198 
Coues': “Behind the Veil.” 
with the published engravings. It has always been supposed, and 
apparently vouched for by Wilson’s own declarations, that the ex- 
cellence of his plates was largely due to the skill and care of his 
engraver. This is not so. Without wishing to detract in the least 
from Mr. Lawson’s merit and well-earned fame, I should say Wilson 
might thank him for nothing remarkable. The plates, in some cases, 
are u loud ” and garish in comparison with the delicacy of tone and 
excellence of perspective that the originals show. This is specially 
notable in the cases of one or two of the plates that represent 
scenery and grouping, as those of the Ducks. The poor fellow was 
probably only too glad to get his pictures engraved at all ; and 
much of his praise of the result is rather the joy and gratitude of a 
troubled soul attaining in some sort its aim, than criticism by the 
canons of art. Of the crowding of his figures it is unnecessary to 
speak, after w 7 hat has been said. He might have used the language 
of the starved apothecary in Borneo and Juliet : “My poverty, but 
not my will, consents.” One other thing came forcibly to my mind 
as I turned these sheets of paper nervously. Very few of them — 
I remember but one — are dated or signed, or bear MS. witness of 
what they are. This man, of eager, restless, half-desponding, half- 
exulting ambition as he was, seemed to have felt some shrinking in 
modesty from affixing his name to his pictures. It indicates a trait 
as characteristic as is the opposite in the case of his brilliant and 
forward successor, the splendid Audubon. The exception above al- 
luded to is a finished painting of the Cedar Bird (not the one pub- 
lished), said to be i the first completed picture Wilson ever made, and 
designed as a present to a friend. This is carefully finished, and duly 
inscribed. 
One of Wilson’s pictures is the slightest possible sketch, in pencil, 
of his school-house. It is that of which Mr. Wade has spoken in 
“The Oologist,” August, 1880, p. 43. It is different from the one 
here presented, the two having been taken at considerable intervals, 
as shown by the trees, as well as by the alteration in the basement ; 
in one view there is a stone landing, in the other a wooden porch. 
Another picture, also mentioned by Mr. Wade (1. c.), is a “ star- 
ing” painting of the “Sorrel Horse Inn.” Both of these should be 
engraved and published, as I presume will be done. 
One other little scrap of gossip, and we must pass to another port- 
folio. In one of his letters, Wilson bewails the trouble he had in 
drawing Owls’ heads satisfactorily ; and from the backs and corners 
