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of proportion, and a color barely suggestive; but the "sigil" of the necromancer has not only caught the play of sunlight, shivered gorgeous in metallic hues from each particular fibre of their plumes, (in a word, created the true style of coloring,) but has stilled these arrowy cleavers of the elements amidst their own clouds, upon the very waves on which they loved "to sit and swing," by " the beached verge," on the precipitous perch, or twig and leaf and berry of the boughs that were their homes-stilled them, too, in all the character of passionate lifetheir loves, battles, chases, gambols, thefts the grotesquery and grace, every mode and mood of their being amidst their native scenes. Each plate is a full length family portrait, with all the accessories historical. They are perfect in themselves and tell the whole story more clearly than words could do. Taken apart they are chapters in the " Illuminated Bible" of nature and very pleasant is the creed they teach, full of merry thoughts that make the heart go lightly, and plumy shapes, of strange, undreamedof beauty, come and go through the still air of musings, till we grow devout with thinking how God has made the roughest places of our earth so populous with lovely things that can surprise us into joy.

But to leave off rhapsodizing. Wilson's claim to originality, in having first conceived the magnificent design of illustrating the Birds of America, and led the van of Practical Science in its relations to Ornithology, is certainly a most imposing one, and one with which no after exertions of mere talent, however tireless, devoted, and successful it might be, could by any possibility compete. But genius can do what talent cannot. It is above all rules and "saws," and scorns the measure of an aphorism.

"When the power falls into the mighty

hands

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ly any room for comparison in this last issue. If Wilson was original, our ornithologist is infinitely more so. Wilson has all the advantages in such a contrast. "He was first in the field," and with the world-that said, all is said. Whatever has been done since must be footed on to his account with fame, at least to the point of careful balance with that of any one who has chanced to come after him. This is not strictly just. We admit cheerfully all that is righteously due to the Paisley adventurer. But we cannot perceive why-when the fact that he is not entitled to it, is clear as a sunburst to, any observer-he should be elevated into an equal rank with Audubon. It has been too much the way of the world to ease its conscience of present injustice and neglect of genius, by an internal reservation that it will pile up posthumous honors mountain high. Now it is surely to be apprehended that this genius though" of so airy and light a quality,” has yet something to seek" of the earth, earthy," in common with the rest of men

and that, therefore, the recognizing with its own proper eyes, the just claims of an original mind, by the country to which it has added lustre, cannot be a matter of indifference. Let us be in time for once. Audubon has nothing of glory to ask of us. The fruition of his fame began long ago, in a foreign country, when Cuvier at once pronounced his drawings "the most splendid monument which art had yet erected in honor of Ornithology." But this he has a right to demand of us-that we, his countrymen, should guard his honors from even the shadow of an imputation. We drove him to the embrace of a foreign land for patronage-but there, amidst all the pomp of courts and the intoxication of sudden success, he was still proudly the American Woodsman; nothing could damp that noble pride, and through every page he has written, we can still see it looking out with the same calm, abiding affection. We should not, then, be the last to vindicate such valorous faith. The man of his age, the illustrious Frenchman, has led the way in defining his supremacy, and yet the American mind, since Professor Wilson pronounced his autocratic fiat, that they were equals," has been timid to say in plain words-no! our Audubon is regally the head and front of illustrative science; the dictum of Christopher to the contrary notwithstanding, he is the ornithologist of the world, and the

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favorite, Wilson, must be content to stand below him. The Americans are too much afraid of the shadow of their own greatness. The Stamp Act is virtually tyrannizing yet, and their independence but partially attained. They have been too frequently content to await the verdict of a foreign country upon the claims of native genius, and thankfully to accept whatever pittance of praise she might allow. Conscious of exercising this mental despotism, so enduringly honorable to us, Britain can afford now and then to talk finely and prettily about such men as Franklin, Webster, and Audubon, when we send them over into her midst; but there is always the shade of a Davy, a Burke, or, from "the living umbrage," a Gould, to menace her benevolent fancy back into the bounds of just reserve. These men, she saith, are undoubtedly very great, but it is equally certain they are not Davys, Burkes, or Goulds. This proviso being accepted, we may happily be permitted to congratulate ourselves upon having produced at least three second-rate men. How touchingly maternal and magnanimous is this, of our queenly ancestress.

"Duller than the fat weed That roots itself at ease on Lethe's wharf,"

would be the heart that is not melted by such genial beneficence. But we hope we shall be enabled, in what remains, to make a becoming exhibition of our gratitude.

