imony in profuse expenditure. But
more considerate people see no ground for that opinion: his expenses,
though great, were never adequate to the dilapidation of so large an
estate as he was reputed to have inherited: and the prevailing opinion
is that some great loss of L20,000 at a blow, by the failure of some
trustee or other, was the true cause of that diminution in his
property which, within a year or two from this time, he is generally
supposed to have suffered. However, as Mr. Wilson himself has always
maintained an obstinate silence on the subject, and as the mere fact
of the loss (however probable) is not more accurately known to me than
its extent, or its particular mode, or its cause,--I shall not allow
myself to make any conjectural speculations on the subject. It can be
interesting to you and me only from one of its consequences, viz. its
leading him afterwards to seek a professorship: for most certain it
is, that, if the splendour of Mr. Wilson's youthful condition as to
pecuniary matters had not been in some remarkable degree overcast, and
suffered some signal eclipse, he would never have surrendered any part
of that perfect liberty which was so dear to him, for all the honours
and rewards that could have been offered by the foremost universities
of Europe.

You will have heard, no doubt, from some of those with whom you
conversed about Professor Wilson when you were in Europe, or you may
have read it in Peter's Letters, that in very early life (probably
about the age of eighteen) he had formed a scheme for penetrating into
central Africa, visiting the city of Tombuctoo, and solving (if it
were possible) the great outstanding problem of the course of the
Niger. To this scheme he was attracted probably not so much by any
particular interest in the improvement of geographical knowledge, as
by the youthful spirit of romantic adventure, and a very uncommon
craving for whatever was grand--indefinite--and gigantic in
conception, supposing that it required at the same time great physical
powers in the execution. There cannot be a doubt for us at this day,
who look back upon the melancholy list of victims in this perilous
field of discovery which has been furnished by the two or three and
twenty years elapsed since Mr. Wilson's plan was in agitation, that in
that enterprise--had he ever irretrievably embarked himself upon
it--he would infallibly have perished; for, though reasonably strong,
he was not strong upon