MEMOIR OF JOHN JAMES AUDUBON. 199* 
bon was distinguished. In fact,as a draughtsman of the feathered 
tribes he never had an equal; for his works in this department breathe 
all the freshness, character, and vigourof Nature. His own account 
of his first attempts and his progress in this way is interesting. 
Desirous to possess every one of the feathered creation, together 
with her other productions, but desiring life with them, he turned to 
his father and made known to him this anxiety, His father brought 
forward a book of illustrations ; and although what the young natural- 
ist saw was not what he longed for, it infused into him a new life and 
hope ; it suggested and created the ambition to copy Nature. To 
Nature accordingly he went, and he strove to imitate her, as in the 
days of his childhood he had at first tried to raise himself from the 
ground and stand erect, before he possessed the strength necessary for 
the success of such an undertaking. Nothing but disappointments 
attended the efforts of his pencil for many years. His productions 
Were even worse than those which he regarded as imperfect in the 
book given him by his father. He gave birth, to use his own words, 
to a family of cripples. So :naimed were most of the figures, that they re- 
sembled the mangled bodies on a field of battle, compared with the in- 
tegrity of living men, But still, such was the ardour and firmness of 
his ingenuous spirit, that though irritated by disappointments and the 
difficulties attending his efforts, he never four a moment relinquished 
the desire of obtaining perfect representations of nature. The worse 
his drawings were, the more beautiful did the originals appear to him, 
and the more passionate his ambition to accomplish his object. His 
time was entirely occupied in this way; hundreds of rude sketches 
were annually produced by him, and for a long time, they made bon- 
fires on the anniversaries of his birth-day. 
Audubon’s conduct throughout his noviciate, so to express his 
early progress as an ornithologist, and an artist, is worthy of univer- 
sal imitation, He never desponded amid difficulties, but received 
new impulses from every obstacle with which he was beset: and if 
any reflecting and enlightened person at that period watched narrow- 
ly his proceedings and feelings, it is impossible that they should not 
have predicted most favourably of his future career. He pussessed 
all the genius and all the qualifications for a first-rate explorer of the 
treasures and beauties of creation, and fur expatiating upon these, to 
the delight and improvement of mankind. We cannot suppose that 
his father was not such such a considerate spectator, but we shall soon 
see that there were not many of his friends that possessed an encou- 
raging taste or judgment on the subject. 
Patiently, and with great industry, did the young crnithologist ap- 
ply himself to his pencil. Many plans were successfully adopted to 
forward his efforts; many masters guided his hand. At the age of 
seventeen, he returned from France, whither he had gone to receive 
the rudiments of his education, and by this time his drawings had 
assumed a form which, we may presume, though modestly alluded to 
by himseif, approached near to perfection, when we learn that David, 
the most celebrated historical painter of his day in France, had guided 
his hand. The skill which the youth had acquired in drawing the 
* eyes and noses belonging to giants, and heads of horses represented 
in ancient sculpture,” as he describes the models which David gave 