Before the interest and excitement created by the appearance of the Nos. of Wilson had subsided, another pilgrim from the far wilderness made his appearance amid the learned circles of the Scottish capital. He carried a portfolio under his arm, and came on an adventure to this seat of the mind's royalty and of voluptuous wealth. There was a look of nature's children about him. His curled, shining hair, thrown back from his open front, fell in dark clusters down his shoulders those features, moulded after "the high old Roman fashion," those sharp, steady eyes, that straight figure and elastic tread, were a strange blending of the Red Man and the pure-blooded Noble. A curious trader, he. But when his wondrous wares were all unfolded and spread out before their eyes, what a delicious thrilling of amazement and delight was felt throughout that fastidious epicurean crowd. A gorgeous show! The heart

of a virgin world unfolded, teeming with rare and exquisite thoughts, that had been born in the deep solitudes of her young musings, and, by some strange enchantment, caught as they gleamed past with all the bright hues and airy graces of their fresh, fleeting lives-with flower and tree, and rock and wave, as beautiful and new as they, thrown in to make the fairy pageant real. It was a surprising revelation, and when they knew that it all had been the work, the obscure, unaided work, through years of enduring toil, of that young wanderer, they were astonished into overwhelming admiration. They loaded him with adulation, and with honors; they took him by the hand, generously, and led him up to his success.

Such was the effect of Audubon's appearance in Edinburgh. Men felt that a great creation had come forth-that one of the "masterfull spirits" of the race of the olden time was among them-and they loved, caressed, and cherished him. How could they do otherwise? There is a compelling presence to successful genius, that will bear through its pur

poses.

About the same time, an English work in the field of illustrative Ornithology was making its appearance. It was on the basis of Wilson's method, and exhibited some slight advance in the execution of the mere still life of the figures. Audubon generously took great interest in it, and assisted Mr. Gould, under whose supervision it was prosecuted, with frequent and various suggestions. He found him laboring at "stuffed specimens," with all the faults and feebleness of the old school, though with somewhat more dignity and breadth of design, and higher elaboration in finish. The first volume, which was out before he had access to the drawings of Audubon, or had met with him personally, is a mere transcript of contents from the shelves of the Royal Museum. figures are as lifeless and void of expression in his plates, as the bead-eyed and musty skeletons from which they were copied; and the few accessories of rock, bough, or water, have a suspicious look about them, as if the transfer had embraced, also, the paper craigs and wire boughs, on which they were perched in their glass cases. The care, however, displayed in coloring, and in the delicate minuteness with which the plumage had been labored, afforded a promise of ex

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cellence that interested Mr. Audubon. With that unselfish kindness which is the attendant of a noble devotion to science, he endeavored to impress the Englishman with his own happy appreciation of what art really demanded, and lent him many valuable hints from his more extended and practical experience. He had, also, the plates of the Birds of America by him in addition. The result is immediately apparent in the second volume. His birds now begin to look as if there might be life under their feathers; indeed, they shortly became a marvellous sprightly family-son some of them with an air of saucy liveliness about them, which made them astonishingly like American birds.

Is Mr. Gould frankly and honorably grateful? Does he fairly acknowledge the source from whence his birds had caught this sudden vitality?-does he register the spell that waked them up? Yes, he is grateful--grateful as it is becoming and dignified of an Englishman to be to a vagrant from America, who had been permitted the honor of making accidental "suggestions" to the great ornithological illustrator of the British capital. He introduces him within the halo of his own glory by printing his name with an " Esquire" to it, in the preface to his "gorgeous" five-volume work. "J. J. Audubon, Esq.," occurs in the middle of a list of some twenty other Honorables, to whom "my thanks are likewise due, for the warm interest they have at all times taken in the present work." Affectionate man! Our eyes are almost dimmed in reading this touching acknowledgment! How pleasing to Audubon's genial nature it undoubtedly is, to have been incidentally a cause of so fine a display of humanity in its more delightful phases!

With all our zeal for the honor of the American, we might possibly have been so far disarmed by such an exhibition, as to have forborne the "tale we could unfold," but that another, and even more surprising display of this peculiar gratitude, from a different quarter, has put us upon our best behavior for a suitable return in the name of our country, thus courteously oppressed. We find the following singular passage in the work of a contemporary ornithologist, who wrote a continuation of Wilson It is from 66 Bonaparte's Geographical and Comparative List of the Birds of Europe and North America: By Charles

Lucien Bonaparte, Prince of Musignano. London: 1838." (He, too, might have added, "assisted by J. J. Audubon!") He says

"Throughout the list, I have quoted, as types of the species under consideration, the figures of the great works of Mr.

