The Bonaparte Audubons

The Bonaparte Audubons at the Amon Carter Museum and the Friendship of John James Audubon and Charles Lucien Bonaparte

William S. Reese
Collector and dealer, New Haven, Connecticut

This essay is an excursion in provenance rather than printmaking: it illustrates how an investigation into the previous ownership of a group of prints may lead into and relate with interesting historical and biographical paths. In this case the prints are the so-called “Bonaparte Audubons” owned by the Amon Carter Museum since 1965. These prints, the first fifteen plates of John James Audubon’s massive Birds of America, were presented by the naturalist in 1827 to his distinguished friend, Charles Lucien Bonaparte, nephew of the Emperor Napoleon and one of the leading ornithologists of the time. I will discuss later how it happened that Bonaparte never saw these particular plates, but a study of the circumstances surrounding the gift and its non-delivery leads inevitably to an investigation of the long, strange relationship of Audubon and Bonaparte and their many fallings-out and fallings-in in the two decades that they were in correspondence.

Audubon and Bonaparte first met in Philadelphia on April 10, 1824. Each was the caretaker of a growing reputation in American natural history, particularly ornithology. Audubon, then thirty-nine, had spent nearly all of the previous seventeen years on the frontier as a storekeeper, artist, and amateur ornithologist. Notably unsuccessful in his business enterprises, he finally turned to portraiture and drawing lessons to support his family and his enthusiasm for birds. In the four years preceding his trip to Philadelphia, Audubon had devoted most of his immense energies to the latter. Although he later said that he had no thoughts of seeking publication when he made his Philadelphia pilgrimage, this seems most unlikely. Nearly penniless, and with his wife working to help feed the family, Audubon picked an inauspicious time to make so long a trip unless he had some ambition of this sort. Philadelphia was the most active city in the country in publishing and in the study of natural history. The only course Audubon could pursue, if he wished to continue his work on birds, was to find some scheme for profitable publication of his drawings. Arriving in Philadelphia, he sought out the eminent Dr. James Mease, an old friend of his wife’s family. Mease received him cordially, and set out to introduce the black-suited, long-haired Audubon to the figures of the artistic and natural historical world. One of the first of these was Charles Bonaparte.

At the time of his first meeting with Audubon, Charles Lucien Jules Laurent Bonaparte, prince of Musignano by virtue of a papal decree, was just twenty-one years old. He was born in Paris in 1803, the result of the union of Lucien Bonaparte, brother of Napoleon, and his mistress. The child was legitimated later in the year by marriage, greatly to the displeasure of Napoleon, who had planned for Lucien to marry the widow of the king of Etruria. Lucien and family moved to Rome, where they were under the protection of Pope Pius VII until 1809, when the pontiff’s imprisonment by Napoleon caused them to flee for America. They did not get far, being seized by the English navy and interned in England from 1810 to 1814. After Napoleon’s exile the family returned to Italy, where Pius VII granted both father and son princely titles. In 1822 Charles married his cousin Zenaïde, daughter of Joseph, the sometime king of Spain. Joseph had moved to America after the collapse of the Napoleonic Empire, settling on an estate near Bordentown, New Jersey, about thirty miles from Philadelphia. He brought with him one of the first fine collections of European paintings to come to America. In the spring of 1823 his daughter and nephew cum son-in-law left Europe and moved to Bordentown. Charles Bonaparte was twenty, and swiftly developing an interest in ornithology. A contemporary described him as “a little set, black-eyed fellow, quite talkative, and withal interesting and companionable,” bearing some resemblance to his famous uncle. If he was companionable, he was also conscious of his imperial heritage, and insisted on having his manservant address him as “Your Royal Highness.”

In 1824 Bonaparte was more frequently in Philadelphia than at Bordentown, enthusiastically pursuing his interest in ornithology. During the spring he delivered four papers at the Academy of Natural Sciences, two on species of birds not described by Wilson, and two on “Observations on the nomenclature of Wilson’s Ornithology.” He had begun a large work, a supplement to Alexander Wilson’s nine-volume work of 1808-1814, describing birds not noted by Wilson. Classification and nomenclature were his forte, not field work. His talents were the opposite of Audubon’s, whose greatest abilities were in finding and drawing specimens in the field, but who was never sure of himself in assigning Latin names.

It was, therefore, a meeting ripe with potential when Dr. Mease introduced the two ornithologists. On the night of April 10, Audubon scribbled in his journal: “I was introduced to the son of Lucien Bonaparte,…a great ornithologist I was told. He remained two hours, went out, and returned with two Italian gentlemen, and their comments made me very contented.” Bonaparte was wholeheartedly enthusiastic about Audubon’s watercolors; he was the first major colleague in natural history to react so favorably, though both John Vanderlyn and Thomas Sully had praised his artistic ability. The Prince was in a position to offer Audubon work. The first volume of his American Ornithology, the supplement to Wilson, was in the works. Titian Peale and a German artist, Alexander Rider, were providing the illustrations. Peale was an asset because he knew something of natural history through his father’s museum, and because he had been an artist for Major Stephen Long’s 1819-1820 expedition to the Rocky Mountains, during which he saw some previously unrecorded western species. On the other hand, his representations of birds were stiff and unnatural compared to Audubon’s. Bonaparte began to consider a change of illustrators.

Not all of the Philadelphia scientific establishment took Audubon to their hearts as Bonaparte did. The Prince brought his new friend to a meeting of the Academy of Natural Sciences, and some opposing voices were heard. Most notable among these was George Ord. Ord had completed the ninth volume of Wilson’s work after the death of his friend, attaching a biography at some points fulsome in its praise. He saw Audubon as a possible competitor to Wilson’s supremacy, and a damper to his own reputation. The dramatic poses of Audubon’s birds seemed to him artificial and unnatural. In time Ord became one of Audubon’s most vociferous critics, blocking his admission to the academy and attacking the artist throughout his career. Others shared Ord’s view that Audubon was a back-country upstart who romanticized his subject matter.

