tion with the thoughtful mysteries of nature, had imparted to him also the reflective wisdom of the sage. Whatever came into his mind he uttered with delightful unreserve and naiveté; but those utterances at the same time bore marks of keen original insight, and of the deepest knowledge. Thus, he knew nothing of the theology of the schools, and cared as little for it, because the untaught theology of the woods had filled his mind with a nobler sense of God than the schoolmen had ever dreamed; he knew, too, nothing of our politics, and cared nothing for them, because to his simple integrity they seemed only frivolous and vain debates about rights that none disputed, and duties that all fulfilled: and his reading, confined, I suspect, mainly to the necessary literature of his profession, was neither extensive nor choice, because he found in his own activity, earnestness and invention, a fountain-head of literature, abundantly able to supply all his intellectual and spiritual wants. The heroism and poetry of his own life gave him no occasion to learn the heroism and poetry of others; yet his apparent neglect of the "humanities" had wrought no hardening or vulgarizing effect upon his nature, for his sympathies were always the most delicate, and his manners soft, gentle and refined.

After years of labor some of his drawings were shown by him to Lawson, who engraved designs for the works of Lucien Bonaparte, Prince of Musignano, but they were rejected by Lawson as quite impossible to be engraved!

Nothing daunted by this repulse, Audubon at length proceeded to England. He relates with the utmost simplicity that on going to Europe, he trod its busy cities more desolate of heart amid their throngs than he had ever been

in the woods, and fancied that no one of all the driving multitudes there would know or care about the unfriended backwoodsman, who came without acquaintances and without introduction, to solicit their hospitality and aid. But what was his surprise and delight to find that at Edinburgh he was generously welcomed by Jeffrey, Wilson, and Sir Walter Scott, while at Paris, Cuvier, St. Hilaire and Humboldt (whom, by the way, he had once casually met in America) were proud to call him friend. The learned societies hastened to greet him with their first academical honors, and he was introduced as a companion and peer among men eminent in all walks of literature and art, whose names are illustrious and venerable in both hemispheres. No painful quarantine of hope deferred, as too often falls to the lot. of genius, was appointed to his share,no protracted poverty withered and cut short his labors. The result was a work on Ornithology, with splendid volumes of paintings, illustrated in the letter-press with animated descriptions and lively incidents of personal adventure. When it was published, it at once established his fame abroad, and though he knew it not, gave him a high reputation at home. But besides the willing and instant applause he received, it should be said that of the one hundred and seventy subscribers to his book, at one thousand dollars each, nearly half came from England and France. This testimony to his merit was as honorable to those who gave it as it was to him who received it, and must have largely compensated him—not for the expense, which we will not mention here-but for the trouble and pain of his almost miraculous exertions.

After a few years he returned to America to enrich his portfolios and journals with materials for other volumes of what he characteristically named his "Ornithological Biography." No term could have been more happily chosen to designate both his paintings and descriptions, for both are actual histories of their objects. A faithful portrait or transcript of the form and plumage of his aërial friends was not all that he desired to accomplish, as if they had no lives of their own and no relations to the rest of nature, and sat for ever, melancholy and alone, like the stock-dove of the poet, brooding over their own sweet notes. He wished to portray them in their actual habitudes and localities, such as he had found them for years in their homes. Knowing how they were reared and mated and made a living, how each one had its individualities of character and custom, how its motions and postures and migrations were as much a part of its history as its structure and hue, and how the food it fed upon, as well as the trees on which it built, were important elements in the knowledge of it, as a fact of creation, he strove to represent each in its most characteristic and striking peculiarities and ways. And by this means he obtained another end, beyond strict fidelity to the truth of things, in that rich variety of accessories, which is essential to picturesque effect.

This was not, however, a success that in any degree intoxicated his mind, for no sooner had he finally returned home, crowned with fame and easy in fortune, than he resumed his arduous tasks. His was not a nature that could be content with reposing upon laurels. On the contrary, an incessant activity was the law of life. If any thing could have tempted

him into the indolence of a comfortable retirement, it was the charm of his happy family, where, surrounded by his accomplished wife and sons, blessed with competence, and enjoying general respect, he could have whiled away the evening of his days in security, peace and affection. But stronger than these to him were the seductions of the fields, and that nameless restless impulse which ever forces men of genius along their peculiar paths. He was soon again immersed in preparations for his perilous journeys, and set out upon them with as much hopefulness and joy as had ever marked his earlier days.

Those who have turned over the leaves of Audubon's large books, or better still, who remember to have seen the collected exhibition he once made in the Lyceum of this city, will recall with grateful feeling the advantages of his method. They will remember how that vast and brilliant collection made it appear to the spectator as if he had been admitted at once to all sylvan secrets, or at least that the gorgeous infinity of the bird-world had been revealed to him in some happy moment of nature's confidence. All the gay denizens of the air were there, some alone on swaying twigs of the birch or maple, or on bending ferns and spires of grass; others in pairs tenderly feeding their young with gaudy or green insects, or in groups pursuing their prey or defending themselves from attack; while others again clove the thin air of the hills or flitted darkly through secluded brakes. All were alive,—all graceful,—all joyous. It was impossible not to feel among them that there was something in birds which brought them nearer to our affection than the rest of the animal tribes; for while these are either indifferent

to us, or inimical, or mere "servile ministers," birds are ever objects of admiration and solicitude. No body loves or even so much as likes insects, or reptiles, or worms; fishes have an unutterably stupid and unsentimental look, and deserve to be caught; wild beasts, though sometimes savagely grand and majestic, are always dreadful, and tame beasts we subjugate and therefore despise; but birds win their way to our hearts and imaginations by a thousand ties. They are lovely in their forms and fascinating in their habits. They have canny knowing eyes, they have wonderfully pretty and brilliant hues, their motions are the perfection of beauty, and they lead free, happy, melodious lives. Their swift and graceful evolutions, now rising like an arrow to the very gate of heaven, and anon outspeeding the wind as it curls the white caps of the ocean, and above all, their far off mysterious flights in the drear autumn, awaken aspiration and thought, and breed a vague mysterious human interest in their destinies, while their songs, profuse, varied, sparkling, sympathetic, glorious, filling the world with melody, are the richest and tenderest of nature's voices. Among the recollections of childhood, those of the birds we have fed and cherished are often the sweetest, and in maturer years the country-home we love, the nooks where we have meditated, or the field in which we have worshipped, are the greener and the dearer for the memory of the birds. Thus they are associated with the most charming features of the external world, and breathe a spell over the interior world of thought. They are the poetry of nature, and at the same time a pervading presence of poetry. Shakspeare, Keats, Shelley, Burns, Bryant and Wordsworth are their laureates, and while language lasts we