Gould and Mr. Audubon on the Ornitho

logy of the two regions, as they must be ject. The merit of Mr. Audubon's work yields only to the size of his book; while Mr. Gould's work on the Birds of Europe -inferior in size to that of Mr. Audubonis the most beautiful work that has ever appeared in this or any other country."

considered the standard works on the sub

It would undoubtedly be invidious in us to make any comment upon this-to even insinuate a wonder that a personage bearing this world-renowned name would consent to resign his reputation as a man of science, through all time, to the doubtful association of such an expression of mere professional or personal spite. We accordingly shall say no word on this point, though we may be permitted to urge that, as a fair issue is here made, and fairly registered between the two-made, too, by a European-we are at liberty, "sans" the onerous obligation due to each, to meet it without reserve. This we shall accordingly endeavor to do. By contrasting the plates of Mr. Gould's four last volumes of the Birds of Europe with Mr. Audubon's Birds of America, it will soon be perceived that we have not overrated the indebtedness of that gentleman to our ornithologist, and that, indeed, Mr. Gould has given an astonishingly wide interpretation to the "warm interest" for which he so eloquently expresses his gratitude.

We observe, in looking over Gould, that after we get through with the family of Raptores (who are dull, sleepy-looking perchers on his sheets, but, on Audubon's, full of the keen action of their fierce habits), and get among the smaller tribes figured in the second and third volumes, we are surprised to meet with one, now and then, exhibiting all the expressive play of real life. When you come to Gould's Redbreasted Flycatcher (Muscicapar parva), for instance, if you will then turn to No. 37, plate 185, Bachman's Warbler, Audubon, and compare the two, you will find no difficulty in accounting for this marvellous vivacity of Mr. Gould's pencil. The Fly

catcher is an exact copy of the Warbler, with the exception that it is slightly more stooped upon the twig, so as to conceal a hair's breadth or so of the right claw-in other respects there is no shade of difference in outline and position. But turn over further to Audubon's Wood Warbler; lay that by the side of the Flycatcher, and the resemblance is so full, in the minutest point, that you cannot fail to perceive that in this case Mr. Gould has actually lined his drawing over the other, instead of copying--for there is not the slightest perceptible variation, except that while the bill of Audubon's bird is slightly parted, that of Gould's is closed. Was it a guilty consciousness made the Englishman shut his bird's mouth, for fear he should let out the secret of the theft? Look at the "Hooded Warbler, Audubon," by side of the "Cirl Bunting, Gould"-attitude the same. The Warbler has its breast to you, stooping from a twig-Bunting is a copy so closely taken, that even so hard faced a pilferer is a little startled, and to escape the charge of over-lining again, he carries the twig from which his bird stoops, across the body, at a slightly different angle.

That these are not mere coincident resemblances you will be satisfied, by continuing this comparison. Turn now to "Morton's Finch, (male), Audubon" -observe it closely so that the eye will take in perfectly the character of the drawing. Then open to "Water Finch (male), Gould,"-you immediately recognize the American Bird transferred. There is no mistaking this--for the peculiarities of attitude and expression are broadly distinctive. Here, too, you detect the miserable shifts to which Mr. Gould has been compelled to resort, for the purpose of throwing off the eye from this recognition he so much dreads. His bird, for instance, is the largest,-then he has reversed its position on the plate, set it lower down, and so grouped the accessories as to confuse a critic. The other figure of the female in the same plate is dull enough to be all his own, while the male is as much out of place in such company, as the chiselled cornice of a Doric Temple under the eaves of a mud hut. Another instance of this. "Macgillivary's Ground Warbler (male), Audubon"-compare with "Scarlet Grosbeak-Gould." You perceive the position of the Grosbeak, which is that of

stooping in the act of taking wing, is copied from the "Ground Warbler," it being merely reversed. This is the favorite trick.

