The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851

Sketched By Lord Holland.[8 - Foreign Reminiscences. By Henry Richard Lord Holland. Edited by his Son, Henry Edward Lord Holland. Longman and Co., London. New-York: Harpers.]

Lord Holland, says the Examiner, has been induced by "the recent events on the Continent" to publish what his father had written on foreign politics. "If not wholly impartial," the present Lord Holland remarks of his father, "he is acknowledged by all who knew him to have been as candid as he was benevolent." He might have said more than this—indeed far more than it might have been quite becoming in a son to say. The late Lord Holland was a noble example of the highest and best traits of the English character. Throughout his public life he was the champion of all just causes; the friend of all who fairly sought redress; the fearless advocate of liberty, religious and civil, in days disastrous to both; a statesman of singular courage and consistency, a most accomplished gentleman and scholar. He had learning without pedantry, and wit without ill-nature. His sweetness of temper and fascinating grace of manner had been commemorated by many distinguished men who had felt their winning potency and charm. But above all he had a store of observation and anecdote of the richest kind, and a power of applying it with surprising felicity to whatever subject might be under discussion. This book is a delightful surviving proof of that quality in his character. Its anecdotes are told with a charming ease and fulness of knowledge. No one so quickly as Lord Holland detected the notable points, whether of a book or a man, or turned them to such happy account. We do not read a page of this volume without feeling that a supreme master of that exquisite art is speaking to us. It comprises recollections of the scenes and actors in the stirring drama which was played out on the Continent between 1791 and 1815. It opens with the death of Mirabeau and closes with the death of Napoleon. France, Denmark, Prussia, and Spain are the countries principally treated of. Lord Holland's first visit to France was in 1791, just after the death of Mirabeau and the disastrous flight to Varennes. Lafayette seems to have been more disposed than any other public actor in the revolution to put faith in the king even after that incident, and his confidence won over the young English traveller. But the weakness as well as strength of Lafayette is well hit off.

"Lafayette was, however, then as always, a pure disinterested man, full of private affection and public virtue, and not devoid of such talents as firmness of purpose, sense of honor, and earnestness of zeal will, on great occasions, supply. He was indeed accessible to flattery, somewhat too credulous, and apt to mistake the forms, or, if I may so phrase it, the pedantry of liberty for the substance, as if men could not enjoy any freedom without subscribing to certain abstract principles and arbitrary tests, or as if the profession and subscription, nay, the technical observance of such tests and principles, were not, on the other hand, often compatible with practical oppression and tyranny."

Marie Antoinette is treated almost as badly as by Mr. Geffeson, who thought her a devil, far less tenderly than we should have expected. Her "amours" are spoken of, though with the limitation that "they were not numerous, scandalous, or degrading." We gather that Talleyrand believed her to have been guilty in a special instance named, and that Madame Champan had confessed it to him. At the same time her person is not very flatteringly described.

"As I was not presented at Court, I never saw the Queen but at the play-house. She was then in affliction, and her countenance was, no doubt, disfigured by long suffering and resentment. I should not, however, suppose that the habitual expression of it, even in happier seasons, had ever been very agreeable. Her beauty, however extolled, consisted, I suspect, exclusively in a fair skin, a straight person, and a stately air, which her admirers termed dignity, and her enemies pride and disdain. Her total want of judgment and temper no doubt contributed to the disasters of the Royal Family, but there was no member of it to whom the public was uniformly so harsh and unjust, and her trial and death were among the most revolting parts of the whole catastrophe. She was indeed insensible when led to the scaffold; but the previous persecution which she underwent was base, unmanly, cruel, and ungenerous to the last degree."

On the other hand, a better case is made out for Egalité than any writer has yet been bold enough, or informed enough, to attempt. His false position with the Court is shown not to have been of his own seeking, and to have ultimately driven him reluctantly into the ranks of the extreme party. His courage is vindicated successfully, his sincerity and truthfulness less so. Lord Holland retained his regard for the Orleans family to the close of his life. He was one of the warmest defenders of the late King of the French. There are some capital notices of Tallyrand.

"It was in this visit to Paris in 1791, that I first formed acquaintance with M. Talleyrand. I have seen him in most of his vicissitudes of fortune; from his conversation I have derived much of the little knowledge I possess of the leading characters in France before and during the Revolution. He was then still a bishop. He had, I believe, been originally forced into holy orders, in consequence of his lameness, by his family, who, on that account, treated him with an indifference and unkindness shameful and shocking. He was for some time aumonier to his uncle, the Archbishop of Rheims; and when Mr. Pitt went to that town to learn French, after the peace of 1782, he lodged him in an apartment in the abbey of St. Thierry, where he was then residing with his uncle, and constantly accompanied him for six weeks, a circumstance to which, as I have heard M. Talleyrand remark with some asperity, Mr. Pitt never had the grace to allude either during his embassy, or his emigration, or in 1794, when he refused to recall the cruel order by which he was sent away from England under the alien bill. Talleyrand was initiated into public affairs under M. de Calonne, and learnt from that lively minister the happy facility of transacting business without effort and without ceremony in the corner of a drawing-room, or in the recess of a window."

