RETURN TO AMERICA. 4 
mduced him to appreciate these strange produc 
tions of antique taste. Such exercises were im: 
mediately laid aside. By living, breathing 
nature only was he arrested. To him she was 
manifested in all her wisdom, and he was thus 
furnished with a thousand infallible sources of 
enlightenment. Creation he could unweariedly 
study, and from perpetual contemplation ac 
quired a skillin his delineations which at length 
brought him success beyond his most sanguine 
expectations. : 
With fresh energy and delight he returned 
from France to the glorious woods of the New 
World. Inspired by their atmosphere, he com- 
menced again the studies of his early youth, 
even with more enthusiasm than before his so 
journ in France; which enabled him to complete 
that marvellous collection of drawings perpetu- 
ated in the “Birds of America.” This work is 
one of unequalled magnificence, and in the tints 
‘of its gorgeous illustrations, as in illuminated 
characters, the fame of its author remains in. 
scribed. From this period his exertions were 
unremittingly continued. Difficulty, toil, priva- 
tion, and even danger, often attended his re- 
searches, pursued as they were throughout the 
entire extent of the American territory. Rude 
swamps, dreary solitudes, wild barren regions— 
these were of necessity the resorts of the natu 
