198 COUES; "Behind the Veil." 



with the pubhshed engravings. It has always been supposed, and 

 ai^parently vouched for by Wilson's own declarations, that the ex- 

 cellence of his plates was largely due to the skill and care of his 

 engraver. This is not so. Without wishing to detract in the least 

 from Mr. Lawson's merit and well-earned fame, I should say Wilson 

 might thank him for nothing remarkable. The plates, in some cases, 

 are " loud " and garish in comparison with the delicacy of tone and 

 excellence of perspective that the originals show. This is specially 

 notable in the cases of one or two of the plates that represent 

 scenery and grouping, as those of the Ducks. The poor fellow was 

 probably only too glad to get his pictures engraved at all ; and 

 much of his praise of the result is rather the joy and gratitude of a 

 troubled soul attaining in some sort its aim, than criticism by the 

 canons of art. Of the crowding of his figures it is unnecessary to 

 speak, after what has been said. He might have used the language 

 of the starved apothecary in Romeo and Juliet : " My poverty, but 

 not my will, consents." One other thing came forcibly to my mind 

 as I turned these sheets of paper nervously. Very few of them — 

 I remember but one — ai'e dated or signed, or bear MS. witness of 

 what they are. This man, of eager, restless, half-desponding, half- 

 exulting ambition as he was, seemed to have felt some shrinking in 

 modesty from affixing his name to his pictures. It indicates a trait 

 as characteristic as is the opposite in the case of his brilliant and 

 forward successor, the splendid Audubon. The exception above al- 

 luded to is a finished painting of the Cedar Bird (not the one pub- 

 lished), said to be the first completed picture Wilson ever made, and 

 designed as a present to a friend. This is carefully finished, and duly 

 inscribed. 



One of Wilson's pictures is the slightest possible sketch, in pencil, 

 of his school-house. It is that of which Mr. Wade has spoken in 

 "The Oologist," August, 1880, p. 43. It is different from the one 

 here presented, the two having been taken at considerable intervals, 

 as shown by the trees, as well as by the alteration in the basement ; 

 in one view there is a stone lauding, in the other a wooden porch. 

 Another picture, also mentioned by Mr. Wade (1. c), is a " star- 

 ing" painting of the "Sorrel Horse Inn." Both of these should be 

 engraved and published, as I presume will be done. 



One other little scrap of gossip, and we must pass to another port- 

 folio. In one of his letters, Wilson bewails the trouble he had in 

 drawing Owls' heads satisfactorily ; and from the backs and corners 