Again—of Talleyrand's bon-mots. The bit at Chateaubriand is one of the happiest we can remember.

"'Il faut avoir aimé Mme. de Staël pour connaitre tout le bonheur d'aimer une bête,' was a saying of his much quoted at Paris at that time, in explanation of his passion for Mme. Grand, who certainly did not win him or any one else by the fascination of her wit or conversation. For thirty or forty years, the bon-mots of M. de Talleyrand were more frequently repeated and more generally admired than those of any living man. The reason was obvious. Few men uttered so many, and yet fewer any equally good. By a happy combination of neatness in language and ease and suavity of manner, with archness and sagacity of thought, his sarcasms assumed a garb at once so courtly and so careless, that they often diverted almost as much as they could mortify even their immediate objects. His humorous reproof to a gentleman vaunting with self-complacency the extreme beauty of his mother, and apparently implying that it might account for advantages in person in her descendants, is well known: 'Cétait donc,' said he, 'Monsieur votre père qui n'était pas si bien.' The following is more recent, but the humor of it hardly less arch or less refined. The celebrity of M. de Chateaubriand, the vainest of mortals, was on the wane. About the same time, it happened to be casually mentioned in conversation that Chateaubriand was affected with deafness, and complained bitterly of that infirmity. 'Je compends,' said Talleyrand; 'dequis qu'on a cessé de parler de lui, il se croit sourd.'"

We find a long portrait gallery of ministers, and princes, and princesses, one more imbecile, ignorant, and corrupt than another. One minister did not know the difference between Russia and Prussia; another always wrote Asiatic for Henseatic, and thought his correction necessary. Much light is thrown on the first quarrel between Ferdinand and his father; and the narrow escape of the Duke of Infantado is well told. Godoy, like all who had the honor of Lord Holland's acquaintance, was in some degree a favorite of his, his good qualities being brought out to neutralize his many bad ones. Jovellanos and Arguelles appear the only honest characters in the midst of such a mass of vice, and even they were pedantic, impracticable, and prejudiced. No history, narrative, or memoir can be so disgusting as those of Spain and its court under the dominion of the House of Bourbon. The imagination of no novelist has ever attained that acmè of duplicity, cruelty, villany, and cowardice, which made up the character of Ferdinand. The general opinion of Prince Metternich, since he has become familiar to London circles, has been rather to diminish former opinion of his superior wisdom. Lord Holland's early opinion of the prince is thus recorded:

"He seems hardly qualified by any superior genius to assume the ascendency in the councils of his own and neighboring nations, which common rumor has for some years attributed to him. He appeared to me, in the short intercourse I had with him, little superior to the common run of continental politicians and courtiers, and clearly inferior to the Emperor of Russia in those qualities which secure an influence in great affairs. Some who admit the degrading but too prevalent opinion that a disregard to truth is useful and necessary in the government of mankind, have on that score maintained the contrary proposition. His manners are reckoned insinuating. In my slight acquaintance with him in London I was not struck with them; they seemed such as might have been expected from a German who had studied French vivacity in the fashionable novels of the day. I saw little of a sagacious and observant statesman, or of a courtier accustomed to very refined and enlightened society."

But the statesman who sustained Austria and procured for it the alliance of France was not Metternich. Napoleon is known to have long wavered as to whether he would build his European system on a close alliance with Prussia or with Austria. Bignon we believe it is that gives the reasons in the imperial mind for and against. Prussia was the preferable ally, being a new country, untrammelled by aristocratic ideas, ambitious, military, and eager for domination. But Napoleon had humiliated Prussia too deeply to be forgiven. And then Napoleon had in those around him politicians who revered Austria for its antiquity and prestige, and who, like Lord Aberdeen, made the Cæsar of Vienna the pivot on which their ideas of policy turned. Talleyrand was one of them. He worshipped Austria, opposed all his master's plans for crushing her, and even dared to thwart those plans by revealing them to Alexander, and prompting him secretly to oppose them. Such treachery fully warrants all the suspicion and harshness with which Napoleon treated Talleyrand. The latter's conduct is fully revealed in this volume by Lord Holland. In fact, the way in which Napoleon found his policy most seriously counteracted, and his projects foiled, was his weakness in employing the men of the ancien regime, the nobles, whom he preferred for their pleasing and good manners, but who invariably betrayed the parvenu master, who employed and courted them. By an instance of this grievously misplaced confidence Napoleon lost his throne. In the last events and negotiations of 1814 Napoleon employed Caulaincourt, who, had he had full power, might have made an arrangement. Talleyrand and his party at the same time employed M. de Vitrolles, and sent him to the Emperor of Austria to learn on what terms he would be induced either to support Napoleon or abandon him. The Emperor of Austria was naturally most unwilling to proceed to the latter extreme. But M. Vitrolles, a secret agent of the Bourbons, so falsified and misrepresented everything to the Emperor that the sacrifice of Napoleon was assented to.

Our last extract relates some traits of the great Napoleon which seem more than ordinarily worth his nephew's attention just now. They are taken from a somewhat elaborate character of the Emperor which occupies nearly a third of the volume.