If you continue to turn the leaves of the second and third vols., you recognise the sprightly and effective posture of the Ground Warbler duplicated on every third or fourth plate, with original position in the drawing-now the most amusing variations from its higher up--now nearer the middle-now close to the ground, with leaf, twig, and flower adjusted ingeniously to conceal the transfer.

out this favorite figure, and patched it inIn a word, he has taken to some score of his plates, where it always looks as if it were ashamed of its company. What is still more diverting

though the Englishman seems to possess a conscience quite sufficiently accommodating, to have permitted an extension of these appropriations to any degree, yet he has been restrained either by the national trait of prudence, or a proper estimate of his own genius, which possibly dared not attempt the more active expressions of Audubon. He has taken three or four of such quietly effective and characteristic postures for pets, as could be most readily slided into his by the contrast. By a sagacious dupligroups, without too much startling cation of these so as barely to avoid the penalties consequent upon a direct infringment of copyright, he has managed to give his last four volumes a partially spirited tone, altogether foreign to the first. There are yet one or two instances of this cunning latrociny which oc cur to us as too rich not be noted. Turn to " Scaup Duck (male and female), Audubon"-you perceive them to be both upon the land but near the water. The female in the foreground, asleep, while the male stands alert beyond her; now refer to "Redheaded Pochard (male and female,) Gould, 5th vol,”—you recognise your first acquaintances the Scaup Ducks at a glance-though, with the usual manœuvre they are turned the other way; and instead of being both on land-which would have been rather too palpable-the female rests on the water, while the male, though at precisely the same relative distance, is made to stand upon the ground. Here the trick is so shallow, that detection can not be for a moment at fault. You see that the Scaup Ducks have been accurately overlined, then lifted up from the

original "grounding" and let down upon a new one, by Gould, who found it safer for his pencil, to adjust earth and water differently beneath them, than to tamper in the slightest degree with the proportions of the figures themselves.

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Again: Audubon's Golden Plover" is standing in a very characteristic position, on one leg, the other gracefully half drawn up. On looking at it, you feel that the bird is at ease, resting naturally. Gould, in his "Bastard Plover," endeavors to appropriate this position, which is very peculiar, but in his awkward fear of detection, he has just altered it enough to destroy the centre of gravity in his picture, and produce the ludicrous effect of a bird in the very act of falling over, as if it were nodding on one leg, with its eyes wide open.

We will not fatigue the reader by a farther extension of these contrasts, though we have abundant materials. No one with a true eye can glance over the two works together, without perceiving on almost every other page of Gould's later vols, the fullest confirmation of our positions. He will perceive, in the spiritless inaptitude, the high but incorrect coloring of the first volume, the heavy mechanical characteristics of Mr. Gould's natural style. On further examination he will realize how impossible it is for dull mediocrity to catch the creative inspiration, even from the contact of association with genius-for instead of grasp ing all that it had accomplished by a healthful appropriation, as the suggestion and basis of still higher efforts of bolder and nobler strugglings up toward the perfect, it has, in the miserable penury of its weakness, pilfered and smuggled what it dared not aim to equal, and then, to cover its meanness, refused any recognition of more than remote and general obligation. This may be in strict conformity with Mr. Gould's, or the English codicil of right, but it is hardly recognized this

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side of the waters. Mr. Gould, whose work scarcely contains a single legitimate and original trait of ornithological character, who, even as a copyist, cannot place his figures right upon either earth or water*-to which he has been necessitated to transfer them-is to be considered as at the head of ornithological science. The " ipse dixit" of Charles Lucian Bonaparte, Prince of Musignano, being received as authority, his" is the most beautiful work that has ever appeared in this or any other country." Pshaw! we shall be rather pitiful than contemptuous towards such misguided persons have hearkened to this voice," not from the wilderness." Shall we remind you that Audubon has elevated illustrative Ornithology from a state little short of a crude and unrecognized position as a feature, along with "Cock Robin," and "Robinson Crusoe" epitomised-of the unmeaning toy-books of children, into the highest rank of Art which has striven truthfully to exhibit nature? Shall we remind you that in addition to having fixed it upon the profound basis of science as an illustrator, he has, as an accurate observer, carried its definition out of sight above predecessors or cotemporaries, into the atmosphere of natural and practical philosophy-elaborating the delineations of sex, age, seasons and climate, into a precision and reality which must constitute the firm ground-work of future investigations?-in a word, that he has created, through Ornithology, the most alluring feature yet presented of that cheerful and broad philosophy which leads " through nature up to nature's God?" If you do not know all this, learn more of Audubon through his own works, and you will recognize it. We must defer to another No. a more familiar and pleasing intercourse with the man as well as naturalist, and with the wild natural scenes, which are the back-ground of his subjects.

It is somewhat curious that his water-fowl are, with scarce an exception, when placed on the surface, at either an incorrect angle with the plane of the horizon, or not characteristically immersed.

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