CHAPTER XIV

A MEETING OF RIVALS, AND A SKETCH OF ANOTHER PIONEER

Alexander Wilson and his _American Ornithology_—His canvassing tour of 1810—His retort to a Solomon of the Bench—Descriptions of Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and Louisville—Meeting with Audubon—Journey to New Orleans—Youth in Scotland—Weaver, itinerant peddler, poet and socialist—Sent to jail for libel—Emigrates to the United States—Finally settles as a school teacher near Philadelphia—His friendships with Bartram and Lawson—Disappointments in love—Early studies of American birds—His drawings, thrift, talents and genius—Publication of his _Ornithology_—His travels, discouragements and success—His premature death—Conflicting accounts of the visit to Audubon given by the two naturalists—Rivalry between the friends of Wilson, dead, and those of Audubon, living—The controversy which followed—An evasive "Flycatcher"—Singular history of the Mississippi Kite plate.

On January 30, 1810, a man of rather coarse features, with a head of sandy hair, and possessed of manners that could be winning or aggressive according to his mood, might have been seen leaving Philadelphia afoot, for he had planned to keep his expenses down to a dollar a day and traveling by coach or on horseback suited neither his purse nor the objects of his mission. His clothing was coarse; his luggage, with the exception of a fowling-piece and two red-backed volumes of quarto size, was of the lightest description. But, could we have peered between the covers of those books, our curiosity would have been whetted, for they were filled with colored plates of American birds, the first-fruits of their bearer's untrained eye and hand; the text, moreover, was printed in a style which would have done honor to any country.

This man was Alexander Wilson, who, like Audubon, was a pioneer in the study of the birds of his adopted land, but who was twenty years his predecessor in point of publication. The books which he then carried were part of the first edition of his now famous _American Ornithology_, the second volume of which had appeared in Philadelphia at the beginning of that year. Though not destined to be completed until after his death, this work was to become one of the scientific and literary treasures of the nation, but it is not likely that one in ten thousand had then ever heard of him, whether as poet or as ornithologist, or cared anything about his work or his mission.

Wilson at that moment was starting on his last long journey through the West and South, in search of new birds. He also carried in his pocket a subscription list, and therefore belonged to that class of visitor which is seldom welcomed with rapture. At Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Wilson's first important stopping-place, and at that time the capital of the State, Governor Snyder put down his name for $120, the price of the completed work. This seemed a good omen, but, at Hanover, in the same state, an incident occurred which might have discouraged a less determined man; the interview has become historical, and we shall give Wilson's own relation of it:[178]

Having a letter from Dr. Muhlenburgh to a Clergyman in Hanover, I passed on through a well cultivated country, chiefly inhabited by Germans, to that place, where a certain Judge _Hustetter_ took upon himself to say, that such a book as mine ought not to be encouraged; as it was not within the reach of the commonalty; and therefore inconsistent with our Republican institutions! By the same mode of reasoning, which I did not dispute, I undertook to prove him a greater culprit than myself, in erecting a large elegant three story Brick house, so much more beyond the reach of the _Commonalty_ as he called them, and therefore grossly contrary to our Republican institutions. I harangued this Solomon of the Bench more seriously afterwards, pointing out to him the great influence of Science on a young rising Nation like ours, till he began to show such symptoms of _intellect_, as to seem ashamed of what he had said.

At Pittsburgh Wilson met Audubon's old employer and relative by marriage, Benjamin Bakewell. The picture which he then drew[179] of that growing hive of industry will be read with interest:

On arriving at the town, which stands on a low flat, and looks like a collection of Blacksmith shops, Glass houses, Breweries, Forges, and Furnaces, the Monongahela opened to the view on the left running along the bottom of a range of hills so high that the sun at this season sets to the town of Pittsburgh at a little past four. This range continues along the Ohio as far as the view reaches. The ice had just begun to give way in Monongahela, and came down in vast bodies for the three following days. It has now begun in the Alleghany, and at the moment I write it is one white Mass of rushing ice. The country beyond the Ohio to the west appears a mountainous and hilly region. The Monongahela is lined with Arks, usually called Kentucky Boats, waiting for the rising of the river, & the absence of ice, to descend. A perspective view of the town of Pittsburgh at this season, with the numerous arks and covered keel boats preparing to descend the Ohio, the grandeur of its hills, and the interesting circumstance of its three great rivers—the pillars of smoke rising from its Furnaces Glass works &c. would make a noble picture. I began a very diligent search, in the place the day after my arrival for subscribers and continued it for four days. I succeeded beyond expectation having got 19 names of the most wealthy and respectable part of the inhabitants. The industry of the town is remarkable; every body you see is busy; & as a proof of the prosperity of the place an eminent lawyer told me that there has not been one suit instituted against a mercht. of the town these three years! The Glass Houses, of which there are 3, have more demands for Glass than they are able to answer. Mr. Bakewell the proprietor of the best, shewed ... yesterday a Chandelier of his manufacture highly ornamented, ... for which he received 300 dollars. It would ornament the ... in Philada. and is perfectly transparent.