"Nothing could exceed the order and regularity with which his household both as Consul and Emperor was conducted. The great things he accomplished, and the savings he made, without even the imputation of avarice or meanness, with the sum comparatively inconsiderable of fifteen millions of francs a year, are marvellous, and expose his successors, and indeed all European Princes, to the reproach of negligence or incapacity. In this branch of his government he owed much to Duroc. It is said that they often visited the markets of Paris (les halles) dressed in plain clothes and early in the morning. When any great accounts were to be submitted to the Emperor, Duroc would apprize him in secret of some of the minutest details. By an adroit allusion to them or a careless remark on the points upon which he had received such recent and accurate information, Napoleon contrived to impress his audience with a notion that the master's eye was every where. For instance, when the Tuileries were furnished, the upholsterer's charges though not very exorbitant, were suspected by the Emperor to be higher than the usual profit of that trade would have warranted. He suddenly asked some minister who was with him how much the egg at the end of the bell-rope should cost? 'J'ignore,' was the answer.—'Eh bien! nous verrons,' said he, and then cut off the ivory handle, called for a valet, and bidding him dress himself in plain and ordinary clothes, and neither divulge his immediate commission or general employment to any living soul, directed him to inquire the price of such articles at several shops in Paris, and to order a dozen as for himself. They were one-third less dear than those furnished to the palace. The Emperor, inferring that the same advantage had been taken in the other articles, struck a third off the whole charge, and directed the tradesman to be informed that it was done at his express command, because on inspection he had himself discovered the charges to be by one-third too exorbitant. When afterwards in the height of his glory he visited Caen with the Empress Maria Louisa, and a train of crowned heads and princes, his old friend, M. Mechin, the Prefect, aware of his taste for detail, waited upon him with five statistical tables of the expenditure, revenue, prices, produce, and commerce of the departments. 'C'est bon,' said he, when he received them the evening of his arrival, 'vous et moi nous ferous bien de l'esprit sur tout cela demain au Conseil.' Accordingly, he astonished all the leading proprietors of the department at the meeting next day, by his minute knowledge of the prices of good and bad cyder, and of the produce and other circumstances of the various districts of the department. Even the Royalist gentry were impressed with a respect for his person, which gratitude for the restitution of their lands had failed to inspire, and which, it must be acknowledged, the first faint hope of vengeance against their enemies entirely obliterated in almost every member of that intolerant faction. Other princes have shown an equal fondness for minute details with Napoleon, but here is the difference. The use they made of their knowledge was to torment their inferiors and weary their company: the purpose to which Napoleon applied it was to confine the expanses of the State to the objects and interests of the community."

Lord Holland dwells at some length on the treatment to which Napoleon was subjected by the English Government, and on the generous attempts of Lady Holland to alleviate his captivity. This part of the volume has much present interest, and will be read with great eagerness by all. Of the Emperor's temper, he says:

"Napoleon, even in the plenitude of his power, seldom gratified his revenge by resorting to any act either illegal or unjust, though he frequently indulged his ill-humor by speaking both of and to those who had displeased him in a manner mortifying to their feelings and their pride. The instances of his love of vengeance are very few: they are generally of an insolent rather than a sanguinary character, more discreditable to his head than his heart, and a proof of his want of manners, taste, and possibly feeling, but not of a dye to affect his humanity. Of what man, possessed of such extended yet such disputed authority, can so much be said? Of Washington? Of Cromwell? But Washington, if he had ever equal provocation and motives for revenge, certainly never possessed such power to gratify it. His glory, greater in truth than that of Cæsar, Cromwell, and Bonaparte, was that he never aspired: but he disdained such power; he never had it, and cannot therefore deserve immoderate praise for not exerting what he did not possess. In the affair of General Lee, he did not, if I recollect, show much inclination to forgive. Even Cromwell did not possess the power of revenge to the same extent as Napoleon. There is reason, however, to infer from his moderation and forbearance that he would have used it as sparingly. But Cromwell is less irreproachable, on the score of another vice, viz., ingratitude. Napoleon not only never forgot a favor, but, unlike most ambitious characters, never allowed subsequent injuries to cancel his recollection of services. He was uniformly indulgent to the faults of those whom he had once distinguished. He saw them, he sometimes exposed and rectified, but he never punished or revenged them. Many have blamed him for this on the score of policy; but if it was not sense and calculation, it should be ascribed to good-nature. None, I presume, will impute it to weakness or want of discernment."

This account of Napoleon's ideas on religion is curious, and we think new.

"Whatever were the religious sentiments of this extraordinary man, such companions were likely neither to fix nor to shake, to sway nor to alter them. I have been at some pains to ascertain the little that can be known of his thoughts on such subjects, and, though it is not very satisfactory, it appears to me worth recording.

