object purely tasteful and scientific in its nature, he had little reason to complain. Of the one hundred and seventy subscribers of a thousand dollars each to his great work, eighty were his own countrymen ; and his declining years were passed in independence and comfort in the midst of an affectionate and thriving family, the participants of his taste. His elasticity of temperament, also, was not less a distinction than a blessing; it supported his wearisome and lonely wanderings, both in search of birds in the forest and of encouragement among men; and, when the labor of years was destroyed, after a brief interval of mental anguish, it nerved him to renewed labor, so that in three years his portfolio was again filled.

Audubon's birth-place was Louisiana, but he determined to emigrate, and selected the village of Henderson, in Kentucky, for his new home. In the autumn of 1810 he floated down the Ohio, in an open skiff, with his wife, child, and two negroes, his mattress, viands, and rifle, happy in the prospect of nearer and more undisturbed intercourse with Nature and intensely enjoying the pomp of the autumnal woods, the haze of the Indian summer, and the wildness and solitude around him. The locality chosen proved adequate to his aims; day after day, with his dog, gun, and box of pencils and colors, he made excursions, now shooting down a fresh subject, now delineating its hues and form; one moment peering into a nest, and at another scaling a cliff, for hours watching the conduct of a pair of birds, as, unconscious that their doings were to be set in a note book, they constructed a graceful nest, fed their young, or trilled a spontaneous melody. Over streams, through tangled brush-wood, amid swamps, and in stony ravïnes, beneath tempest, sunshine, and starlight, the indefatigable wanderer thus lived; the wild beast, the treacherous Indian, the gentle moon, and the lowly wild-flower, sole witnesses of his curious labor.

Audubon returned from Europe to prosecute his ornithological researches with fresh zest and assiduity; and his first expedition was to the coast of Florida, where he made rich additions to his portfolio among the sea-fowl of that region. He afterwards successfully explored Maine, the British Provinces, and the ice-clad and desolate shores of Labrador. The most remarkable and happiest era of his life was, doubtless, that employed in collecting the materials, executing the pictures, and obtaining the subscribers to his "Birds of America." His wanderings previously have the interest of adventure, and the charm derived from the indulgence of a passionate love of Nature; and his subsequent excursions, and artistic labors, in behalf of the work on the "Quadrupeds of America," begun in 1842, afford pleasing evidence of his enduring taste and noble perseverance. But the period included by his ornithological enterprise is more characteristic and satisfactory. He had a great end in view, and the

wildest forest and most unfrequented shores, the highest and most cultivated sphere of society, and the most patient and delicate limning, were the means of its realization; and it is when contemplating him in this three-fold relation that we learn to appreciate the mingled hardihood, enthusiasm, firmness, and dignity, so remarkably united in his character.

In the woods a genial companion, a single-hearted, kind, and generous friend, as well as a child-like enthusiast and manly sportsman, he stood before the council of an institution with his first delineation, the bald-headed eagle,—or opened his portfolio to the inspection of an English nobleman in his lordly castle, with quiet self-possession, an independent air, and without exhibiting the least solicitude either for patronage or approbation. Arriving at a frontier village, after a tramp of months in the wilderness, his long beard, tattered leather dress, and keen eye, made him an object of idle wonder or impatient gossip; but none imagined that this grotesque hunterartist enjoyed the honors of all the learned society of Europe. His exultation at the discovery of a new species, and his satisfaction at the correct finish and elegant verisimilitude of a specimen, amply recompensed him for days of exposure or ill-success. On his journey from the south, he kept pace with the migration of the birds; and he proclaimed the Washington sea-eagle to his country and the scientific world with the pride and delight of a conqueror.

There was something bird-like in the very physiognomy of Audubon, in the shape and keenness of his eye, the aquiline form of the nose, and a certain piercing and vivid expression when animated. He was thoroughly himself only amid the freedom and 'exuberance of nature; the breath of the woods exhilarated and inspired him; he was more at ease under a canopy of boughs than beneath gilded cornices, and felt a necessity to be within sight either of the horizon

or the sea.

The popular basis of Audubon's renown, as well as the individuality of his taste as a naturalist, rests upon artistic merit. The life size of his delineations, their wonderful accuracy, the beauty of their hues, and the animation of their aspect, instantly secured for the backwoodsman artist universal praise; but a minute inspection revealed yet higher claims; each plate, in fact, is an epitome of the natural history of the species depicted; male and female, young and adult, are grouped together, their plumage at different seasons, the vegetation they prefer, the soil, the food, sometimes the habits, and often the prey, of each bird are thus indicated; and we take in at a glance, not only the figure, but the peculiarities of the genus. This completeness of illustration, the result of vast study, united as it is with grace and brilliancy of execution, led the great naturalist of France to declare that America had achieved a work unequaled in

i

Europe. No lover of Nature, whether poet or osavan, can contemplate these exquisite and vivid pictures in a foreign country, without delight and gratitude; for, without any exertion on his part, they introduce him to an intimate acquaintance with the varied and numerous birds which haunt the woods, sky, and waters between Labrador and Florida, in hue, outline, and action, as vivid and true as those of nature; and their intrinsic value as memorials is enhanced by the consideration that a rapid disappearance of whole species of birds has been observed to attend the progress of civilization on this continent. H. T. TUCKERMAN.

