Page:Scotish Descriptive Poems - Leyden (1803).djvu/15

 port the expence of his education. He was, therefore, at the age of fourteen, obliged to leave the school of Lanark, and was employed in private tuition till 1746, when he was permanently settled as parochial schoolmaster of Lesmahago. The general features of character are commonly impressed by the females who tend our infancy, and with whom we associate in early life. It is probable, therefore, that Mr. Wilson derived many mental advantages from the society of his mother, to which he was longer confined than usual by his delicate constitution. She was a woman of great propriety of conduct, and had received a superior education, which, in her widowhood and decline of life, qualified her for executing the semiparental duties of an instructress of youth. She possessed a vein of that comic but innocent humour, for which her son was afterwards distinguished.

On June 14. 1751, Mr. Wilson married Miss Agnes Brown, a young woman of amiable manners, and sensibility of temper, who became the mother of nine children. His character was now developed, his mind had acquired strength, and his views had assumed a determinate direction. The situation of schoolmaster was more respectable than at present, as well as comparatively easy in circumstances. The progress of society had not then separated, by so wide an interval, the situations of the