"In the early periods of the Revolution, he, in common with many of his countrymen, conformed to the fashion of treating all such matters, both in conversation and action, with levity and even derision. In his subsequent career, like most men exposed to wonderful vicissitudes, he professed, half in jest and half in earnest, a sort of confidence in fatalism and predestination. But on some solemn public occasions, and yet more in private and sober discussion, he not only gravely disclaimed and reproved infidelity, but both by actions and words implied his conviction that a conversion to religious enthusiasm might befal himself, or any other man. He had more than tolerance—he had indulgence and respect for extravagant and ascetic notions of religious duty. He grounded that feeling not on their soundness or their truth, but on the uncertainty of what our minds may be reserved for, on the possibility of our being prevailed upon to admit and even to devote ourselves to tenets which at first excite our derision. It has been observed that there was a tincture of Italian superstition in his character; a sort of conviction from reason that the doctrines of revelation were not true, and yet a persuasion, or at least an apprehension, that he might live to think them so. He was satisfied that the seeds of belief were deeply sown in the human heart. It was on that principle that he permitted and justified, though he did not dare to authorize, the revival of La Trappe and other austere orders. He contended that they might operate as a safety-valve for the fanatical and visionary ferment which would otherwise burst forth and disturb society. In his remarks on the death of Duroc, and in the reasons he alleged against suicide, both in calm and speculative discussion and in moments of strong emotion, (such as occurred at Fontainbleau in 1814,) he implied a belief both in fatality and Providence.

"In the programme of his coronation, a part of the ceremony was to consist in his taking the communion. But when the plan was submitted to him, he, to the surprise of those who had drawn it, was absolutely indignant at the suggestion. 'No man,' he said, 'had the means of knowing, or had the right to say, when or where he would take the sacrament, or whether he would or not.' On this occasion, he added, that he would not; nor did he.

"There is some mystery about his conduct in similar respects at St. Helena, and during the last days of his life. He certainly had mass celebrated in his chapel while he was well, and in his bedroom when ill. But though I have reason to believe that the last sacraments were actually administered to him privately a few days before his death, and probably after confession, yet Count Montholon, from whom I derive indirectly my information, also stated that he received Napoleon's earnest and distinct directions to conceal all the preliminary preparations for that melancholy ceremony from all his other companions, and even to enjoin the priest, if questioned, to say he acted by Count Montholon's orders, but had no knowledge of the Emperor's wishes.

"It seems as if he had some desire for such assurance as the Church could give, but yet was ashamed to own it. He knew that some at St. Helena, and more in France, would deem his recourse to such consolation infirmity; perhaps he deemed it so himself. Religion may sing her triumph, philosophy exclaim 'pauvre humanite,' more impartial scepticism despair of discovering the motive, but truth and history must, I believe, acknowledge the fact."

JOHN JAMES AUDUBON

By Rufus W. Griswold

"Formerly," said Baron Cuvier, in a report to the Royal Academy of Sciences in Paris, "European naturalists had to make known her own treasures to America; but now her Mitchells, Harlans, and Charles Bonapartes, have repaid with interest the debt which she owed to Europe. The history of the American birds by Wilson, already equals in elegance our most beautiful works in ornithology, and if ever that of Audubon be completed, it will have to be confessed that in magnificence of execution the Old World is surpassed by the New." The work of the "American backwoodsman" thus alluded to, has long been completed; the great Cuvier subsequently acknowledged it to be "the most splendid monument which art has erected in honor of ornithology;" and the judgment of mankind has placed the name of our countryman first in the list of authors and artists who have illustrated the beautiful branch of natural history to which he has devoted so large a portion of his long and heroic life.

John James Audubon was born in Louisiana about the year 1782. He was of French descent, and his parents perceiving early the bent of his genius sent him to Paris to pursue his education. While there he attended schools of natural history and the arts, and in drawing took lessons from the celebrated David. He returned in his eighteenth year, and his father soon after gave him a farm near Philadelphia, where the Perkioming creek falls into the Schuylkill. Its fine woods offered him numerous subjects for his pencil, and he here commenced that series of drawings which ultimately swelled into the magnificent collection of The Birds of America. Here too he was married, and here was born his eldest son. He engaged in commercial speculations, but was not successful. His love for the fields and flowers, the forests and their winged inhabitants, we readily suppose unfitted him for trade. At the end of ten years he removed to the west. There were then no steamboats on the Ohio, and few villages and no cities on its shores. Reaching that noble river in the warm days of autumn, he purchased a small boat in which, with his wife and child and two rowers, he leisurely pursued his way down to Henderson, in Kentucky, where his family resided several years. He appears at first to have engaged in commerce, for he mentions his meeting with Wilson, of whom till then he had never heard, as having occurred in his counting-room in Louisville in the spring of 1810. His great predecessor was procuring subscriptions for his work. He called on Audubon, explained the nature of his occupations, and requested his patronage. The merchant was surprised and gratified at the sight of his volumes, and had taken a pen to add his name to the list of subscribers, when his partner abruptly said to him in French, "My dear Audubon, what induces you to do so? your own drawings are certainly far better, and you must know as much of the habits of American birds as this gentleman. "Wilson probably understood the remark, for he appeared not to be pleased, and inquired whether Audubon had any drawings of birds. A large portfolio was placed upon the table, and all its contents exhibited by the amateur ornithologist. Wilson was surprised; he had supposed he was himself the only person engaged in forming such a collection; and asked if it was intended to publish them. Audubon replied in the negative: he had never thought of presenting the fruits of his labors to the world. Wilson was still more surprised; he lost his cheerfulness; and though before he left Louisville Audubon explored with him the neighboring woods, loaned him his drawings, and in other ways essayed to promote his interests and happiness, he shook the dust from his feet when he departed, and wrote in his diary that "literature or art had not a friend in the place." Far be it from me to write a word in dispraise of Alexander Wilson. He was a man of genius, enthusiasm, and patient endurance; an honor to the country of his birth, and a glory to that of his adoption; but he evidently could not bear the thought of being excelled. With all his merits he was even then greatly inferior to Audubon, and his heart failed him when he contrasted the performances which had won fame for him with those of the unknown lover of the same mistress, Nature, whom he thus encountered.