Eight days after he had reached Pittsburgh, Wilson bravely launched a little skiff, which he christened the _Ornithologist_, and began an arduous and perilous journey to Cincinnati, Louisville and New Orleans, a distance of two thousand miles. "In this lonesome manner," he wrote, "with full leisure for observation and reflection, exposed to hardships all day, and hard berths all night, I persevered from the 24th of February to Sunday evening, March 17th, when I moored my skiff safely in Bear Grass Creek, at the rapids of the Ohio, after a voyage of seven hundred and twenty miles."

Cincinnati, then a town of five hundred houses, was reached on the ninth of March; while there Wilson made the acquaintance of Dr. Daniel Drake, who was later Audubon's friend, and examined a collection of Indian relics which had been taken from a freshly opened mound. He left Cincinnati convinced that its well-to-do class must be a very thoughtful people, so many of them, when approached for a subscription to his work, having replied that they would "think about it." Upon nearing Louisville at nightfall he became alarmed lest he should be drawn into the suction of the Falls, as no lights could be seen on the banks: cautiously coasting along the shore, where he encountered many logs and sawyers, at last he entered the Creek and secured his skiff to a Kentucky boat; then, "loading myself with my baggage," he wrote, "I groped my way through a swamp up to the town."[180] When Wilson had seen the Falls by daylight, he felt that his fears of the night before had been groundless, and declared that he should have no hesitation in navigating them single-handed.

It will be interesting to follow Wilson's journey a little further, before returning to the Louisville visit. After passing a few days in Audubon's town, he struck out into the heart of Kentucky, calling at Shelbyville, Frankfort and Lexington, and eventually reaching Nashville, Tennessee. Not far from the latter place he met a landlord of admirable discrimination, Isaac Walton by name, who showed himself worthy of his illustrious ancestor by declaring that Wilson was evidently traveling for the good of the world, and added: "I cannot, and will not charge you anything. Whenever you come this way, call and stay with me; you shall be welcome."

At Nashville Wilson wrote to Miss Sarah Miller, the lady to whom he was engaged but whom he did not live to marry: "Nine hundred miles distant from you sits Wilson, the hunter of birds' nests and sparrows, just preparing to enter on a wilderness of 780 miles—most of it in the territory of Indians—_alone_ but in good spirits, and expecting to have every pocket crammed with skins of new and extraordinary birds before he reach the City of New Orleans." Continuing on his course in search of new birds and subscribers, Wilson arrived at Natchez on May 18, and, passing through Louisiana, on the sixth day of June he entered New Orleans, where his spirits were immediately raised by the accession of sixty new names to his list. After six months of continuous effort, traveling now in a small boat, now on the back of a horse, but frequently on foot, drenched by torrents of rain or scorched by the unaccustomed heat, often compelled to drink the poisonous water of cane brakes in Mississippi (to which must be attributed an attack of malarial fever, which he was able with difficulty to throw off, but from which, in all probability, he never fully recovered), he returned to New York by sea, and on September 2, 1810, was again in Philadelphia.

On this journey Wilson was a pioneer in much of the territory which Audubon had hardly begun to explore, but which later became the scene of his wanderings and adventures for many a year. At Louisville the two naturalists met, but they did not become good friends; though devoted to the same objects, differences in temperament might in any event have kept them apart. Unfortunately, the feelings of jealousy which were then aroused, or which were stirred up at a later day, were fostered by some of Wilson's injudicious friends to such an extent that from the moment Audubon's work became known, and long before he had published a line, they became as thorns in his path, and they continued to vex him for thirty years. It is not easy to reach a fair judgment in this matter now, and it would be impossible to do so without a better understanding of the man who suddenly appeared upon Audubon's horizon at Louisville in 1810 and then vanished. Because of the peculiar relations which existed between these two pioneers, we must follow the history of the elder man a little more closely.

Alexander Wilson was the son of a weaver at Paisley, Scotland, where he was born in 1766; he was thus Audubon's senior by nineteen years. His father, who was esteemed for his honesty and intelligence, had tasted prosperity, but irremediable poverty fell to his lot in later life. Alexander, the younger son, was motherless at ten, and the stepmother that soon appeared seems to have shown him scant sympathy, or, at all events, never won his affection. Alexander Wilson's youth unhappily coincided with an era of bad feeling in his native land; the times were hard in bonny Scotland, education was stagnant, and the public morals were debased. Wilson was a child of his times; like thousands of other youths, he was bound to suffer from the conditions of his early environment, but unlike many thousands of his day, he was possessed of talents and ambition which bitter adversity tended to sharpen and could never repress.

At thirteen young Wilson was taken from school and apprenticed to a weaver, William Duncan, his brother-in-law, and for three years he was no stranger to hard work and the birchen rod. For nearly three years more, as master weaver, he knew little beyond the grind and grime of the factory and the society of factory hands. At eighteen, however, his rebellious spirit struck, and for ten years he appeared in the _rôle_ of itinerant peddler, poet and orator, and as socialist to the extent of championing the oppressed weaver class. At one time Wilson came into correspondence with Robert Burns and later made his acquaintance. His best dialect poem, "Watty and Meg, or The Taming of a Shrew," published anonymously as a penny chap-book in 1782, was his one popular success in the character of poet; according to report it was attributed to Burns, who admitted that he would have been glad to have written the verses, which sold so freely that a hundred thousand copies were disposed of in a few weeks.[181] In the disputes between capital and labor which arose at Paisley, Wilson took an active part. In connection with them he published a number of lampoons in verse, for which he was convicted of libel and was compelled to burn his satires at the town cross. In one instance, which occurred in February, 1793, a petty tyrant whom he had riddled exacted the fine,[182] and because of his inability to pay Wilson was sent to jail, where he languished for over three months.

