While critics were driving the pen, Audubon was hard at work in the field, but his friends did not long remain silent. Favorable notices of his work, actual or prospective, had appeared in the scientific and literary press of England, by David Brewster, Robert Jameson, William Swainson, and "Christopher North" of _Blackwood's Magazine_. The first American notice appeared in the _American Journal of Science_ for 1829, and this was followed by G. W. Featherstonhaugh, the English geologist, in his recently established but short-lived _Monthly American Journal of Geology and Natural Science_, to which we have already referred.[73] A little later the London _Athenæum_ gave the first of eleven extended articles on Audubon's work; in reviewing his second volume of letterpress, which appeared in 1834, the writer said: "There is amply sufficient remaining in Audubon's pages for fully a dozen more notices, were we disposed to follow the exhausting system. We have admired Audubon's gorgeous drawings, but our interest in them has been increased a thousand fold, in knowing that they are the spoils of a life's campaign."[74] Again a series of able articles was started by a just critic, W. B. O. Peabody, in the _North American Review_ for April, 1832.[75] Featherstonhaugh deserves credit for having given Audubon a fair hearing at a critical time, when baiting the American Woodsman was a popular pastime in certain circles at Philadelphia; in reviewing the _Ornithological Biography_ in 1832, this plain spokesman gave what he called "a true history of a conspiracy, got up to utterly break down and ruin the reputation of one of the most remarkable men America ever produced."[76] Audubon's silence under fire of hostile criticism tempted someone in the capacity of a reporter to call on him in London to obtain, if possible, a personal statement, but his lips were then sealed and he would only say: "Had I wished to invent marvels, I need not have stirred from my garret in New York or London." However, in writing to Featherstonhaugh from Bulowville, East Florida, December 31, 1831, Audubon made this comment:[77]