The Friendly Libraries                              3

guished Virginia gentleman, John Cooke Wyllie, but the matter
of solids was eventually brought to our attention. It occurred to
me then that there was in my pocket a guest card for the Farm¬
ington Country Club; so with a gesture in the grand manner I
invited the other three gentlemen to be my guests (as far as ad¬
mittance was concerned) at the Farmington.

We dined exceedingly well, but the dinner was costly, from
the Clements Library point of view. During the repast, one of the
guests described a collection of manuscripts which he had secured
just before setting out on his southern jaunt. Mr. Wormser very
carefully undersold his excitement over the collection, and he was
so successful in communicating his enthusiasm that I secured from
him a promise that he would offer the collection to the Clements
Library immediately upon hearing whether or not a certain New
York institution had accepted or rejected his offer.

For the next month or so, I spent many anxious hours thinking
about the possibilities of acquiring the great collection. Curiously
enough, I have no recollection of what happened in Charlottes¬
ville after hearing about the collection of papers formed by Dr.
William Wilson (1755-1828) of Clermont, New York. I know
we visited Monticello and were thoroughly soaked by a shower of
rain on our return, but I shall have to revisit Monticello to com¬
prehend its beauties. At last, the extraordinarily welcome news
arrived that the certain New York institution had declined to pur¬
chase the William Wilson Papers. The offer was submitted to the
Clements Library and accepted immediately. By the first of July,
the papers were all in our Manuscript Division, and shortly there¬
after work on sorting and arranging them commenced. They
proved very exciting. They contain large quantities of informa¬
tion that will eventually be of great value to economic, agrarian,
and medical historians. The Library feels fortunate in owning the
collection, and grateful to Mr. Wormser and to the certain New
York institution which turned them down.

Dr. William Wilson was born in Scotland in 1755. He came to
the United States in 1784 with letters of introduction to various