Under the pressure of such persecutions, hard times, and possibly from disappointment in an affair of the heart, Wilson decided to emigrate. Practically driven out in rags from the country which one day was to raise a monument to his memory, at the age of twenty-eight he sailed from Belfast with his nephew, William Duncan, for the Eldorado of the New World. Wilson slept on deck throughout the entire voyage of fifty-three days, and landed at New Castle, Delaware, with the clothes on his back and an old fowling-piece as his only possessions. This was on July 14, 1794, nine years before John James Audubon left Nantes. Taking train "number 11," in the parlance of knights of the road, the two immigrants first walked to Wilmington in search of employment, and finding none there, went on twenty-nine miles farther to Philadelphia.

The story is told that while they made their way through the woods of Delaware, Wilson shot a Red-headed Woodpecker and met with the Cardinal Grosbeak; as he often referred to the pleasure which the sight of these beautiful birds had given him, the incident, if it really occurred, may have played a part in the inspiration, which later came to Wilson, of becoming the historian of American bird life.

After eight hard years of shifting about, during which Wilson tried day-labor, weaving, peddling and school teaching, working long hours at miserable pay, he finally settled as a country school teacher near New York. On the twelfth of July, 1801, he wrote to a fellow teacher and friend, Charles Orr, who was then living at Philadelphia: "I live six miles from Newark and twelve miles from New York, in a settlement of canting, preaching, praying, and snivelling ignorant Presbyterians. They pay their minister 250 pounds for preaching twice a week, and their teacher 40 dollars a quarter for the most spirit-sinking, laborious work—6, I may say 12 times weekly." To the same friend, in 1802, he confided: "My disposition is to love those who love me with all the warmth of enthusiasm, but to feel with the keenest sensibility the smallest appearance of neglect or contempt from those I regard."

In 1802, at the age of thirty-six, Wilson decided to take up a school at Gray's Ferry, on the Schuylkill River, in Kingsessing Township, then a small settlement four miles from Philadelphia. A year later, in 1803, John James Audubon was sent to America to learn English and enter trade, and, as chance would have it, settled on the banks of the same river, not many miles from Wilson's old schoolhouse. In one respect the older man was the more fortunate, for, as will be seen, he found close by his door an excellent naturalist who played the part of mentor.

On February 14, 1802, while at Philadelphia, Wilson wrote to Orr:

On the 25th. of this month I remove to the schoolhouse beyond Gray's Ferry to succeed the present teacher there. I shall recommence that painful profession once more with the same gloomy, sullen resignation that a prisoner re-enters his dungeon or a malefactor mounts the scaffold; fate urges him, necessity me. The agreement between us is to make the school equal to 100 dollars per quarter, but not more than 50 are to be admitted. The present pedagogue is a noisy, outrageous fat old captain of a ship, who has taught these ten years in different places. You may hear him bawling 300 yards off. The boys seem to pay as little regard to him as ducks to the rumbling of a stream under them. I shall have many difficulties to overcome in establishing my own rules and authority.

At Gray's Ferry, where he was then settled, Wilson again wrote in July: "Leave that cursed town at least one day. It is the most striking emblem of purgatory, at least to me, that exists. No poor soul is happier to escape from Bridewell than I am to smell the fresh air and gaze over the green fields after a day or two's residence in Philadelphia...."

George Ord, Wilson's staunch friend, literary executor, biographer, and editor of the last two volumes of the _American Ornithology_, thus characterized him: "He was of the _genus irritabile_, and was obstinate in opinion." He would acknowledge error when discovered by himself, "but he could not endure to be told of his mistakes. Hence his associates had to be sparing of criticism, through fear of forfeiting his friendship. With almost all his friends he had occasionally, arising from a collision of opinion, some slight misunderstanding, which was soon passed over, leaving no disagreeable impression. But an act of disrespect he could ill brook, and a wilful injury he would seldom forgive."

In 1801, while teaching and studying German at Milestown, Pennsylvania, Wilson had another unfortunate love affair, in this instance with a woman already married. To this he alluded in letters written in the summer of that year to his friend Orr, with whom he later quarreled. On August 7, 1801, he wrote: "The world is lost forever to me and I to the world. No time nor distance can ever banish her image from my mind. It is forever present with me, and my heart is broken with the most melancholy reflections."

