1^6 JOHN JAMES AUDUBON. 



and worthy of a pupil of David. Mr. Lawson, the engraver of Wilson's 

 plates, said the drawings were too soft, and objected to engrave them. 

 Another engraver, Mr. Fairman, strongly advised him to go to England. 

 Mr. Murtric, the conchologist, gave the same counsel; and all strengthened 

 him in his resolution to go to Europe with his treasures, assuring him that 

 nothing so fine in the way of ornithological representations existed. He 

 kept working away at oils under Sully's instruction, " who gave me," to 

 quote his own words, "all the possible encouragement which his affectionate 

 heart could dictate." He mentions the disinterested generosity of Mr. 

 Edward Harris, who at parting squeezed a hundred-dollar bill into his hand, 

 a gift returned by Audubon insisting on his friend receiving the drawings of 

 all his French birds. He paid a flying visit to Mill Grove, the old home 

 where his father had resided, and where he himself had been married, and 

 then fortified with letters from Mr. Sully to Gilbert Stuart, Washington 

 Alston, and Colonel Trumbull, left for New York, " free of debt, and free 

 from anxiety about the future." In New York he made inquiries about the 

 publication of his drawings, but the project met with no favor. " I feel 

 depressed," he writes. " I fear I shall die unknown. I am strange to all but 

 the birds of America." Money was all this time scarce ; so scarce that 

 he could not visit Boston. He went to Niagara, however. "What a 

 scene!" he exclaims. "My blood shudders still at the grandeur of the 

 Creator's power." At Buffalo he met the chief Red Jacket, a noble-looking 

 man, and ate a good dinner for twelve cents. " Went to bed thinking of 

 Franklin eating his roll in the streets of Philadelphia, of Goldsmith travel- 

 ling by the help of his musical powers, and fell asleep, hoping by persevering 

 industry to make a name for myself among my countrymen." He ne.xt 

 spent a month at Pittsburgh, scouring the country for birds, and finally 

 reached Cincinnati again. He took a deck passage to Louisville, so low 

 were his finances, and slept on some shavings, yet on the page recording 

 this, he continues : " The spirit of contentment I now feel borders on the 

 sublime. Enthusiast or lunatic, as some of my relatives will have me, I am 

 glad to possess it." Audubon's temperament did not, indeed, attract any 

 but artists like himself. " My friends think only of my apparel," he tells us. 

 " and those upon whom I have conferred kindnesses prefer to remind me of 

 my errors." Disgusted with such friends, he once more sought Bayou Sara, 

 where his wife was still engaged. She was receiving what he describes as a 

 large income, three thousand dollars a year, which she offered him to help 

 forward the publication of his drawings. Numerous pupils desired lessons 

 from him ; a special invitation to teach dancing was received, and a class of 



