JOHN JAMES AUDUBON. ^5 



which the bird is represented, presents several evidences of an 

 increase of the power to paint such objects." 



When about seventeen or eighteen years old, young Audu- 

 bon returned to the United States. Since he had no inclina- 

 tion to the art of war, for which he had been intended, his 

 father, willing to gratify his now decided tastes, settled him 

 upon a farm, Mill Grove, which he owned near Philadel- 

 phia, at the mouth of Perkiomen Creek. Here he had full 

 opportunity for the gratification of his huntsman's and nat- 

 uralist's inclination, and improved it so industriously that 

 he appeared to be good for little else. Desiring to form 

 a matrimonial engagement with Lucy Bakewell, he was ad- 

 vised by the father of the young lady to go into business, 

 and he accordingly entered the employment of a firm in New 

 York ; but even here it was the study of Nature and not trade 

 that engaged his attention. " For a period of twenty years," 

 he confesses in the biographical preface to his Birds, " my life 

 was a series of vicissitudes. I tried various branches of com- 

 merce, but they all proved unprofitable, doubtless because my 

 whole mind was ever filled with my passion for rambling and 

 admiring those objects of Nature from which alone I received 

 the purest gratification." It is in connection with the relation 

 of the story of a hurricane, while he was living at Henderson, 

 Ky., years after his Philadelphia experiences, that he says that, 

 just before the breaking out of the awful storm, his thoughts 

 were, " for once, at least, in the course of my life, entirely en- 

 gaged in commercial speculations." He soon gave up his 

 New York engagement, and shortly afterward formed a part- 

 nership with Ferdinand Rosier to go into trade at Louisville, 

 Kentucky. His settlement at this place having been deter- 

 mined upon, he was married to Miss Bakewell in April, 1808. 

 This lady was a descendant of the Peverils of the Peak, one 

 of whom has given name to one of Sir Walter Scott's novels, 

 and was a relative of the famous British geologist Bakewell. 

 She proved a congenial wife to the naturalist, and gave him 

 valuable aid while he had his great work under way, by helping 

 him to pay the expenses of his enterprise out of the fruits of 

 her own industry. The farm at Mill Grove was sold, a stock 

 of goods was purchased with the proceeds, and Audubon re- 

 moved with his wife to Louisville, making the journey down 

 the Ohio River in a flatboat, with two rowers. At Louisville, 