At Gray's Ferry, however, Wilson soon found in the estimable William Bartram, then in his sixty-first year, the sympathetic adviser, kind teacher, and judicious friend that he most needed, for though Wilson took the initiative in his ornithological plans, it was the kindly Bartram who eventually extended a helping hand. Both Bartram and Lawson, the engraver, urged him to devote his leisure to drawing, as a foil to his melancholic tendencies. Wilson did not hesitate long, for on June 1, 1803, he confided to a friend in Scotland that he had begun to make a "collection of our finest birds." Early in 1804 his purpose was clearly fixed, and on March 12 of that year he wrote to Alexander Lawson: "I am most earnestly bent on pursuing my plan of making a collection of all the birds in this part of North America.... I have been so long accustomed to the building of airy castles and brain windmills, that it has become one of my earthly comforts, a sort of rough bone, that amuses me when sated with the dull drudgery of life." A little later in the same month we find him appealing to Bartram for exact names, when he writes:

I send for your amusement a few attempts at some of our indigenous birds, hoping that your good nature will excuse their deficiencies, while you point them out to me.... They were chiefly coloured by candle-light. I have now got my collection of native birds considerably enlarged, and shall endeavor, if possible, to obtain all the smaller ones this summer. Be pleased to mark on the drawings, with a pencil, the names of each bird, as, except three or four, I do not know them.

Wilson, practically self-taught in everything, with no experience or training in drawing from nature, thus began at the age of thirty-eight to make his drawings of birds, before he knew the names of his subjects, and twenty years before Audubon's talents were known to any but members of his own family and a few intimate friends. The only aid in drawing which Wilson ever received appears to have come from the hints which Lawson supplied. Nevertheless, the best of Alexander Wilson's original drawings represent a degree of excellence and honest workmanship of which he had no need to be ashamed, and in many instances he owed far less to his engraver, Alexander Lawson, than did his great rival to Robert Havell.

In 1880 Dr. Elliott Coues examined a large collection of original Wilson and Audubon drawings and manuscripts, "owned and kept with the greed of a genuine bibliomaniac" by Joseph M. Wade, then editor of _Familiar Science and Fancier's Journal_. If not Wilson's portfolio itself, its contents, at least, said Dr. Coues, were then in Mr. Wade's possession, and this series of Wilson's drawings included, he thought, more than half of the originals of his famous plates. To quote Dr. Coues:[183]

In handling these drawings and paintings, of all degrees of completeness, one of sensibility could but experience some emotions he would not care to formulate in words.... I was fairly oppressed with the sad story of poverty, even destitution, which these wan sheets of coarse paper told. Some of Wilson's originals are on the fly-leaves of old books, showing binder's marks along one edge. One of the best portraits, that of the Duck Hawk, is on two pieces of paper pasted together. The man was actually too poor to buy paper! Some of the drawings are on both sides of the paper; some show a full picture on one side, and part of a mutilated finished painting on the other. Some show the rubbing process by which they were transferred. They are in all stages of completeness, from the rudest outlines to the finished painting.

I know full well that in 1804, when Wilson had fairly begun his work on birds, he was poor enough, but I hesitate to believe upon such evidence that he was too poor to buy decent drawing materials. Wilson doubtless practiced economy in these matters as in everything else, through his ingrained habit of Scotch thrift, and he was probably quite as well-to-do then as five years before, when out of his slender earnings he was able to lay money aside.[184] Later, to be sure, his modest savings were quite consumed by his _Ornithology_, and then William Bartram came to his aid, even giving him a home in his own house. It is also wide of the mark to conclude from his fugitive letters or from his drawings, as this critic has done, that Wilson was possessed of genius only, and "had nothing else, not even talent and ability." Wilson certainly had a talent for writing and cultivated it with marked success; even his verse was not all of a "despicable mediocrity." In the art of drawing, however, his natural gifts were of a very modest sort, and what he achieved was the result of the most painstaking effort. Of course he was not a finished scholar, as graduates from the school of adversity seldom are, but he had a passion for knowledge and the determination to excel. His genius was not fully displayed until a powerful motive, the ambition to make known the birds of his adopted land, had possessed his spirit and taxed his powers to their utmost capacity.

Shortly after he had settled at Gray's Ferry, Wilson's susceptible nature was touched by another romance, which was again unfortunate for the poet and dreamer, but was probably the making of the ornithologist. Bartram's Botanic Gardens, on the outskirts of Philadelphia, had long been famous for their large and choice collection of native plants, gathered by the indefatigable zeal of their worthy founder, John Bartram, Quaker philosopher, traveler, botanist, agriculturalist and nurseryman; but the fairest flower in the whole collection at that time is said to have been Miss Anne Bartram, daughter of John the younger, niece of William, who then superintended the "Kingsess Gardens," granddaughter of the founder, and heiress to the estate. To this Quaker maid Wilson addressed a number of his poems, and he interested her in the drawing of birds; on March 29, 1804, he wrote to her uncle: "I send a small scroll of drawing papers for Miss Nancy. She will oblige me by accepting it." This little incident would show that Wilson was no stranger to the use of good drawing materials, however frugal his habits in this respect may have been. The young lady is said to have been not indifferent to her poet lover, and some of her family were friendly; the father, however, had no notion of bestowing his daughter's hand upon a poor schoolmaster, and for the third time Wilson's dreams of domestic bliss were shattered.

Such experiences no doubt tended to chasten the sensitive spirit of this real genius, whose whole life seemed to have been a continuous and losing struggle, while he felt within him an inspiration and a power that had failed to find adequate expression in labor at the loom, in verse, or in the hated vocation of teaching rough country schools at starvation wages. Though depressed by his misadventures in love, Wilson does not seem to have been embittered, and by way of diversion, he set out in the autumn of 1804, on a long walking tour from Philadelphia to Niagara Falls and back; in the following winter the experiences of this journey were embodied in a descriptive poem of 2,018 lines which he called "The Foresters," an effort which would have been less prosaic if frankly expressed in prose. Wilson's friendship for the Bartrams continued under the changed conditions, and he was invited to make his home under their hospitable roof. He was now free to devote himself heart and soul to birds and to birds alone.

