92 



INTRODUCTION. 



Besides furnishing the whole of the letter-press for his 

 work, and the drawings for the plates, the plates themselves 

 were almost wholly coloured by him, or under his imme- 

 diate superintendance. A work of more accuracy in Natu* 

 ral History does not, perhaps, exist. America has reason 

 to be proud of having been the foster-mother to Alexander 

 Wilson. The number of birds described by him is 278. 



He was scrupulously just, social, affectionate, benevo- 

 lent, and temperate ; but of the genus irritabile, extremely 

 pertinacious of his own opinion, and did not like to be told 

 of his mistakes, — a weakness, for weakness it most cer- 

 tainly was, greatly to be deplored. His death deprived the 

 world, most probably, of another work which he con- 

 templated, namely, one on American Quadrupeds. He had 

 a poetical mind, as the extracts from his work in the sub- 

 sequent notes will shew, — but he wanted taste, to give that 

 polish to his lines which most who read them will perceive 

 they occasionally require. His description of the Bald 

 Eagle in Note 1, Parti, is, however, a masterpiece; it 

 may be pronounced nearly a faultless picture. 



It is said that upon some occasion the lale President of 

 the United States, Jefferson, treated Wilson with con- 

 tempt. This it is extremely painful to hear; but it too 

 often unfortunately happens that the worth of the living is 

 unknown ; we stand in need of death to set the seal to our 

 pretensions and our merit. Surely Jefferson could never 

 neglect the truly meritorious and worthy, if he believed 

 him to be so ! 



In concluding this notice of Andrew Wilson, and his 

 American Ornithology, it would be unpardonable here to 

 omit the notice of a work, in some respects similar, on our 

 British Birds, now in course of publication by Mr. Selby ; 

 a work, the plates of which are on elephant folio, and co- 



