claims as a poet. In his humour and feeling he resembles Burns, to whom, as already mentioned, one of his poems was generally attri buted. Of this ballad, "Watty and Meg," Allan Cunningham says: "It has been excelled by none in lively, graphic fidelity of touch; whatever was present to his eye and manifest to his ear, he could paint with a life and a humour which Burns seems alone to excel." Science and poetry are not supposed to be congenial to the same mind, yet in the subject of this notice, as in the case of a much greater man— the author of Faust-we find the two combined in such a high development that the mixture of these supposed opposites is clearly proved to be possible.

Charles Robert Leslie, the eminent painter, in 1855 favoured me with many pleasant reminiscences of his gifted Scottish contemporary, and in his Autobiographical Recollections remarks: “Mr. Bradford, the same liberal patron who enabled me to study painting, enabled Wilson to publish the most interesting account of birds, and to illustrate it with the best

and swam a river in pursuit of his specimen, which he secured, but caught a cold which soon after caused his death, on the 23d of August, 1813. He was interred with public honours in the Swedish burial-ground, Southwark, Philadelphia. The great lover and delineator of nature sleeps in the quaint old graveyard, by the side of his attached friend Bernard Dahlgren, father of the late Admiral Dahlgren of the United States navy. Some time before Wilson's decease he had expressed a wish that he might be buried "where the birds might sing over his grave." In the year 1841 a memorial tablet was placed in the walls of the house where the poet was born. This, however, was felt to be inadequate. Something more in keeping with the fame and worth of the man was soon after determined upon, and his townsmen erected in October, 1874, in the recently improved portion of the Paisley Abbey burial ground, a noble bronze statue, which, with the granite pedestal, is seventeen feet in height. The figure is full length, and represents Wilson following his favourite ornithological pursuits in the wilderness of the New World. | representations of their forms and colours, that The ninth and last volume of American has ever appeared. Wilson was engaged by Ornithology appeared the year following the Mr. Bradford as tutor to his sons, and as editor poet's death, the letter-press having been of the American edition of Rees' Cyclopædia, written by his friend George Ord; the illustra- while at the same time he was advancing his tions had been all finished under Wilson's Ornithology for publication. I assisted him supervision prior to his decease. In 1825 Mr. to colour some of its first plates. We worked Ord prepared a new edition of the last three from birds which he had shot and stuffed; volumes of the Ornithology, and in 1828 four and I well remember the extreme accuracy of supplementary volumes by Charles Lucien his drawings, and how carefully he had counted Bonaparte, uncle of the late Emperor of the the number of scales on the tiny legs and feet French, were published. The entire work of his subject. He looked like a bird: his was reprinted in four volumes in 1831, and eyes were piercing, dark, and luminous, and issued in Constable's Miscellany, with a life his nose shaped like a beak. He was of a of the author by W. M. Hetherington the spare bony form, very erect in his carriage, poet, subsequently professor of theology in inclining to be tall: and with a light elastic the Free Church College, Glasgow; and the step, he seemed qualified by nature for his year following another edition of Wilson's extraordinary pedestrian achievements." The American Ornithology, with illustrative notes eminent lawyer, Horace Binney, of Philaand a life of the author by Sir William Jar- delphia, who is still living at the age of ninetydine, was published in London in three vol- six, writes to us under date of February 8th, umes. A collective edition of his poems, with | 1873:—“I had no personal acquaintance with an account of his life, was published at Paisley Alexander Wilson the poet, though probably in 1816: another edition, with an extended me- we knew each other by name and sight. I moir of his life and writings, was issued in saw him not unfrequently in the book store of 1857 at Belfast, also in a single 12mo volume. | Samuel Bradford in this city, when the OrniWilson's extraordinary merit as a naturalist thology of Wilson was in course of publication has caused us in a measure to overlook his | -1811 or 1812. His personal appearance was

that of a modest, rather retiring man, of good | He was held in great esteem for probity, gentle countenance, not decidedly Scotch, but still manners, and accomplishments in his special with a cast of it, rather more like a New branch of natural science. I possess his great England Congregational clergyman in his black work, as men acquainted with its merits call dress than any other description I can give. it, but am no ornithologist myself."

