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 elegant 
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 
etill air of musings, till we grow devout with thinking how 