CCXXII.-HYMN ON THE SEASONS.

THESE, as they change, Almighty Father, these
Are but the varied God. The rolling year
Is full of thee. Forth in the pleasing Spring
Thy beauty walks, thy tenderness and love.
Wide flush the fields; the softening air is balm;
Echo the mountains round; the forest smiles;
And every sense and every heart is joy.
Then comes thy glory in the Summer months,
With light and heat refulgent. Then thy sun
Shoots full perfection through the, swelling year :
And oft thy voice in dreadful thunder speaks,
And oft at dawn, deep noon, or falling eve,
By brooks and groves in hollow whispering gales.
Thy bounty shines in Autumn unconfined,
And spreads a common feast for all that lives.
In Winter awful thou! with clouds and storms
Around thee thrown, tempest o'er tempest rolled,
Majestic darkness! On the whirlwind's wing
Riding sublime, thou bidst the world adore,
And humblest nature with thy northern blast.

Mysterious round! what skill, what force divine,
Deep felt, in these appear! a simple train,
Yet so delightful mixed, with such kind art,
Such beauty and beneficence combined;
Shade unperceived so softening into shade;
And all so forming an harmonious whole,
That, as they still succeed, they ravish still.
But wandering oft, with rude unconscious gaze,
Man marks not thee, marks not the mighty hand

That, ever busy, wheels the silent spheres ;
Works in the secret deep; shoots steaming thence
The fair profusion that o'er-spreads the Spring;
Flings from the sun direct the flaming day;
Feeds every creature; hurls the tempest forth,
And, as on earth this grateful change revolves,
With transport touches all the springs of life.

Nature, attend! join, every living soul
Beneath the spacious temple of the sky,
In adoration join; and ardent raise
One general song! To Him, ye vocal gales,
Breathe soft, whose spirit in your freshness breathes.
Oh talk of Him in solitary glooms,

Where o'er the rock the scarcely waving pine
Fills the brown shade with a religious awe.
And ye, whose bolder note is heard afar,

Who shake the astonished world, lift high to heaven
The impetuous song, and say from whom you rage.
His praise, ye brooks, attune, ye trembling rills;
And let me cătch it as I muse along.

Ye headlong torrents rapid and profound;
Ye softer floods, that lead the humid maze
Along the vale; and thou, majestic main,
A secret world of wonders in thyself,

Sound his stupendous praise, whose greater voice
Or bids you roar, or bids your roaring fall.

Soft roll your incense, herbs, and fruits, and flowers,
In mingled clouds to Him, whose sun exalts,

Whose breath perfumes you, and whose pencil paints.
Ye forests bend, ye harvests wave to Him;
Breathe your still song into the reaper's heart,
As home he goes beneath the joyous moon.

Ye that keep watch in heaven, as earth asleep
Unconscious lies, effuse your mildest beams;
Ye constellations, while your angels strike,
Amid the spangled sky, the silver lyre.
Great source of day! blest image here below
Of thy Creator, ever pouring wide,
From world to world, the vital ocean round,
On nature write with every beam His praise.
The thunder rolls: be hushed the prostrate world,
While cloud to cloud returns the solemn hymn.
Bleat out afresh, ye hills; ye mossy rocks,
Retain the sound; the broad responsive low,

Ye valleys, raise; for the Great Shepherd reigns,
And his unsuffering kingdom yet will come.
Ye woodlands, all awake! A boundless song
Bursts from the groves; and when the restless day,
Expiring, lays the warbling world asleep,
Sweetest of birds! sweet °Philomela, charm
The listening shades, and teach the night His praise.

Ye chief, for whom the whole creation smiles,
At once the head, the heart, the tongue of all,
Crown the great hymn! in swarming cities vast,
Assembled men to the deep organ join

The long-resounding voice, oft breaking clear
At solemn pauses, through the swelling base;
And, as each mingling flame increases each,
In one united ardor rise to heaven.

Or if you rather choose the rural shade,
And find a fane in every sacred grove,
There let the shepherd's flute, the virgin's lay,
The prompting seraph, and the poet's lyre,
Still sing the God of seasons as they roll.

For me, when I forget the darling theme,
Whether the blossom blows, the Summer ray
Russets the plain, inspiring Autumn gleams,
Or winter rises in the blackening east-
Be my tongue mute, my fancy paint no more,
And, dead to joy, forget my heart to beat.
Should fate command me to the farthest verge
Of the green earth, to distant barbarous climes,
Rivers unknown to song; where first the sun
Gilds Indian mountains, or his setting beam
Flames on the Atlantic isles, 'tis naught to m;
Since God is ever present, ever felt,

In the void waste as in the city full;

And where he vital breathes, there must be joy
When even at last the solemn hour shall come,
And wing my mystic flight to future worlds,
I cheerful will obey; there with new powers,
Will rising wonders sing. I cannot go
Where universal love not smiles around,
Sustaining all yon orbs, and all their suns;
From seeming evil still °educing good,
And better thence again, and better still,
In infinite progression. But I lose