with critical observations and biographical notices, by Robert Burns

214
Owre a boord, wi' bannocks heapet,
Cheese, an' stoups, an* glasses stood 5
Some war roarin', ithers sleepit,
Ithers quietly chewt their cude.
Jock was selUn* Pate some tallow,
A' the rest a racket hel',
A' but Watty, wha, poor fallow.
Sat and smoket by himsel*.
by which he suffered severely. The remembrance of this mis-
fortune dwelt upon his mind, and rendered him dissatisfied with
his country.
Another cause of Wilson's dejection was the rising fame of
Burns, and the indiflference of the public to his own produc-
tions. He may be said to have envied the Ayrshire bard, and to
this envy may be attributed his best production, " Watty and
Meg," which he wrote at Edinburgh in 1793. He sent it to
Nielson, printer, at Paisley, who had suffered by the publication
of his former poems. As it was, by the advice of his friends,
published anonymously, it was generally ascribed to Bums, and
went rapidly through seven or eight editions. Wilson, however,
shared no part of the profits, willing to compensate for the for-
mer losses his publisher had sustained.
Tired of a country in which the efforts of his genius had been
rendered abortive by juvenile indiscretions, and apprehensive
that these might operate as a bar to his future advancement, he
resolved in the year 1794^ or 1795 to embark for America, which
his