AUDUBON AND WILSON. 121 



the heavens with a whiter and swifter cloud than any hoisted 

 by the combined fleets in the sky. And now, with canvas 

 unrent, and masts unsprung, returned to the very buoy she 

 left. Somewhat faded, indeed, in her apparelling — but her 

 hull sound as ever — nor a speck of dry rot in her timbers — 

 her keel unscathed by rock — her cut-water yet sharp as new- 

 whetted scythe ere the mower renews his toil — her figure- 

 head, that had so often looked out for squalls, now " patient 

 as the brooding dove" — and her bowsprit — but let us man 

 the main-brace ; nor is there purer spirit — my trusty frere — 

 in the Old World or the New. 



It was quite a Noctes. Audubon told us — by snatches — 

 all his travels, history, with many an anecdote interspersed 

 of the dwellers among the woods — bird, beast and man. 



All this and more he told us, with a cheerful voice and 

 animated eyes, while the dusky hours were noiselessly wheel- 

 ing the chariot of Night along the star-losing sky ; and we 

 too had something to tell him of our own home-loving obscu- 

 rity, not ungladdened by studies sweet in the Forest — till 

 Dawn yoked her dappled coursers for one single slow stage 

 — and then jocund Morn leaping up on the box, took the 

 ribbons in her rosy fingers, and, after a dram of dew, blew 

 her bugle, and drove like blazes right on towards the gates 

 of Day. 



His great work, says Professor Wilson, elsewhere, was indeed 

 a perilous undertaking for a stranger in Britain, without the 

 patronage of powerful friends, and with no very great means 

 of his own — all of which he embarked in the enterprise dearest 

 to his heart. Had it failed, Audubon would have been a 

 ruined man — and that fear must have sometimes dismally 

 disturbed him, for he is not alone in life, and is a man of 

 strong family afi"ections. But happily those nearest his 

 breast are as enthusiastic in the love of natural science as 

 himself — and were all willing to sink or swim with the be- 

 loved husband and venerated father. America may well be 



