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nothing but the ruins of an old cathedral: why he selected that for the home of his charmer, I cannot tell. Before I knew the fact that "Jessie" was only a creation of the poet's fancy,-happening to be passing through the town of Dumblane, I looked eagerly at every lassie I met, to see whether I could not discover the "lovely young Jessie," or her daughter, or some one on whom her mantle of beauty had fallen. But alas! if "flower" there had ever been in the place, it had withered, or else kept itself within doors; for I chanced to see none but plain-looking country lasses, "nut-brown maids," whom a poet would hardly have been ready to die or sigh for.

WILSON, THE ORNITHOLOGIST.

Be't kent to a' the warld in rhyme,
That wi' richt mickle wark and toil,
For three lang years I've ser't my time,
Whiles feasted wi' the hazel oil.

ALEXANDER WILSON.

THE birth-place of another Scottish poet, of far less celebrity in that walk, but of perhaps greater in another, is also to be seen at Paisley. I refer to Alexander Wilson, author of the great work on American Ornithology. On the front of a house on the banks of the river Cart, which runs through the town, is to be seen a marble tablet, bearing the following inscription: "This tablet was erected in 1841, to mark the birth-place of Alexander Wilson, Paisley Poet and American Ornithologist." From a Memoir of Wilson, furnished me by a Paisley friend, I will present a few curious particulars of his early life.

Wilson's father was a Paisley weaver, and he himself was bred to the same employment, though his parents at first intended him for the ministry. Becoming restless under his dull routine of sedentary labor, he for a while turned peddler. About the same period-the year 1790, when he

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was twenty-four years of age-he ventured to print a volume of poems, which he, like Tannahill, had composed from time to time, while sitting at the loom. He undertook to dispose of his goods and poems together: as he says in his journal, written about this time, "I have resolved to make one bold push for the united interests of pack and poems.

I have therefore fitted up a proper budget, consisting of silks, muslins, prints, &c., for the accommodation of those good people who may prove my customers, together with a sufficient quantity of 'proposals' for my poetical friends; and to prevent those tedious harangues, which otherwise I would be obliged to deliver at every threshold, I have, according to the custom of the more polite peddlers, committed the contents of my pack to a hand-bill, though in a style somewhat remote from any I have yet seen :

"ADVERTISEMENT EXTRAORDINARY.

"Fair ladies, I pray for one moment to stay,

Until with submission I tell you,

What muslins so curious, for uses so various,

A poet has here brought to sell you.

"Here's handkerchiefs charming, book-muslin like ermine,
Brocaded, striped, corded, and checked;
Sweet Venus, they say, on Cupid's birth-day,
In British-made muslins was decked.

"If these can't content ye, here's muslins in plenty,
From one shilling up to a dozen,

That Juno might wear, and more beauteous appear,
When she means the old Thunderer to cozen.

"Here are fine jacconets, of numberless sets,
With spotted and sprigged festoons;
And lovely tambours, with elegant flowers,

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For bonnets, cloaks, aprons, or gowns.

Now, ye fair, if ye choose any piece to peruse,
With pleasure I'll instantly show it:

If the peddler should fail to be favored with sale,
Then I hope you'll encourage the poet."

This was certainly a remarkable setting out in life for the great Ornithologist. How long it is, with many men, before they find their true place and use in the world!

In spite of all his efforts, the volume of poems did not sell only about two hundred, out of seven hundred, copies were got off. His success, whether as poet or peddler, was but small. He says, at the conclusion of his journal, that he "had measured the height of a hundred stairs, and explored the recesses of twice that number of miserable habitations, in one day, and gained by it only two shillings of worldly pelf." This was discouraging; and weary of his roving life, he resumed his weaving.

The next year, Wilson made one more appeal to the public, and put forth what he called a second edition of his poems, which, however, was nothing more than the unsold five hundred copies of the first, with a new title-page, and a few additional pieces. His success was no greater than before. Wilson, in after years, ascribed his want of success to publishing too early. On the blank leaf of a copy of his poems have been found these words: "I published these poems when only twenty-two, an age more abundant in sail than ballast."

One poem, however, entitled "Watty and Meg," which he published in the following year anonymously, met with an astonishing sale, was universally admired, and was considered to have so great merit, as to be generally ascribed to Burns himself, who was just then at the height of his fame. "Wilson,"

says his biographer, "felt this to be a high though unconscious acknowledgment of his merits, by that public, who had so unfavorably received his former and avowed productions; and, for a considerable time, allowed the report to spread uncontradicted, enjoying great satisfaction." No fewer, it is said, than a hundred thousand copies of this poem were sold by the printer, in the course of a few weeks. The author, however, as is too common in such cases, reaped but little pecuniary benefit from the sale.

It was not long after this, that Wilson's turn for versification and satire together, brought him into serious difficulty. In a dispute that arose between the weavers and manufacturers, Wilson, naturally taking part with the former, wrote several pungent satirical pieces against certain individuals of the latter party. For one of these he was prosecuted, and sentenced to a short imprisonment, and to the additional mortification of publicly burning his own poem at the Paisley "Cross."* The prosecutors, however, were not vindictive; and "such respect," says his biographer, "was paid to his feelings, that no notice was published of the hour of his punishment, and it was witnessed only by those who

In the town where Wilson was thus disgraced, preparations are at this moment making to erect a monument in his honor.

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