590 W I L W I L (made from pine leaves). The value of its exports, princi pally cotton, turpentine, and rosin, is about $7,000,000 annually. The city, which is in the main regularly laid out, had in 1870 a population of 13,44-6, and in 1880 of 17,350, of whom 60 per cent, were Negroes. The site of Wilmington was originally occupied by a town named Newton, laid out in 1730. The name was changed to Wilmington nine years later. The place was incorporated as a city in 1866. During the Civil War it was the principal port of entry for the Confederate blockade-runners. AVILMOT, JOHN. See ROCHESTER, EARL OF. WILNO. See VILNA. WILSON, ALEXANDER (1766-1813), "the American ornithologist," was born in Paisley, Scotland, on 6th July 1766. His father, a hanclloom weaver, soon removed to the country, and there combined weaving with agriculture, distilling, and smuggling, conditions which no doubt helped to develop in the boy that love of rural pursuits and adventure which was to determine his career. At first he was placed with a tutor and destined for the church ; but his father s circumstances soon compelled him to apprentice the boy to his own trade. The lad s real life, however, was spent in reverie and versification, and in long woodland rambles, in the course of which he combined his poetic musings Avith the keen observation of a naturalist, supplemented by the woodcraft of an accomplished poacher. As these tastes developed, he decided to exchange the loom for the pedlar s pack, and then spent a year or two in travelling through Scotland, recording in his journal every matter of natural history or antiquarian interest, like another Sibbald or White of Selborne. Having incurred a short imprisonment for lampooning the master-weavers in a trade dispute, he emigrated to America in 1794. After a few years of weaving, peddling, and desultory observation, he became a village schoolmaster, and in 1800 obtained an appointment near Philadelphia, where he formed the acquaintance of Bartram the naturalist, from whom he received much instruction and encourage ment. Under his influence Wilson commenced to draw birds, having conceived the idea of illustrating the orni thology of the United States; and thenceforward he steadily accumulated materials and made many expeditions. In 1806 he obtained the assistant-editorship of jRees s Encyclo pedia, and thus acquired more means and leisure for his great work, the first volume of which appeared in the autumn of 1808, after which he spent the winter in a journey "in search of birds and subscribers." By the spring of 1813 seven volumes had appeared; but the arduous expedition of that summer, in search of the marine waterfowl to which the remaining volume was to be de voted, gave a shock to his already impaired health, and soon after he succumbed to dysentery after a short illness, dying at Philadelphia on 23d August 1813. Of his poems, not excepting the Foresters (Philadelphia, 1805), nothing need now be said, save that they no doubt served to develop his descriptive powers. His American Ornithology, however, re mains a fundamental classic. In the words of Jardine, "He was the first who studied the birds of North America in their natural abodes and from real observation ; and his work will remain an ever to be admired testimony of enthusiasm and perseverance, one certainly unrivalled in description ; and, if some plates and illustra tions may vie with it in finer workmanship or pictorial splendour, few indeed can rival it in fidelity and truth of delineation." The eighth and ninth volumes were edited after his decease by his friend Ord, and the work was continued by Lucien Bonaparte (4 vols., Philadelphia, 1828-33). The American Ornithology was also repub- ished by Sir William Jardine (3 vols., London, 1832), and an edi tion of his entire works has been edited by Rev. A. B. Grosart (Paisley, 1876). A statue was also erected to liim at Paisley in 1876. WILSON, FLORENCE. See VOLUSENUS. WILSON, HENRY (1812-1875), vice-president of the United States from 1873 to 1875, was born at Farmington, N.H., on 16th February 1812. His proper name was Jeremiah J. Colbath. His parents were day-labourers and very poor. At ten years of age he went to work as a farm- labourer. The boy was greedy for reading, and before the end of his apprenticeship had read more than a thousand volumes. At the age of twenty-one, for some unstated reason, he had his name changed by Act of the Legislature to that of Henry Wilson. Walking to Natick, Mass., he learned the trade of shoemaker, and by it supported himself through the Concord academy. After successfully estab lishing himself as a shoe manufacturer, he became a noted public speaker in support of Harrison during the presi dential election of 1840. -For the next ten years he was regularly returned to the State legislature. In 1848 he left the Whig party and became a "Free Soiler/ The Free Soil party nominated him for governor of the State in 1853, but he was defeated. In 1855 he was sent to the United States Senate by the Free Soil and Democratic parties, and remained there by re-elections until 1873. When the Civil War broke out he found a severe test awaiting him. He had been deeply interested from 1840 until 1850 in the militia of his State, and had risen through its grades of service to that of brigadier-general. He was now made chairman of the military committee, and in this position performed most laborious and important work for the four years of the war. The position offered boundless and safe opportunities for becoming wealthy. But so far was W T ilson from using them that he died poor, owing to his necessary neglect of his private affairs. Sumner says that in 1873 Wilson was obliged to borrow a hundred dollars from him to meet the expenses of his inauguration as vice-president. The Republicans nomi nated Wilson for the vice-presidency in 1872, and he was elected ; but he died, before completing his term of service, at Washington on 22d November 1875. He left two small but useful works, Anti-Slavery Measures in Congress (Boston, 1864) and Military Measures in Congress (Hart ford, 1868), and a larger work in three volumes, The Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America (Boston, 1871-76). His Life has been written by E. Nason and by J. B. Mann. WILSON, HORACE HAYMAN (1786-1860), one of the most distinguished Orientalists of England, was born in London on 26th September 1786. He was educated for the medical profession, and on completing his studies went out to India in 1808 as an assistant-surgeon on the Bengal establishment of the East India Company. Instead of entering the regular medical service, however, his know ledge of chemistry and the practical analysis of metals caused him to be attached to the mint at Calcutta, where he was for a time associated with John Leyden, the Scottish poet and Orientalist. It was not long before he himself became deeply interested in the ancient language and litera ture of India, and attracted the attention of Henry T. Colebrooke, the famous Sanskrit scholar, on whose recom mendation he was in 1811 appointed secretary to the Asiatic Society of Bengal. In 1813 he published the Sanskrit text with a graceful, if somewhat free, translation in English rhymed verse of Kalidasa s charming lyrical poem, the MeghadUta, or Cloud-Messenger (2d ed."l843, 3d ed. 1867). He then undertook the arduous task of preparing the first Sanskrit -English Dictionary from materials compiled by native scholars for the college of Fort William, supple mented by his own researches. The work appeared in 1819, prefaced with an excellent general survey of Sanskrit lexicology. A second, much enlarged, edition, but without the introduction, was published in 1832, and has recently been reprinted at Calcutta. The appearance of the Dic tionary at once placed Wilson in the first rank of Sanskrit scholars ; and, while patiently pursuing his study of the writings and institutions of ancient India, he became one of the most valuable contributors to the Asiatic Researches
and the Calcutta Quarterly. Among his more important