For distant, alas! from my dear native shores,
And far from each friend now I be;
And wide

the merciless ocean, that roars

Between my Matilda and me.

THE SCHOOLMASTER.

Of all professions that this world has known,

How blest were the times when together we stray'd, From clowns and cobblers upwards to the throne; While Phoebe shone silent above;

Or leaned by the border of Cartha's green side,
And talked the whole evening of love!
Around us all nature lay wrapt up in peace,
Nor noise could our pleasures annoy,

Save Cartha's hoarse brawling conveyed by the
breeze,

That soothed us to love and to joy.

If haply some youth had his passion exprest,
And praised the bright charms of her face,
What horrors unceasing revolved through my
breast,

While, sighing, I stole from the place.

For where is the eye that could view her alone,
The ear that could list to her strain,
Nor wish the adorable nymph for his own,
Nor double the pangs I sustain?

From the great architects of Greece and Rome,
Down to the framer of a farthing broom,
The worst for care and undeserved abuse,
The first in real dignity and use,

(If skilled to teach and diligent to rule)
Is the learned master of a little school,
Not he who guides the legs, or fits the clown
To square his fists, and knock his fellow down;
Not he who shows the still more barbarous art
To parry thrusts, and pierce th' unguarded heart;
But that good man, who, faithful to his charge,
Still toils the opening reason to enlarge;
And leads the growing mind, through every stage,
From humble A B C to God's own page:
From black, rough pothooks, horrid to the sight,
To fairest lines that float o'er purest white;
From numeration, through an opening way,
Till dark annuities seem clear as day!
Pours o'er the mind a flood of mental light,

Thou moon! that now brightens those regions Expands its wings, and gives it powers for flight,

above,

How oft hast thou witness'd my bliss,
While breathing my tender expressions of love,
I seal'd each kind vow with a kiss!
Ah! then, how I joyed as I gazed on her charms!
What transports flew swift through my heart!
I pressed the dear, beautiful maid in my arms,
Nor dreamed that we ever should part.

But now from the dear, from the tenderest maid,
By Fortune unfeelingly torn;
'Midst strangers, who wonder to see me so sad,
In secret I wander forlorn;

And oft, while drear Midnight assembles he shades
And Silence pours sleep from her throne,
Pale, lonely and pensive, I steal through the glades
And sigh, 'midst the darkness, my moan.

In vain to the town I retreat for relief;

In vain to the groves I complain;

Till earth's remotest bounds, and heaven's bright train

He trace, weigh, measure, picture and explain.

If such his toils, sure honour and regard,
And wealth and fame will be his dear reward;
Sure every tongue will utter forth his praise,
And blessings gild the evening of his days!
Yes-blest indeed-by cold ungrateful scorn,
With study pale, by daily crosses worn;
Despised by those who to his labour owe
All that they read, and almost all they know.
Condemned, each tedious day, such cares to bear
As well might drive e'en Patience to despair;
The partial parent's taunt-the idler dull-
The blockhead's dark impenetrable skull-
The endless round of A B C's whole train,
Repeated o'er ten thousand times in vain,
Placed on a point, the object of each sneer,

Belles, coxcombs and uproar, can ne'er soothe His faults enlarge-his merits disappear.
my grief,

And solitude nurses my pain.

If mild-"Our lazy master loves his ease,
The boys at school do anything they please."

He drives the children stupid with his birch.

Still absent from her whom my bosom loves best, If rigid-"He's a stern hard-hearted wretch,
I languish in mis'ry and care;
Her presence could banish each woe from my heart, My child, with gentle means, will mind a breath;
But her absence, alas! is despair.
But frowns and flogging frighten him to death."
Do as he will his conduct is arraigned,

E'en that is given him on the quarter-day,
With looks that call it-money thrown away.

Ye dark rugged rocks, that recline o'er the deep, And dear the little that he gets is gained;
Ye breezes, that sigh o'er the main,
Oh! shelter me under your cliffs, while I weep,
And cease, while ye hear me complain.
Far distant, alas! from my dear native shores,
And far from each friend now I be;
And wide is the merciless ocean, that roars
Between my Matilda and me.

Just Heaven! who knows the unremitting care
And deep solicitude that teachers share,
If such their fate, by thy divine control,
O give them health and fortitude of soul!