CHAPTER XXI
DÉBUT AS A NATURALIST

Audubon makes his bow at Philadelphia—Is greeted with plaudits and cold water—Friendship of Harlan, Sully, Bonaparte and Harris—Hostility of Ord, Lawson and other friends of Alexander Wilson—A meeting of academicians—Visit to "Mill Grove"—Exhibits drawings in New York and becomes a member of the Lyceum—At the Falls of Niagara—In a gale on Lake Erie—Episode at Meadville—Walk to Pittsburgh—Tour of Lakes Ontario and Champlain—Decides to take his drawings to Europe—Descends the Ohio in a skiff—Stranded at Cincinnati—Teaching at St. Francisville.

In 1824 after five hard years of struggle and embarrassment, Audubon decided that the time had come to bring his labors to the light of day. At thirty-nine, he read and spoke two languages but was without adequate training in either; he had never written a line for publication, and to the scientific world he was a stranger. Though without a definite plan, he cherished the ardent hope of presenting the birds of his beloved America as he had depicted them, to the size of life, and with all the added interest and zest that a natural environment could give them.

To Philadelphia the naturalist now turned his steps, for that city was then a Mecca for scientific men. Leaving Shippingport in March, he reached the Quaker capital on the fifth day of April. There he purchased a new suit of clothes, and, dressed "with extreme neatness," paid his respects to Dr. William Mease, the one friend there whom he had known intimately in his younger and more prosperous days. It was primarily through this excellent man's interest that Audubon met the leading artists and scientific men of the city, including Thomas Sully, Robert and Rembrandt Peale, Richard Harlan, Charles Le Sueur, and Charles L. Bonaparte, the latter then a rising young ornithologist of one and twenty. It was Bonaparte who introduced Audubon to the Academy of Natural Sciences, where his drawings were exhibited and generally admired. Among his critics on that occasion was George Ord, who from their first interview seems to have looked upon the new luminary with jealous eyes. Whether this was true or not, there is no doubt that Ord became one of his few really bitter and implacable adversaries, and not many days elapsed before Audubon came to feel that many in Philadelphia would be glad to see him return to the backwoods of the Middle West, from which, like an apple of Sodom, he seemed suddenly to have dropped into their midst. Those who were most interested in the continued sale and success of Wilson's Ornithology, he declared, advised him not to publish anything, and threw not only cold water but ice upon all his plans. Thus began that unseemly rivalry, fostered for many years by George Ord in this country, between the friends of Alexander Wilson and those of John James Audubon, the dead embers of which are occasionally stirred even to this day.[299]

Ord, who was about Audubon's own age, was a quiet, persistent, and unassuming worker, held in high esteem by many of his associates. Audubon seems to have done his best to conciliate him then and at a later day, but all to no purpose; Dr. Harlan once advised him to give up the attempt, since Ord, he declared, had no heart for friendship, having been denied that blessing by nature herself. Ord, as we have seen, had edited the eighth and written the ninth, or concluding, volume of Wilson's American Ornithology, as well as a life of its author; the appearance of a new star in the ornithological horizon may not have been a welcome sight. At all events, we soon find him engaged upon a new edition of Wilson's work.[300] Ord had objected to Audubon's method of combining plants and other accessories with his drawings of birds, a criticism that in the case of purely technical works could be easily sustained, and some of his later charges, though carried too far, were not wholly without foundation.[301]

Bonaparte,[302] on the other hand, was captivated by Audubon's drawings and anxious to secure his services for his own work, then well in hand. This was the American Ornithology, for which Titian R. Peale was then making the drawings, and Thomas Lawson, who had been Wilson's engraver, was engaged on the plates; though quite distinct in itself, this was much in the style of Wilson's earlier work, of which it was virtually a continuation. When Bonaparte introduced Audubon to these men, it is not surprising that the meeting was not productive of the best of feeling on either side. Peale's stiff and rather conventional portraits of birds naturally failed to awaken enthusiasm in "the trader naturalist," as some who looked upon him as a rival rather contemptuously called him. The interview with Lawson, if correctly reported by his friend,[303] shows that his interest could not have been of the most disinterested sort. "Lawson told me," said this reporter, "that he spoke freely of the pictures, and said that they were ill drawn, not true to nature, and anatomically incorrect." Thereupon Bonaparte defended them warmly, saying that he would buy them and that Lawson should engrave them. "You may buy them," said the Scotchman, "but I will not engrave them ... because ornithology requires truth in the forms, and correctness in the lines. Here are neither." Other meetings are said to have followed, but to have ended only in mutual dislike. Nevertheless, one of Audubon's drawings was engraved by Lawson and appeared in Bonaparte's work,[304] but most of the figures in Bonaparte's concluding volumes were by the hand of a German named Alexander Rider. It was doubtless a fortunate circumstance that the prejudice and obstinacy of this overbearing Scot was a bar to any further absorption of Audubon's talents.[305]

Audubon met at this time a more appreciative engraver in Mr. Fairman, who urged him to take his drawings to Europe and have them engraved in a superior style; on July 12 the naturalist wrote that he had drawn "for Mr. Fairman a small grouse to be put on a banknote belonging to the State of New Jersey." By some lucky chance this incident brought him the acquaintance of Edward Harris,[306] whom he met that summer in Philadelphia, and who became one of his most constant and disinterested friends. It was Harris who a few days after their meeting took all of the drawings which Audubon had for sale and at the artist's own prices;[307] who for years was continually sending him rare or desirable specimens of birds; who accompanied him through the Southern States to Florida in 1837 and on the famous Missouri River Expedition in 1843. Edward Harris became a patron of science through his friendship with scientific men, and many besides Audubon were indebted to him for judicious advice as well as more substantial benefits.