Wilson etched the first two plates of his _American Ornithology_ before he had obtained an engraver or a publisher. In April, 1806, he resigned his school at Gray's Ferry to accept an editorial position on a _New American Cyclopædia_,[185] then in course of preparation, at a salary of $900 a year. Samuel F. Bradford, the publisher of this work, soon became interested in Wilson's projected _American Ornithology_ and agreed to publish it. It became the ambition of both author and publisher to produce the work in a superior style, and to make it as perfect and complete an American product as possible. Only the pigments used in coloring some of the plates were imported from Europe.[186]

Wilson issued in April, 1807, an elaborate prospectus of his proposed _Ornithology_, in which he stated that the completed work would comprise ten volumes, to cost $120, and that it would be illustrated by plates, engraved and colored by hand, after the manner of a carefully prepared sample which was issued with the printed announcement. In September, 1808, as already intimated, the first volume of the _American Ornithology_[187] appeared in an edition of 200 copies. Wilson immediately started on a canvassing tour of New England, in the course of which he visited the principal towns and colleges, going east to Portland, Maine, and as far north as Dartmouth College, in New Hampshire, where President John Wheelock and the professors received him with marked attention. On this journey Wilson did not average one subscriber a day, and he was forced to conclude that he had "been mistaken in publishing a work too good for the country"; "it is a fault," he said, "not likely to be repeated, and will pretty severely correct itself." Daniel D. Tompkins, Governor of New York, coolly said to him: "I would not give one hundred dollars for all the birds you intend to describe," not even if "I had them alive"; but a future Governor of that State, De Witt Clinton, the friend of science and scientific men, gave him the substantial encouragement he craved. When his second volume was ready for issue, Wilson wrote to Bartram: "This undertaking has involved me in difficulties and expenses which I never dreamt of, and I have never yet received one cent from it. I am, therefore, a volunteer in the cause of Natural History impelled by nobler views than those of money."

In the autumn of 1808 Wilson made a long and arduous tour of the South, in the course of which he visited every important town along the southern Atlantic seaboard, and though it cost him dear, he obtained 250 subscribers; it was then that his publishers decided to extend the original edition of his work to 500 copies. His longer and more perilous journey of 1810, when his meeting with Audubon occurred, has already been described. In 1812, after the sixth volume of the _Ornithology_ had appeared, he again resumed his travels in the East and went as far north as Burlington, on Lake Champlain; at Haverhill, New Hampshire, he was summarily arrested and thrown into jail, the people of the town, utterly unable to comprehend the nature of his pursuits, suspecting that in his real capacity he was acting as a spy in the employ of the Canadian Government. The seventh and last volume of the _Ornithology_ which Wilson lived to complete made its appearance in the spring of 1813. He had then been obliged to relinquish his work on the _Cyclopædia_, and was reduced to the pittance derived from the coloring of his own plates.

Alexander Wilson died at Philadelphia, after a brief illness, on August 23, 1813. A story was current that his end was saddened, if not hastened, by the dishonesty of his publishers, but I cannot vouch for it. Audubon may have had this report in mind when he wrote his name in the hotel register at Niagara Falls[188] on August 24, 1824; and added that he would never die, like Wilson, "under the lash of a bookseller." Even as late as 1879 Miss Malvina Lawson, daughter of Wilson's friend and engraver, left no doubt as to her belief when she wrote: "and to his other trials was added the fact that killed him,—the dishonesty of his publisher."[189]

When we consider that Wilson's entire working period on the _Ornithology_ was not over ten years, and that at the age of forty-seven he was called to lay down his pen and brush forever; that he produced in this brief space a work of great originality and charm, which did inestimable service in promoting the cause of natural history in both America and England, and which is likely to be read and prized for centuries to come, the achievement of this man is little short of marvelous. Knowing also the disabilities under which he labored, we are more than ready to temper our judgment with sympathy, and to overlook any faults which his character may have displayed. These indeed, we believe, were for the most part of a very trifling nature; those who knew Wilson best have all testified to his kindness of heart, his liberality, and his high sense of honor.

We must now return to the meeting of our two pioneers, which has been the bone of so much acrimonious contention. On his long journey to the Middle West and South, Wilson reached Louisville on a Saturday evening, the seventh of March, 1810, and put up at the tavern of the "Indian Queen," where, as it happened, Audubon was then living with his family; after spending five days in and about the town, he again set out on foot for Frankfort, on the morning of Friday, the twenty-third. Audubon has given the following account in the "Episode" of "Louisville in Kentucky":[190]

One fair morning, I was surprised by the sudden entrance into our counting-room [at Louisville] of Mr. Alexander Wilson, the celebrated author of the "American Ornithology," of whose existence I had never until that moment been apprised. This happened in March, 1810. How well do I remember him, as he then walked up to me! His long, rather hooked nose, the keenness of his eyes, and his prominent cheek-bones, stamped his countenance with a peculiar character. His dress, too, was of a kind not usually seen in that part of the country; a short coat, trousers, and a waistcoat of grey cloth. His stature was not above the middle size. He had two volumes under his arm, and as he approached the table at which I was working, I thought I discovered something like astonishment in his countenance. He, however, immediately proceeded to disclose the object of his visit, which was to procure subscriptions for his work. He opened his books, explained the nature of his occupations, and requested my patronage.

