“During his residence at Camlachie,” says Mr. Hansard, “Mr. Wilson had contracted habits of intimacy and friendship with some of the most respectable inhabitants and eminent characters in that quarter, among whom may be particularly reckoned the professors of the University of Glasgow and Messrs. Robert and Andrew Foulis, the University printers.[529] The growing reputation of the University Press, conducted by these latter gentlemen, afforded more and more scope to Mr. Wilson to exercise his abilities in supplying their types; and being now left entirely to his own judgment and taste, his talents as an artist in the line to which he had become devoted became every year more conspicuous.” “When the design was formed by the gentlemen of the University, together with the Messrs. Foulis, to print splendid editions of the Greek classics, Mr. Wilson with great alacrity undertook to execute new types, after a model highly approved. This he accomplished, at an expense of time and labour which could not be recompensed by any profits arising from the sale of the types themselves. Such disinterested zeal for the honour of the University Press was, however, upon this occasion, so well understood as to induce the University, in the preface to their folio _Homer_,[530] to mention Mr. Wilson in terms as honourable to him as they had been justly merited.” Of this magnificent work—one of the finest monuments of Greek typography {262} which our nation possesses—it is sufficient to say that if the reputation of Alexander Wilson depended on no other performance, it alone would give him a lasting title to the distinction accorded to him in the preface, of “egregius ille typorum artifex.”[531] [Illustration: 69. Double Pica Greek, cut by Alex. Wilson, 1756. (From the Glasgow _Homer_ (Foulis) 1756–8.)] In 1760 Mr. Wilson was honoured with the appointment of the Practical Astronomy Professorship in the University of Glasgow, about two years after which the foundry was removed to the more immediate vicinity of the college. After this appointment the further enlargement and improvement of the foundry {263} devolved upon his two eldest sons; and he lived to witness its rise under their management to the highest reputation. Among the later performances of Dr. Wilson, the most important was the beautiful fount of Double Pica cut in 1768 for the 4to edition of _Gray’s Poems_[532] published by the Brothers Foulis, who in their preface made public acknowledgment of the excellence of the letter and the expedition with which it had been provided.[533]