him, had the best means 
of knowing him accurately, we think it proper to make 
some extracts from the character which his American 
biographer has drawn, evidently from his own knowledge. 
“ It may not,” says he, “ be going too far to maintain, 
that in no age or nation has there ever arisen one more 
eminently qualified for a naturalist, than the subject of 
these memoirs. He was not only an enthusiastic admirer 
•of the works of creation ; but he was consistent in 
research, and permitted no dangers or fatigues to abate 
his ardour, or relax his exertions. He inured himself to 
hardships by frequent and laborious exercise, and was 
never more happy than when employed in some enterprize, 
which promised, from its difficulties, the novelties of 
discovery. Whatever was obtained with ease, appeared 
to him comparatively uninteresting ; the acquisitions of 
labour alone seemed worthy of his ambition. He was no 
closet philosopher ; he was indebted for his ideas, not to 
books, but to nature. His perseverance was uncommon ; 
and, when engaged in any particular pursuit, he never 
would relinquish it while there was a chance of success. 
His powers of observation were acute, and his judgment 
seldom erred. That his industry was great, his work will 
ever testify ; and our astonishment may well be excited, 
that so much should have been performed in so short a 
time. A single individual, without patron , fortune , or 
recompense , accomplished, in the short space of seven years , 