Audubon must soon have abandoned or neglected his day-books and ledgers, for in 1811 we find him with his rifle and drawing paper among the bayous of Florida, and in the following years making long and tedious journeys, searching the forests and prairies, the shores of rivers, lakes, gulfs, and seas, for the subjects of his immortal work, of the publication of which, however, he had never yet had a thought.

On the fifth of April, 1824, he visited Philadelphia, where the late Dr. Mease, whom he had known on his first arrival in Pennsylvania, presented him to Charles Lucien Bonaparte, who in his turn introduced him to the Lyceum of Natural History. He perceived that he could look for no patronage in this city, and so proceeded to New-York, where he was received with a kindness well suited to elevate his depressed spirits, and afterwards ascending the Hudson, went westward to the great lakes, and in the wildest solitudes of the pathless forests renewed his labors. He now began to think of visiting Europe; the number of his drawings had greatly increased notwithstanding a misfortune by which two hundred of them, representing nearly a thousand birds, had been destroyed; and he fancied his work under the hands of the engraver. "Happy days and nights of pleasing dreams" followed, as he retired farther from the haunts of men, determined to leave nothing undone which could be accomplished by time or toil. Another year and a half passed by; he returned to his family, then in Louisiana; and having explored the woods of that state, at last sailed for England, where he arrived in 1826. In Liverpool and Manchester his works procured him a generous reception from the most distinguished men of science and letters; and when he proceeded to Edinburgh and exhibited there his four hundred paintings, "the hearts of all warmed toward Audubon," says Professor Wilson, "who were capable of conceiving the difficulties, dangers, and sacrifices that must have been encountered, endured, and overcome before genius could have embodied these, the glory of its innumerable triumphs."[9 - Wilson's Miscellanies, vol. ii. p. 118.] "The man himself," at this period writes the same eloquent author in another work, "is just what you would expect from his productions; full of fine enthusiasm and intelligence, most interesting in his looks and manners, a perfect gentleman, and esteemed by all who know him for the simplicity and frankness of his nature."[10 - Noctes Ambrosianæ, vol. ii. p. 103.]

His reception encouraged him to proceed immediately with his plans of publication. It was a vast undertaking which it would take probably sixteen years to accomplish, and when his first drawings were delivered to the engraver he had not a single subscriber. His friends pointed out the rashness of the project and urged him to abandon it. "But my heart was nerved," he exclaims, "and my reliance on that Power on whom all must depend brought bright anticipations of success." Leaving his work in the care of his engravers and agents, in the summer of 1828 he visited Paris, and received the homage of the most distinguished men of science in that capital. Humboldt too, whose gigantic intelligence arose above all others in central Europe, became his warm friend, and remained until his death a sympathizing correspondent.

The ensuing winter was passed in London, and in April, 1829, he returned to America to explore anew the woods of the middle and southern states. Accompanied by his wife he left New Orleans on the eighth of January, 1830, for New-York, and on the twenty-fifth of April, just a year from the time of his departure, he was again in the Great Metropolis. Before the close of 1830, he had issued his first volume, containing one hundred plates, representing ninety-nine species of birds, every figure of the size and colors of life. The applause with which it was received was enthusiastic and universal. The kings of England and France had placed their names at the head of his subscription list; he was made a fellow of the Royal Societies of London and Edinburgh; a member of the Natural History Society of Paris, and other celebrated institutions; and Cuvier, Swainson, and indeed the great ornithologists of every country, exhausted the words of panegyric in his praise.

On the first of August, 1831, Audubon arrived once more in New-York, and having passed a few days with his friends there and in Philadelphia, proceeded to Washington, where the President and other principal officers of the government gave him letters of assistance and protection to be used all along the coasts and inland frontiers where there were collectors of revenue or military or naval forces. He had previously received similar letters from the king's ministers to the authorities of the British colonies.

The next winter and spring were passed in the Floridas and in Charleston; and early in the summer, bending his course northward to keep pace with the birds in their migrations, he arrived in Philadelphia, where he was joined by his family. The cholera was then spreading death and terror through the country, and on reaching Boston he was himself arrested by sickness and detained until the middle of August. "Although I have been happy in forming many valuable friendships in various parts of the world, all dearly cherished by me," he says, "the outpouring of kindness which I experienced in Boston far exceeded all that I have ever met with;"[11 - Introduction to the second volume of Ornithological Biography, p. xvii.] and he tells us, with characteristic enthusiasm, of his gratitude to the Appletons, Everetts, Quincys, Pickerings, Parkmans, and other eminent gentlemen and scholars of that beautiful and hospitable city.

