Audubon's Birds of America. 452 



Literary Gazette i neither did its prospectus swell the bulk 

 of the Quarterly. A short notice of the first number in, 

 a scientific journal * excited no particular interest in my: 

 mind; and, but for other circumstances, it is probable I 

 should have known as little about it, as the public seem to 

 do at this moment. 



Nevertheless, I had heard enough of the author, to excite 

 the greatest interest in his history. M. Audubon, if I have 

 been rightly informed, is a citizen of America, descended from: 

 French parents. Devotedly attached to the study of nature, 

 no less than to painting, he seems to have pursued both with 

 a genius and an ardour, of which, in their united effects, there is 

 no parallel. His two ornithological narratives, printed in one 

 of the Scotch journals, are as valuable to the scientific world as 

 they are delightful to the general reader; they give us a rich' 

 foretaste of what we may hope and expect from such a man. 

 There is a freshness and an originality about these essays, which 

 can only be compared to the animated biographies of Wilson. 

 Both these men contemplated Nature as she really is, not as 

 she is represented in books : they sought her in her sanctua- 

 ries. The shore, the mountain, and the forest were alternately 

 their study, and there they drank the pure stream of know- 

 ledge at its fountain-head. The observations of such men are 

 the corner stones of every attempt to discover the natural 

 system. Their writings will be consulted when our favourite 

 theories shall have passed into oblivion. Ardently, therefore, 

 do I hope, that M. Audubon will alternately become the 

 historian and the painter of his favourite objects ; that he will 

 never be made a convert to any system, but instruct and delight 

 us as a true and unprejudiced biographer of Nature. 



I am now to speak of M. Audubon more particularly as a 

 painter. I shall, therefore, view the work before me as a 

 specimen of the fine arts, and judge it by those rules which 

 constitute pictorial criticism. The size of the plates, exceeds 

 any thing of the kind I have either seen or heard of; they 

 are no less than 3 ft. 3 in. long, by 2 ft. 2 in. broad ! On this 

 vast surface every bird is represented in its full dimensions. 

 Large as is the paper, it is sometimes (as in the male wild 

 turkey, pi. I.) barely sufficient for the purpose. In other cases 

 it enables the painter to group his figures, in the most beauti- 

 ful and varied attitudes, on the trees or plants they frequent. 

 Some are feeding, others darting, pursuing, or capturing their 

 prey; all have life and animation. The plants, fruit, and 

 flowers which enrich the scene, are alone still. These latter, 



* Zoological Journal, No. xi. p. 469. 



