116 WILD SCENES AND WILD HUNTERS. 
God has made the roughest places of our earth so populous 
with lovely things that can surprise us into joy. 
But without rhapsodizing. Wilson’s claim to originality, 
in having first conceived the magnificent design of illustrating 
the Birds of America, and led the van of Practical Science in 
its relations to Ornithology, is certainly a most imposing eno, 
and one with which no after exertions of mere talent, however 
tireless, devoted, and successful it might be, could by any 
possibility compete. But genius can do what talent cannot. 
It is above all rules and “saws,” and scorns the measure of 
an aphorism. 
“« When the power falls into the mighty hands 
Of Nature—the spirit, giant-born, 
Who listens only to himself ——” 
such things are effected, as an age of the leaden attainments 
of studied acquisition cannot accomplish. 
Audubon, in the unique and striking originality of his 
drawings, and the whole treatment of his themes, has so far 
outstripped, in a bold freedom of design and execution, any 
thing of Wilson’s which may be denominated suggestive even, 
as to leave scarcely any room for comparison in this last 
issue. If Wilson was original, our Ornithologist is infinitely 
more so. 
Wilson has all the advantages in such a contrast. “He 
was first in the field,” and with the world—that said, all is 
said. Whatever has been done since must be footed on to 
his account with fame, at least to the point of careful balance 
with that of any one who has chanced to come after him. 
This is not strictly just. 
We admit cheerfully all that is righteously due to the 
Paisley adventurer. But we cannot perceive why—when the 
fact that he is not entitled to it, is clear as a sunburst to any 
observer—he should be thrust, rather than elevated into an 
equal rank with Audubon. It has been too much the way of 