Proceeding at length upon his mission, he explored the forests of Maine and New Brunswick, and the shores of the Bay of Fundy, and chartering a vessel at Eastport, sailed for the gulf of St. Lawrence, the Magdalen Islands, and the coast of Labrador. Returning as the cold season approached, he visited Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, and rejoining his family proceeded to Charleston, where he spent the winter, and in the spring, after nearly three years' travel and research, sailed a third time for England.

Among the warmest of his British friends, was always the congenial Wilson, great as a poet, greater as critic, and greatest of all as the author of the Noctes Ambrosianæ, which contain more wit and humor, more sound theology, philosophy, and politics, and better and more various literature, than any other man now living has furnished in a single work. This almost universal genius, whose relish for the rod and gun and wild wood was scarcely less than that he felt for the best suppers of Ambrose, or the sharpest onslaught on the Whigs in Parliament, thoroughly appreciated and heartily loved our illustrious countryman, and in Blackwood's Magazine for January, 1835, he gives us the following admirable sketch of the visit he now made to Edinburgh:

"We were sitting one night, lately, all alone by ourselves, almost unconsciously eyeing the members, fire without flame, in the many-visioned grate, but at times aware of the symbols and emblems there beautifully built up, of the ongoings of human life, when a knocking, not loud but resolute, came to the front door, followed by the rustling thrill of the bell-wire, and then by a tinkling far below, too gentle to waken the house that continued to enjoy the undisturbed dream of its repose. At first we supposed it might be but some late-home-going knight-errant from a feast of shells, in a mood, 'between malice and true-love,' seeking to disquiet the slumbers of Old Christopher, in expectation of seeing his night-cap (which he never wears) popped out of the window, and of hearing his voice (of which he is charry in the open air) simulating a scold upon the audacious sleep-breaker. So we benevolently laid back our head on our easy-chair, and pursued our speculations on the state of affairs in general—and more particularly on the floundering fall of that inexplicable people—the Whigs. We had been wondering, and of our wondering found no end, what could have been their chief reasons for committing suicide. It appeared a case of very singular felo-de-se—for they had so timed the 'rash act,' as to excite strong suspicions in the public mind that his Majesty had committed murder. Circumstances, however, had soon come to light, that proved to demonstration, that the wretched Ministry had laid violent hands on itself, and effected its purpose by strangulation. There—was the fatal black ring visible round the neck—through a mere thread; there—were the blood-shot eyes protruding from the sockets; there—the lip-biting teeth clenched in the last convulsions; and there—sorriest sight of all—was the ghastly suicidical smile, last relic of the laughter of despair. But the knocking would not leave the door—and listening to its character, we were assured that it came from the fist of a friend, who saw light through the chinks of the shutter, and knew, moreover, that we never put on the shroud of death's pleasant brother sleep, till 'ae wee short hour ayont the twal,' and often not till earliest cock-crow, which chanticleer utters somewhat drowsily, and then replaces his head beneath his wing, supported on one side by a partlet, on the other by a hen. So we gathered up our slippered feet from the rug, lamp in hand stalked along the lobbies, unchained and unlocked the oak which our faithful night porter Somnus had sported—and lo! a figure muffled up in a cloak, and furred like a Russ, who advanced familiarly into the hall, extended both hands and then embracing us, bade God bless us, and pronounced, with somewhat of a foreign accent, the name in which we and the world rejoice—Christopher North!' We were not slow in returning the hug fraternal—for who was it but the 'American Woodsman?'—even Audubon himself—fresh from the Floridas—and breathing of the pure air of far-off Labrador!

"Three years and upwards had fled since we had taken farewell of the illustrious Ornithologist—on the same spot—at the same hour; and there was something ghostlike in such return of a dear friend from a distant region—almost as if from the land of spirits. It seemed as if the same moon again looked at us—but then she was wan and somewhat sad—now clear as a diamond, and all the starry heavens wore a smile. "Our words they were na mony feck'—but in less time than we have taken to write it—we two were sitting cheek by jowl, and hand in hand, by that essential fire—while we showed by our looks that we both felt, now they were over, that three years were but as one day! The cane coal-scuttle, instinct with spirit, beeted the fire of its own accord, without word or beck of ours, as if placed there by the hands of one of our wakeful Lares; in globe of purest crystal the Glenlivet shone; unasked the bright brass kettle began to whisper its sweet 'under song;' and a centenary of the fairest oysters native to our isle turned towards us their languishing eyes, unseen the Nereid that had on the instant wafted them from the procreant cradle beds of Prestonpans. Grace said, we drew in to supper, and hobnobbing, from elegant long-shank, down each naturalist's gullet graciously descended, with a gurgle, the mildest, the meekest, the very Moses of Ales.

