AUDUBON AND WILSON. 115 



spirit — since the mild and loving geniality of childhood breathes 

 through every line. 



First, moreover, by the reason that, while the drawings of 

 Wilson are advanced upon all that had yet been accomplished, 

 are free and accurate in outline, and sometimes even eleo;ant 

 in finish, yet those of Audubon are superior to them beyond 

 all measure of comparison. 



And here is the clear ground of distinction on which the 

 more powerful genius steps forth in the proper garb of its 

 own striking and unmistakeable individuality, and appeals to 

 the eye at once for a recognition of its creations, as alone 

 original and apart from all others. Audubon's drawings are 

 quite as singular and unapproached as any one of the phe- 

 nomena of art by which we mark the ages. 



Wilson's pencil has been content with a mere portraiture, 

 correct, indeed, of proportion, and a color barely suggestive ; 

 but the pencil of the necromancer has not only caught the 

 play of sunlight, shivered gorgeous in metallic hues from each 

 particular fibre of their plumes, (in a word, created the true 

 style of coloring,) but has stilled these arrowy cleavers of the 

 elements amidst their own clouds, upon the very waves on 

 which they loved "to sit and swing," by "the beached 

 verge," on the precipitous perch, or twig and leaf and berry 

 of the boughs that were their homes — stilled them, too, in all 

 the character of passionate life — their loves, battles, chases, 

 gambols, thefts — the grotesquery and grace, every mode and 

 mood of their being amidst their native scenes. 



Each plate is a full-length family portrait, with all the 

 accessories historical. They are perfect in themselves, and 

 tell the whole story more clearly than words could do. Taken 

 apart, they are chapters in the "Illuminated Bible" of nature 

 — and very pleasant is the creed they teach, full of merry 

 thoughts that make the heart go lightly ; and plumy shapes, 

 of strange, undreamed-of beauty, come and go through the 

 still air of musings, till we grow devout with thinking how 