I felt surprised and gratified at the sight of the volumes, turned over a few of the plates, and had already taken a pen to write my name in his favour when my partner rather abruptly said to me in French, "My dear Audubon, what induces you to subscribe to this work? Your drawings are certainly far better, and again you must know as much of the habits of American birds as this gentleman." Whether Mr. Wilson understood French or not, or if the suddenness with which I paused, disappointed him, I cannot tell; but I clearly perceived that he was not pleased. Vanity and the encomiums of my friend prevented me from subscribing. Mr. Wilson asked me if I had many drawings of birds. I rose, took down a large portfolio, laid it on the table, and shewed him, as I would show you, kind reader, or any other person fond of such subjects, the whole of the contents, with the same patience with which he had shewn me his own engravings.

His surprise appeared great, as he told me he never had the most distant idea that any other individual than himself had been engaged in forming such a collection. He asked me if it was my intention to publish, and when I answered in the negative, his surprise seemed to increase. And, truly, such was not my intention; for, until long after, when I met the Prince of Musignano in Philadelphia, I had not the least idea of presenting the fruits of my labours to the world. Mr. Wilson now examined my drawings with care, asked if I should have any objections to lending him a few during his stay, to which I replied that I had none: he then bade me good morning, not, however, until I had made an arrangement to explore the woods in the vicinity along with him, and had promised to procure for him some birds, of which I had drawings in my collection, but which he had never seen.

It happened that he lodged in the same house with us, but his retired habits, I thought, exhibited either a strong feeling of discontent, or a decided melancholy. The Scotch airs which he played sweetly on his flute made me melancholy too, and I felt for him. I presented him to my wife and friends, and seeing that he was all enthusiasm, exerted myself as much as was in my power, to procure for him the specimens which he wanted. We hunted together, and obtained birds which he had never before seen; but, reader, I did not subscribe to his work, for, even at that time, my collection was greater than his. Thinking that perhaps he might be pleased to publish the results of my researches, I offered them to him, merely on condition that what I had drawn, or might afterwards draw and send to him, should be mentioned in his work, as coming from my pencil. I at the same time offered to open a correspondence with him, which I thought might prove beneficial to us both. He made no reply to either proposal, and before many days had elapsed left Louisville, on his way to New Orleans, little knowing how much his talents were appreciated in our little town, at least by myself and my friends.

Some time elapsed, during which I never heard of him, or of his work. At length, having occasion to go to Philadelphia, I, immediately after my arrival there, inquired for him and paid him a visit. He was then drawing a White-headed Eagle. He received me with civility, and took me to the Exhibition Rooms of Rembrandt Peale, the artist, who had then portrayed Napoleon crossing the Alps. Mr. Wilson spoke not of birds or drawings. Feeling, as I was forced to do, that my company was not agreeable, I parted from him; and after that I never saw him again. But judge of my astonishment some time after, when on reading the thirty-ninth page of the ninth volume of American Ornithology, I found in it the following paragraph:—

"March 23, 1810.—I bade adieu to Louisville, to which place I had four letters of recommendation, and was taught to expect much of everything there; but neither received one act of civility from those to whom I was recommended, one subscriber, nor one new bird; though I delivered my letters, ransacked the woods repeatedly, and visited all the characters likely to subscribe. Science or literature has not one friend in this place."

What actually happened at this meeting of the two naturalists will never be certainly known, beyond what can be gathered from their rather widely divergent accounts. It should be noticed, however, that the paragraph which Audubon quoted was extracted from Wilson's private diary; it was no doubt written on the spur of the moment, possibly to humor his own mood, and certainly with no thought of its later publication. It was inserted by George Ord in the biographical sketch of his friend appended to the ninth volume of the _American Ornithology_, which appeared in 1814, the year after Wilson's death. Audubon was not concerned, either directly or by implication, except in the last sentence, for it is evident that he was not one of those to whom Wilson had carried letters of introduction. Thus the matter stood until 1828, when Audubon's _Birds of America_ were being engraved in England. In all probability the incident would never have been noticed by Audubon, had not Ord seen fit to revive it when his life of Wilson[191] was issued as a separate volume in that year. In this edition of the biography Ord inserted fuller extracts from Wilson's journal, with the evident purpose of placing the rival of his friend in an unenviable light.

Wilson's diary, which apparently was never seen by any of Audubon's friends, is now known to us only through such extracts as Ord and Waterton, his bitter enemies, have seen fit to make public; the original has probably been destroyed, for it cannot be traced later than 1840, when it was still in the hands of George Ord.[192] Charles Waterton gave similar extracts from this famous journal in one of his philippics against Audubon in 1834, when he said that it was the testimony of this record that defeated Audubon's friends in their initial attempt to bring him into the Academy of Natural Sciences at Philadelphia. Wilson's narrative of his adventures at Louisville in 1810, as given by Ord and Waterton, is as follows:[193]

_March 17._ Take my baggage and grope my way to Louisville—put up at the Indian Queen tavern, and gladly sit down to rest myself.

