100 love's meinie. 



within the last seventy or eighty years. Far 

 beyond rivalship among them, stands Le Vail- 

 lant's monograph, or dualgraph, on the Birds 

 of Paradise, and Jays : its plates, exquisitely 

 engraved, and coloured with unwearying care 

 by hand, are insuperable in plume-texture, 

 hue, and action, — spoiled in effect, unhappily, 

 by the vulgar boughs for sustentation. Next, 

 ranks the recently issued history of the birds 

 of Lombardy ; the lithographs by Herr Oscar 

 Dressier, superb, but the colouring (chromo- 

 lithotint) poor : and then, the self-taught, but 

 in some qualities greatly to be respected, art 

 of Mr. Gould. Of which, I would fain have 

 spoken with gratitude and admiration in his 

 lifetime; had not I known, that the qualified 

 expressions necessary for true estimate of his 

 published plates, would have caused him more 

 pain, than any general praise could have coun- 

 teracted or soothed. Without special criticism, 

 and rejoicing in all the pleasure which any 

 of my young pupils may take in his drawing, 

 — only guarding them, once for all, against 

 the error of supposing it exemplary as art, — 

 I use his plates henceforward for general 

 reference; finding also that, following Mr. 