"Audubon, ere half an hour had elapsed, found an opportunity of telling us that he had never seen us in a higher state of preservation—and in a low voice whispered something about the eagle renewing his youth. We acknowledged the kindness by a remark on bold bright birds of passage that find the seasons obedient to their will, and wing their way through worlds still rejoicing in the perfect year. But too true friends were we not to be sincere in all we seriously said; and while Audubon confessed that he saw rather more plainly than when we parted the crowfeet in the corners of our eyes, we did not deny that we saw in him an image of the Falco Lencocephalus, for that, looking on his 'carum caput,' it answered his own description of that handsome and powerful bird, viz. 'the general color of the plumage above is dull hair-brown, the lower parts being deeply brown, broadly margined with greyish white.' But here he corrected us: for 'surely, my dear friend,' quoth he, 'you must admit I am a living specimen of the Adult Bird, and you remember my description of him in my First Volume.' And thus blending our gravities and our gayeties, we sat facing one another, each with his last oyster on the prong of his trident, which disappeared, like all mortal joys, between a smile and a sigh.

"How similar—in much—our dispositions—yet in almost all how dissimilar our lives! Since last we parted, 'we scarcely heard of half a mile from home'—he tanned by the suns and beaten by the storms of many latitudes—we like a ship laid up in ordinary, or anchored close in shore within the same sheltering bay—with sails unfurled and flags flying but for sake of show on some holyday—he like a ship that every morning had been dashing through a new world of waves—often close-reefed or under bare poles—but oftener affronting the heavens with a whiter and swifter cloud than any hoisted by the combined fleets in the sky. And now, with canvas unrent, and masts unsprung, returned to the very buoy she left. Somewhat faded, indeed, in her apparelling—but her hull sound as ever—not a speck of dry rot in her timbers—her keel unscathed by rock—her cut-water yet sharp as new-whetted scythe ere the mower renews his toil—her figure-head, that had so often looked out for squalls, now 'patient as the brooding dove'—and her bowsprit—but let us man the main-brace; nor is there purer spirit—my trusty frere—in the Old World or the New.

"It was quite a Noctes. Audubon told us—by snatches—all his travels, history, with many an anecdote interspersed of the dwellers among the woods—bird, beast, and man.

"All this and more he told us, with a cheerful voice and animated eyes, while the dusky hours were noiselessly wheeling the chariot of Night along the star-losing sky; and we too had something to tell him of our own home-loving obscurity, not ungladdened by studies sweet in the Forest—till Dawn yoked her dappled coursers for one single slow stage—and then jocund Morn leaping up on the box, took the ribbons in her rosy fingers, and, after a dram of dew, blew her bugle, and drove like blazes right on towards the gates of Day."

"His great work," says Wilson, elsewhere, "was indeed a perilous undertaking for a stranger in Britain, without the patronage of powerful friends, and with no very great means of his own—all of which he embarked in the enterprise dearest to is heart. Had it failed, Audubon would have been a ruined man—and that fear must have sometimes dismally disturbed him, for he is not alone in life, and is a man of strong family affections. But happily those nearest his breast are as enthusiastic in the love of natural science as himself—and were all willing to sink or swim with the beloved husband and venerated father. America may well be proud of him—and he gratefully records the kindness he has experienced from so many of her most distinguished sons. In his own fame he is just and generous to all who excel in the same studies; not a particle of jealousy is in his composition; a sin, that, alas! seems too easily to beset too many of the most gifted spirits in literature and in science; nor is the happiest genius—imaginative or intellectual—such is the frailty of poor human nature at the best—safe from the access of that dishonouring passion."

The second volume of The Birds of America was finished in 1834, and in December of that year he published in Edinburgh the second volume of the Ornithological Biography. Soon after, while he was in London, a nobleman called upon him, with his family, and on examining some of his original drawings, and being told that it would still require eight years to complete the work, subscribed for it, saying, "I may not see it finished, but my children will." The words made a deep impression on Audubon. "The solemnity of his manner I could not forget for several days," he writes in the introduction to his third volume; "I often thought that neither might I see the work completed, but at length exclaimed, 'My sons may;' and now that another volume, both of my illustrations and of my biographies, is finished, my trust in Providence is augmented, and I cannot but hope that myself and my family together may be permitted to see the completion of my labors." When this was written, ten years had elapsed since the publication of his first plate. In the next three years, among other excursions he made one to the western coast of the Floridas and to Texas, in a vessel placed at his disposal by our government; and at the end of this time appeared the fourth and concluding volume of his engravings, and the fifth of his descriptions. The whole comprised four hundred and thirty-five plates, containing one thousand and sixty-five figures, from the Bird of Washington to the Humming Bird, of the size of life, and a great variety of land and marine views, and coral and other productions, of different climates and seasons, all carefully drawn and colored after nature. Well might the great naturalist felicitate himself upon the completion of his gigantic task. He had spent nearly half a century "amid the tall grass of the far-extended prairies of the west, in the solemn forests of the north, on the heights of the midland mountains, by the shores of the boundless ocean, and on the bosoms of our vast bays, lakes and rivers, searching for things hidden since the creation of this wondrous world from all but the Indian who has roamed in the gorgeous but melancholy wilderness." And speaking from the depth of his heart he says, "Once more surrounded by all the members of my dear family, enjoying the countenance of numerous friends who have never deserted me, and possessing a competent share of all that can render life agreeable, I look up with gratitude to the Supreme Being, and feel that I am happy."