_March 18._ Rise quite refreshed. Find a number of land-speculators here.[194]

_March 19._ Rambling round the town with my gun. Examined Mr.——'s drawings in crayons—very good. Saw two new birds he had, both Motacillæ.

_March 20._ Set out this afternoon with the gun—killed nothing new. [People in taverns here devour their meals. Many shopkeepers board in taverns—also boatmen, land-speculaters, merchants &c.] _No naturalist to keep me company._

_March 21._ Went out shooting this afternoon with Mr. A. Saw a number of Sandhill Cranes. Pigeons numerous.

_March 22._

_March 23._ Packed up my things which I left in the care of a merchant here, to be sent on to Lexington; and having parted with great regret, with my paroquet, to the gentleman of the tavern, I bade adieu to Louisville, to which place I had four letters of recommendation, and was taught to expect much of everything there, but neither received one act of civility from those to whom I was recommended, one subscriber, _nor one new bird_; though I delivered my letters, ransacked the woods repeatedly, and visited all the characters likely to subscribe. _Science or literature_ has _not one friend in this place_. [Everyone is so intent on making money, that they can talk of nothing else; and they absolutely devour their meals, that they may return sooner to their business. Their manners correspond with their features.]

In this fuller record we learn that Wilson spent five days in Louisville; he examined Audubon's drawings on Monday, March 19, hunted alone on the 20th, went out shooting with Audubon on the 21st, and finally left Louisville on the morning of the 23d; no record was admitted by Ord for Sunday, the 18th, or for the 22d, a Thursday. Wilson noticed the drawings of two new _Motacillæ_, or Warblers, in Audubon's collection, and it would have been only natural that he should have felt a strong desire to copy them, yet not a word was said about the loan of drawings to which Audubon refers; Wilson merely stated that from those to whom he was recommended he had received not "one act of civility,—one subscriber, nor one new bird." Audubon was evidently regarded as one of the "many shopkeepers" who boarded "in taverns," and not as a "naturalist," for Wilson said that he had none to keep him company, and it is rather significant that Audubon's name is not once mentioned in his _Ornithology_.

Twenty-nine years after Wilson's visit to Louisville, when Audubon came to publish the fifth and last volume of his _Ornithological Biography_, he maintained that Wilson had copied his drawing of a certain bird, called the Small-headed Flycatcher,[195] without any acknowledgment. To quote Audubon's words:

When Alexander Wilson visited me at Louisville, he found in my already large collection of drawings, a figure of the present species, which being at that time unknown to him he copied and afterwards published in his great work, but without acknowledging the privilege that had thus been granted to him. I have more than once regretted this, not by any means so much on my own account as for the sake of one to whom we are so deeply indebted for the elucidation of our ornithology.

This troublesome bird was first described by Wilson in 1812, when he rightly pronounced it "very rare," and said that the specimen from which his drawing was made had been shot in an orchard, presumably near Philadelphia, on the twenty-fourth day of April, and that several had been obtained also in New Jersey. His friend Ord, who came to his defense in 1840, confirmed this statement by declaring to the American Philosophical Society of Philadelphia that he had been with Wilson on the day in question and had examined the specimen. Lawson also affirmed that in engraving the plate he had worked directly from the bird which Wilson had given him.

What has become of this mysterious phantom that has been a wandering and disturbing voice among ornithologists for over a century? It has given rise to no end of conflicting and sharp discussions between the partisans of the two naturalists chiefly concerned, the only thing certain being that if this supposititious species ever existed, it has forsaken its old haunts, if not the earth itself, and has never returned. No doubt it was simply a case of mistaken identity, and both Wilson and Audubon were wrong, each having had in hand and mind an immature representative of one of our numerous Warblers, which are now so much better known.[196] If Wilson copied Audubon's drawing of the bird, he must have replaced it with one of his own, for the figures of the two naturalists are very unlike. Certainly Audubon should not have made so serious a charge without offering more substantial evidence in proof; perhaps what he had intended to convey was that Wilson had obtained from him his first knowledge of the bird, and he was nettled to find that he had been studiously ignored.[197]

Among the originals of Audubon's _Birds of America_ in possession of the Historical Society of New York, there is an early drawing of a Warbler which bears in pencil, in the naturalist's hand, the following note: "This bird was copied by Mr. Willson at Louisville."[198] The misspelling of Wilson's name, which was common with Audubon as late as 1820, would indicate that the note was not added after that time, but if Wilson copied this drawing, there is no evidence that he ever used it.

