WILLS, JAMES (1790-1868).—­Poet and miscellaneous writer, younger s. of a Roscommon squire, was ed. at Trinity Coll., Dublin, and studied law in the Middle Temple.  Deprived, however, of the fortune destined for him and the means of pursuing a legal career by the extravagance of his elder brother, he entered the Church, and also wrote largely in Blackwood’s Magazine and other periodicals.  In 1831 he pub. The Disembodied and other Poems; The Philosophy of Unbelief (1835) attracted much attention.  His largest work was Lives of Illustrious and Distinguished Irishmen, and his latest publication The Idolatress (1868).  In all his writings W. gave evidence of a powerful personality.  His poems are spirited, and in some cases show considerable dramatic qualities.

WILLS, WILLIAM GORMAN (1828-1891).—­Dramatist, s. of above, b. in Dublin.  After writing a novel, Old Times, in an Irish magazine, he went to London, and for some time wrote for periodicals without any very marked success.  He found his true vein in the drama, and produced over 30 plays, many of which, including Medea in Corinth, Eugene Aram, Jane Shore, Buckingham, and Olivia, had great success.  Besides these he wrote a poem, Melchior, in blank verse, and many songs.  He was also an accomplished artist.

WILSON, ALEXANDER (1766-1813).—­Poet and ornithologist, b. at Paisley, where he worked as a weaver, afterwards becoming a pedlar.  He pub. some poems, of which the best is Watty and Maggie, and in 1794 went to America, where he worked as a pedlar and teacher.  His skill in depicting birds led to his becoming an enthusiastic ornithologist, and he induced the publisher of Rees’s Cyclopaedia, on which he had been employed, to undertake an American ornithology to be written and illustrated by him.  Some vols. of the work were completed when, worn out by the labour and exposure entailed by his journeys in search of specimens, he succumbed to a fever.  Two additional vols. appeared posthumously.  The work, both from a literary and artistic point of view, is of high merit.  He also pub. in America another poem, The Foresters.

WILSON, SIR DANIEL (1816-1892).—­Archaeologist and miscellaneous writer, b. and ed. in Edin., and after acting as sec. of the Society of Antiquaries there, went to Toronto as Prof. of History and English Literature.  He was the author of Memorials of Edinburgh in the Olden Time, The Archeology and Pre-historic Annals of Scotland (1851), Civilisation in the Old and the New World, a study on “Chatterton,” and Caliban, the Missing Link, etc.