In 1839, having returned for the last time to his native country and established himself with his family near the city of New-York, Audubon commenced the publication of The Birds of America in imperial octavo volumes, of which the seventh and last was issued in the summer of 1844. The plates in this edition, reduced from his larger illustrations, were engraved and colored in the most admirable manner by Mr. Bowen of Philadelphia, under the direction of the author, and excepting The Birds of America in folio, there has never been published so magnificent a work on ornithology.

Audubon was too sincere a worshipper of nature to be content with inglorious repose, even after having accomplished in action more than was ever dreamed of by any other naturalist; and while the "edition for the people" of his Birds of America was in course of publication, he was busy amid the forests and prairies, the reedy swamps of our southern shores, the cliffs that protect our eastern coasts, by the currents of the Mexican gulf and the tide streams of the Bay of Fundy, with his sons, Victor Gifford and John Woodhouse, making the drawings and writing the biographies of the Quadrupeds of America, a work in no respect inferior to that on our birds, which he began to publish about five years ago. The plates, on double imperial folio paper, engraved and colored by Mr. Bowen after the original drawings made from nature by Audubon and his sons, are even more magnificent than those of the Birds of America, which twenty years ago delighted and astonished the naturalists of Europe.

The Biography of American Quadrupeds, accompanying these plates, and of which the first volume appeared in New-York in 1846, was written principally by the Rev. John Bachman, D.D., of Charleston, a long-tried and enthusiastic friend, of whose introduction to him Audubon thus speaks in the preface of the second volume of his Ornithological Biography:

"It was late in the afternoon when we took our lodgings in Charleston. Being fatigued, and having written the substance of my journey to my family, and delivered a letter to the Rev. Mr. Gilman, I retired to rest. At the first glimpse of day the following morning, my assistants and myself were already several miles from the city, commencing our search in the fields and woods, and having procured abundance of subjects both for the pencil and the scalpel, we returned home, covered with mud, and so accoutred as to draw towards us the attention of every person in the streets. As we approached the boarding-house, I observed a gentleman on horseback close to our door. He looked at me, came up, inquired if my name was Audubon, and on being answered in the affirmative, instantly leaped from his saddle, shook me most cordially by the hand—there is much to be expressed and understood by a shake of the hand—and questioned me in so kind a manner, that I for a while felt doubtful how to reply. At his urgent desire, I removed to his house, as did my assistants. Suitable apartments were assigned to us; and once introduced to the lovely and interesting group that composed his family, I seldom passed a day without enjoying their society. Servants, carriages, horses, and dogs were all at our command, and friends accompanied us to the woods and plantations, and formed parties for water excursions. Before I left Charleston, I was truly sensible of the noble and generous spirit of the hospitable Carolinians."

Audubon and Bachman (the same Bachman who recently refuted the heresies of Agassiz respecting the unity of the human race) were from this time devoted friends and co-workers. For several years the health of the hero naturalist had declined, and he was rarely if ever seen beyond the limits of his beautiful estate on the banks of the Hudson, near this city, where, on the twenty-seventh of January, 1851, he died, full of years, and illustrious with the most desirable glory.

Audubon's highest claim to admiration is founded upon his drawings in natural history, in which he has exhibited a perfection never before attempted. In all our climates—in the clear atmosphere, by the dashing waters, amid the grand old forests with their peculiar and many-tinted foliage, by him first made known to art—he has represented our feathered tribes, building their nests and fostering their young, poised on the tip of the spray and hovering over the sedgy margin of the lake, flying in the clouds in quest of prey or from pursuit, in love, enraged, indeed in all the varieties of their motion and repose and modes of life, so perfectly that all other works of the kind are to his as stuffed skins to the living birds.

But he has also indisputable claims to a high rank as a man of letters. Some of his written pictures of birds, so graceful, clearly defined, and brilliantly colored, are scarcely inferior to the productions of his pencil. His powers of general description are not less remarkable. The waters seem to dance to his words as to music, and the lights and shades of his landscapes show the practised hand of a master. The evanescent shades of manners, also, upon the extreme frontiers, where the footprints of civilization have hardly crushed the green leaves, have been sketched with graphic fidelity in his journals.

No author has more individuality. The enthusiastic, trustful and loving spirit which breathes through his works distinguished the man. From the beginning he surrendered himself entirely to his favorite pursuit, and was intent to learn every thing from the prime teacher, Nature. His style as well as his knowledge was a fruit of his experiences. He had never written for the press until after the age at which most authors have established their reputation; and when he did write, his page glowed like the rich wild landscape in the spring, when Nature, then most beautiful, "bathes herself in her own dewy waters." We seem to hear his expressions of wondering admiration, as unknown mountains, valleys and lakes burst upon his view, as the deer at his approach leaped from his ambush into the deeper solitudes, as the startled bird with rushing wings darted from his feet into the sky; or his pious thanksgiving, as at the end of a weary day the song of the sparrow or the robin relieved his mind from the heavy melancholy that bore it down.