Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 8.djvu/33

Rh all Europe, and one of his biographers says, that there was not a crowned head in the latter quarter of the globe but had then become a subscriber to the American Ornithology. Honours as well as profit began to pour in upon him. In 1812, he was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society, and subsequently of other learned bodies. In 1813, the literary materials for the eighth volume of the Ornithology were ready at the same time that the seventh was published. But its progress was greatly retarded for want of proper assistants to colour the plates, those whom he could procure aiming rather at a caricature than a copy of nature. He was at last obliged to undertake the whole of this department himself in addition to his other duties, and these multifarious labours, by drawing largely upon his hours of rest, began rapidly to exhaust his constitution. When his friends remonstrated with him upon the danger of his severe application, he answered, " Life is short, and without exertion nothing can be performed." A fatal dysentery at last seized him, which, after a few days' illness, carried him off, upon the 23rd of August, 1813, being then only in his forty-eighth year. According to the authority of an American gentleman who was intimate with him, his death was accelerated by an incident in singular keeping with the scientific enthusiasm of his life. While sitting in the house of one of his friends, he happened to see a bird of a rare species, and which he had been long seeking for in vain, fly past the window. He immediately rushed out of the house, pursued the bird across a river, over which he was compelled to swim, shot and returned with the bird, but caught an accession of cold which carried him off. He was buried next day in the cemetery of the Swedish church in the district of Southwark, Philadelphia, with all the honours which the inhabitants could bestow on his remains. The clergy and all the public bodies walked in procession, and wore crape on their arms for thirty days. A simple marble monument was placed over him, stating shortly the place and year of his birth, the period of his emigration to America, and the day and cause of his death.

The whole plates for the remainder of the Ornithology having been completed under Wilson's own eye, the letter-press of the ninth volume was supplied by his friend Mr George Ord, who had been his companion in several of his expeditions, as also a memoir of the deceased naturalist. There have been few instances, indeed, where the glowing fire of genius was combined with so much strong and healthy judgment, warmth of social affection, and correct and pure moral feeling, as in the case of Alexander Wilson. The benevolence and kindness of his heart sparkle through all his writings, and it is cheering to the true Christian to observe, that his religious principles became purified and strengthened in proportion to the depth of his researches into the organization of nature. He is said to have been strikingly handsome in person, although rather slim than robust, with a countenance beaming with intelligence, and an eye full of animation and fire. His career furnishes a remarkable example of the success which, sooner or later, is the reward of perseverance. It is true he did not attain riches, but upon the possession of these his happiness was not placed. He wished, to use his own words, "to raise some beacon to show that such a man had lived," and few have so completely achieved the object of their ambition. Wilson's father survived him three years.

Three supplementary volumes of the Ornithology, containing delineations of American birds not described by Wilson, have been published by Charles Lucien Bonaparte. In 1832, an edition of the American Ornithology, with illustrative notes, and a Life of Wilson, by Sir William Jardine, was published in London, in three volumes. 