I 



LIFE OF WILSON. cxix 



" no question can be more innocently discussed than a dead poet's pretensions 

 to renown ; and little regard is due to that bigotry which sets candor higher 

 than truth."* 



When Wilson commenced the publication of his History of the Birds of the 

 United States, he was quite a novice in the study of the Science of Ornithology. 

 This arose from two causes : his poverty, which prevented him from owning 

 the works of tho.se authors, who had particularly attended to the classification 

 and nomenclature of birds ; and his contempt of the labors of closet naturalists, 

 whose dry descriptions convey anything but pleasure to that mind, which has 

 been disciplined in the school of Nature. But the diiEculties under which he 

 labored soon convinced him of the necessity of those helps, which only books 

 can supply; and his repugnance to systems, as repulsive as they are at the first 

 view, gradually gave place to more enlarged notions, on the course to be pursued 

 by him, who would not only attain to knowledge, by the readiest means, but 

 who would impart that knowledge, in the most effective manner, to others. 



As far as I can learn, he had access but to two systems of Ornithology — that 

 of Linnaeus, as translated by Dr. Turton, and the " General Synopsis" of Dr. 

 Lathani.-|- The arrangement of the latter he adopted in his '■ General Index" 

 of Land Birds, appended to the sixth volume ; and he intended to pui"sue the 

 same system for the Water Birds, at the conclusion of his work. 



The nature of his plan prevented him from proceeding in regular order, 

 according to the system adopted, it being his intention to publish as fast as the 

 materials accumulated ; and he being in some measure compelled, by motives 

 of economy, to apportion his figures to the space they would occupy in the 

 plates, he thereby brings to our view, birds not only of different genera, but 

 of different habits, associated in a manner not wholly unnatural, but abhorrent 

 from the views of those systematists, who account every deviation from method 

 an inexcusable fault. 



With the art of perspective, it would appear, he was imperfectly acquainted ; 

 hence there are errors in his drawings, which the rigid critic cannot overlook. 

 These errors occur most ft-equently in the feet and the tails of his birds, the 

 latter of which, with the view of being characteristically displayed, are fre- 

 quent distorted in a manner, which no expediency can justify. One can hardly 

 forbear smiling at the want of correspondence between the figure of the Sharp- 

 shinned Hawk, and the fence upon which it is mounted, the former, instead 

 of appearing of the size of nature, for which the author intended it, absolutely 

 assuming the bulk of an elephant. 



But notwithstanding these defects, there is a spirit in some of his drawings 

 which is admirable. Having been taught drawing from natural models, he of 

 course became familiar with natural attitudes: hence his superiority, in this 



* Johnson's Preface to Shakspeare. 



t The library of Wilson occupied bat a small space. On casting my eyes, after his 

 decease, over the ten or a dozen volumes of which it was composed, I was grieved to find 

 that he had been the owner of only one work on Ornithology, and that was Bewick's 

 British Birds. For the use of the first volume of Turton's Linnteus, ho was indebted to 

 the friendship of Mr. Thomas Say ; the Philadelphia Library supplied him with Latham. 



