Audubon, John James, 1785-1851; Naturalists -- Biography; Scientists -- Biography
In early November he took the coach for Glasgow, he and three other
passengers making the entire journey without uttering a single word: "We
sat like so many owls of different species, as if afraid of one another."
Four days in Glasgow and only one subscriber.
Early in January he is back in London arranging with Mr. Havell for the
numbers to be engraved in 1828. One day on looking up to the new moon he
saw a large flock of wild ducks passing over, then presently another flock
passed. The sight of these familiar objects made him more homesick than
ever. He often went to Regent's Park to see the trees, and the green grass,
and to hear the sweet notes of the black birds and starlings.
The black birds' note revived his drooping spirits: to his wife he writes,
"it carries my mind to the woods around thee, my Lucy."
Now and then a subscriber withdrew his name, which always cut him to the
quick, but did not dishearten him.
"_January 28_. I received a letter from D. Lizars to-day announcing to
me the loss of four subscribers; but these things do not dampen my spirits
half so much as the smoke of London. I am as dull as a beetle."
In February he learned that it was Sir Thomas Lawrence who prevented the
British Museum from subscribing to his work: "He considered the drawings
so-so, and the engraving and colouring bad; when I remember how he praised
these same drawings _in my presence,_ I wonder--that is all."
The rudest man he met in England was the Earl of Kinnoul: "A small man with
a face like the caricature of an owl." He sent for Audubon to tell him that
all his birds were alike, and that he considered his work a swindle. "He
may really think this, his knowledge is probably small; but it is not the
custom to send for a gentleman to abuse him in one's own house." Audubon
heard his words, bowed and left him without speaking.
In March he went to Cambridge and met and was dined by many learned men.
The University, through its Librarian, subscribed for his work. Other
subscriptions followed. He was introduced to a judge who wore a wig that
"might make a capital bed for an Osage Indian during the whole of a cold
winter on the Arkansas River."
On his way to Oxford he saw them turn a stag from a cart "before probably a
hundred hounds and as many huntsmen. A curious land, and a curious custom,
to catch an animal and then set it free merely to catch it again." At
Oxford he received much attention, but complains that not one of the
twenty-two colleges subscribed for his work, though two other institutions
did.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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