140 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 



We do not believe that till within these few years, he had 

 any practice in composition. . . . Yet Genius, if from circum- 

 stances behindhand in any common accomplishment, soon sup- 

 plies it — soon makes up its lee-way — or rather, it has only to 

 try to do what it has never done before, and it succeeds in it 

 to admiration. Audubon, who had written but little even in 

 his native tongue — French — under a powerful motive, took to 

 writing English; and he was not long in learning to write it 

 well, not only with fluency, but eloquence, as the fine extracts 

 we have quoted show in unfading colours. 



The following comment on Audubon's second vol- 

 ume of the Biography appeared in the Athenaeum for 

 1835: 



If only considered as evidence that it is in the power of man 

 to achieve whatever he wills, and that no obstacles are too great 

 to be overcome by energy and devotion of purpose, it would 

 claim our good will and best wishes. 



He has told what he has seen and undergone, not perhaps 

 in the smooth nicely balanced periods of a drawing-room writer 

 . . . but with unstudied freedom, rising at times to eloquence, 

 nor been ashamed to utter the thousand affectionate and benevo- 

 lent feelings which a close and enthusiastic communion with 

 nature must nourish. The work is full of the man. 



The winter and spring of 1835 were spent in Lon- 

 don, and though suffering from the strain of overwork, 

 Audubon kept doggedly at his tasks. On April 20 he 

 wrote to Bachman: 



Immediately on my arrival in London I set to writing, and 

 finished in one month, one 4 th. of the Biographies of my 3 d. 

 vol. This rendering me puffy, I could scarcely breathe — my 

 appetite was gone — my digestion bad — in other words I was 

 attacked by Dyspepsia as bad as ever. Then I thought of a 

 change of work — for in change of labour the body and the mind 



