lasting monument of his good sense and judgment.

Whilst I justify him, however, on this head, I am obliged to admit
that on another field, at that very time, Mr. Wilson was displaying
the most reckless profusion. A sailing club had been established on
Windermere, by whom I never heard; very probably by Mr. Wilson
himself; at all events, he was the leader and the soul of the
confederation; and he applied annually nothing less than a little
fortune to the maintenance of the many expenses which arose out of it.
Amongst the members of the club there were more than one who had far
larger fortunes than Mr. Wilson could ever have possessed; but he
would permit no one to outshine him on this arena. The number of his
boats was so great as to compose a little fleet; and some of them, of
unusually large dimensions for this lake, had been built at an
enormous expense by regular builders brought over expressly from the
port of Whitehaven (distant from Elleray about forty-five miles), and
kept during the whole progress of their labour at a most expensive
Lakers' hotel. One of these boats in particular, a ten-oared barge,
which you will find specially introduced by name in Professor Wilson's
tale of _The Foresters_ (_vide_ p. 215), was generally believed at
the time to have cost him at the least five hundred pounds. And as the
number of sailors which it required to man these boats was necessarily
very great at particular seasons, and as the majority of these sailors
lived, during the period of their services, with little or no
restraint upon their expenses at the most costly inn in the
neighbourhood,--it may be supposed very readily that about this time
Mr. Wilson's lavish expenditure, added to the demands of architects
and builders, and the recent purchase of Elleray, must have seriously
injured his patrimonial property,--though generally believed to have
been originally considerably more than thirty thousand (many asserted
forty thousand) pounds. In fact, he had never less than three
establishments going on concurrently for some years; one at the town
or village of Bowness (the little port of the lake of Windermere), for
his boatmen; one at the Ambleside Hotel, about five miles distant, for
himself; and a third at Elleray, for his servants, and the occasional
resort of himself and his friends. It is the opinion of some people
that about this time, and during the succeeding two years, Mr. Wilson
dissipated the main bulk of his patr