Ord made another charge in which Audubon does not appear to such good advantage; though it refers to a later day, it is best to consider it now. This critic thought that a complaint of misappropriation came with ill grace from one who had been guilty of it himself, and maintained that Audubon had copied Wilson's figures of the female Red-wing Blackbird (_The Birds of America_, Plate LXVII), and had also stolen his drawing of the Mississippi Kite (Plate CXVII). Ord was probably mistaken in regard to the blackbird, but without a doubt the lower bird in the Kite plate was taken from Wilson (_American Ornithology_, Plate 25), though the copyist has reversed the outlines, left out one of the toes, added minor details, and misnamed the sex, which in the Wilson original represents a male. Without a doubt also the odium in this case must fall upon Audubon, but we are not at all certain that he was directly responsible for the theft. Audubon's plate of this species, which is finished in elaborate detail, was probably published towards the close of 1831, when he was in America. He furnished his engraver, we believe, with the drawing of the upper bird only, which he designated as a male, and the original still exists, with clearly written notes showing that it was executed in Louisiana in 1821.[199]

Audubon usually made up his drawings for the engraver with great care, but when pressed for time, Havell's skill was such that he often depended upon him to complete or change his figures, to fill in backgrounds, or even to combine several distinct figures into one plate, specific directions for all such changes being usually written on the drawing itself.[200] Inasmuch as no penciled directions whatever occur on this particular drawing, is it possible that Havell, in piecing it out to improve the composition, followed his own initiative, not fully appreciating the stigma that is rightly attached to such methods? The bird in the lower half of the plate, which was appropriated from Wilson, is misrepresented as a female, so that the composite, as it stands, is a remarkable product, supposedly depicting a pair but in reality showing two males. Although the apparent difference in sex in this bird was admittedly slight, it is improbable that so gross an error could have escaped the naturalist's eye had he been directly concerned with the result.

When Audubon was descending the Mississippi in December, 1820, he saw the kites busily engaged "in catching small lizards off the bark of dead cypress trees," but "having at that time no crayons or paper," he "did not draw one, and determined," as he then wrote in his journal, "never to draw from a stuffed bird." "I first saw the Mississippi Kite," he added, when "ascending in the steamboat Paragon, in June, 1819." Wilson, on the other hand, in his knowledge of this interesting bird was far in advance of his later rival, for his first observations were made in 1810, "in the Mississippi territory, a few miles below Natchez, on the plantation of William Dunbar, esquire, when the bird represented in the plate was obtained, after being slightly wounded; and the drawing made with great care from the living bird." "For several miles, as I passed near Bayo Manchak," Wilson continues, "the trees were swarming with a kind of cicada, or locust, that made a deafening noise; and here I observed numbers of the Hawk now before us sweeping about among the trees like Swallows, evidently in pursuit of these locusts; so that insects, it would appear, are the principal food of this species."[201] Wilson never succeeded in procuring the female of this graceful hawk, and his editor, George Ord, evidently continued the quest, for we find his correspondent, John Abbot, writing him from "Scriven County Georgia Mar. 1814": "Are you acquainted with the female yet of the Louisiana Kite?"[202]

We have entered into the detailed history of this plate because of the unfavorable comment which it has provoked, but it is easier to be critical than to be either just or correct, and without more definite knowledge than we possess, it would be unfair to censure Audubon too much or to shift the blame too completely upon the shoulders of another.

To return again to the story of Wilson's diary, it is evident that Wilson would never have published his sentiments in the form in which they later appeared. They were perfectly characterized by a just critic of an early day,[203] who said that Wilson's words were without doubt written in a moment of keen depression and disappointment and were an exact description of his feelings, though, as we should also add, not of the facts. "A man who has given his heart to the accomplishment of an object, believing that he has no rival, must be somewhat more than human, if he be delighted to find that another is engaged in the same purpose, with equal energy and advantages far greater than his own." Barring his usual inaccuracies, it must be admitted that Audubon's account bears the thumbmarks of truth. He could not have known the bitter struggles of the proud spirit whose history we have briefly told; he saw only a stranger, an ardent devotee of nature, it is true, but a man of unbending disposition, who with a little more suavity of address could probably have won his friendship, if not his subscription. Of the literary quality of Wilson's work, now so well appreciated, he could have known nothing at all; after turning its pages in his Louisville store for the first time in 1810, he probably did not see it again for over ten years.

That Wilson was jealous of Audubon as a future rival is probable, but the real "rivalry" between these two pioneers was of later growth. It was fostered in this country chiefly by George Ord and some of his friends, together with others who were interested in the sale of Wilson's work. Ord, who seems to have felt that the mantle of this naturalist had fallen on his own shoulders, strove continually, and after 1826 with the aid of Charles Waterton in England, to hamper Audubon's progress, to discredit him as a man of integrity, and to break down his growing reputation as a naturalist. Though Ord was justified to some extent in his attacks upon Audubon which were made over Wilson's shoulders long after that estimable man was laid in the grave, the matter was carried too far. Neither of the rivals was wholly without fault, and a century is far too long to continue any quarrel, especially when one of those whose reputation was concerned was never a party to it.

Audubon, as we have seen, frankly attributed to personal vanity his failure to patronize Wilson's work, and added that "even at that time my collections were greater than his." But it should be noticed that money was far from plentiful with him at that moment. He was, in short, at the point of failure in the Louisville enterprise, and with Rozier was obliged to move down the river not long after the date of Wilson's visit. Audubon has been represented as at this time a well-to-do man of leisure, of fastidious tastes. Nothing could have been wider of the mark. He was still more of a sportsman than a naturalist, and when not occupied with drawing, he spent most of his time in the forest, to the neglect of his trade. We may be sure that he was quite as used to roughing it as any man on the frontier.