Many of the characters in the natural history world of the early nineteenth century seem to have been highly opinionated. Remarks, spoken and published, which would be overlooked today, provoked major feuds which strike us as tempests in teapots. However, social strata were much more sharply drawn in the 1820s and 1830s. Many aficionados of natural history belonged to the upper classes and the social and educational elite. Natural history was a pursuit of leisure. To some, Audubon was a romantic figure; to others, a yokel. Second, the doings of an institution like the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia were of greater general note then, as compared to now. The scene was a smaller pond; each new publication was accorded far greater public perusal than equivalent works would be today. In short, the scientific men of the day were proud of their knowledge and position, and not a little touchy.

Bonaparte took Audubon to meet Alexander Lawson, the bluff Scotch engraver who had encouraged Alexander Wilson early in his career and engraved the plates for Wilson’s work. Roused from bed to meet the Prince and his guest, Lawson was indifferent to Audubon’s work and bridled at the suggestion by Bonaparte that Wilson’s came off badly by comparison. “You may buy them but I will never engrave them,” Lawson told the prince. “Ornithology requires truth and correct lines – here are neither.” Undaunted, the two ornithologists returned in the afternoon with Audubon’s drawing of the boat-tailed grackle, which they wished Lawson to engrave. Again the engraver had biting comments. “This is a species of crow I never saw,” he remarked, “I think your work extraordinary for one self-taught, but we in Philadelphia are used to seeing very correct drawing.” Audubon angrily replied that he had studied for some years with David. This was a dangerous lie to tell in front of a Bonaparte, even an exiled one, for he never had. Lawson’s reply ended the interview: “Then you made some bad use of your time.” Despite such palpable hostility Lawson engraved the plate, and it appeared as the fourth plate in the first volume of Bonaparte’s American Ornithology, issued in late 1825. It is quite possible that the work was retouched or redrawn somewhat by Alexander Rider; certainly its lines in the engraving are similar to his other work in the same publication. This retouching might explain Lawson’s engraving of the plate, and Audubon’s later anger at seeing the volume. In any case it was Audubon’s first published print, preceded only by a drawing of a grouse he executed for a Pennsylvania bank note, which appeared the same year.

Audubon remained in Philadelphia until August 1824. Bonaparte was certainly his greatest friend in the city during his stay. The Prince was willing to propose a joint publication, with text by himself and illustrations by Audubon. The artist felt that his lore of habits and incidents could stand by itself, and he was unwilling to give up such valuable material. He sought aid from Bonaparte in publishing only plates, which he already envisioned on a large scale. The Prince would not agree, and the friends parted on an amiable impasse.

From Philadelphia Audubon traveled to New York, where on August 11 he read his first scholarly paper before the Lyceum of Natural History. By chance, his second encounter with Bonaparte took place in Battery Park, where Audubon ran into the Prince, his wife Princess Zenaïde, her sister Princess Charlotte, and their father Joseph. The Prince requested bird skins from Louisiana and some notes on the habits of the wild turkey. Later, when the relationship between the two men was strained, Audubon wrote in his notes on the turkey: “A long account of this remarkable bird has already been given in Bonaparte’s American Ornithology, vol. I. As that account was in good measure derived from notes furnished by myself, you need not be surprised, good reader, to find it often in accordance with the above.” At the time, the artist was happy to supply the notes for his friend. His observations on the turkey were left in a packet at City Hall when Audubon returned to Louisiana.

Raw knowledge of birds and their habits was a rare thing in this period, and was one of Audubon’s strongest suits. His advantage was that he had actually seen the birds; Bonaparte and other closet ornithologists worked mainly from skins and descriptions. Audubon guarded his knowledge jealously until he could commit it to print. Bonaparte, on the other hand, received skins from a number of sources, and sometimes had ones Audubon wished to paint from. This hoarding of information eventually created tension between the two.

Back in Louisiana in the spring of 1825, Audubon wrote Bonaparte: “I have often repeated to you that I drew birds and studied their habits for pleasures sake, indeed before I went to Phila. the idea never entered my head to have anything to do with Publishing….” The Prince, he implied, had put the idea in his mind. It seems likely that Audubon had publishing very much in his mind when he went to Philadelphia, but crediting Bonaparte was certainly flattering to a possible patron. In October he informed the Prince that he intended to go to Europe in the spring of 1826 to exhibit his watercolors.

The first dissension marring the friendship came with the publication of the first volume of Bonaparte’s American Ornithology. The Prince sent Audubon a copy, and he responded warmly: “It would be difficult for me to express my thanks to you as I feel them, for your friendly presentation of the first volume of your work.” Apparently so, for in correspondence with others Audubon was less than generous. He wrote Reuben Haines, a mutual friend in Philadelphia, vigorously attacking the work. This assault may have been prompted by the retouching of the boat-tailed grackle plate by Rider without the consent or knowledge of Audubon. Whatever the cause for the disaffection, Haines was not the one to confide in, for he forwarded Audubon’s letter to Bonaparte. Its contents, Bonaparte wrote to his friend William Cooper of New York, were

“the harshest, most selfish censure….Bad as it may be, it does not deserve such a treatment….He does not even grant me the honor of my errors. I have been misled, betrayed, says he, and if I had confided in him instead of having my pretended work written by Mr. Say (who, after all, says he, is but a man of wit) he would have stamped his hand upon it, whilst now it is altogether in contradiction with it! I have one part of his remarks which I read yesterday to several members of the Academy.”

This would sound as if the Audubon-Bonaparte friendship had ended as abruptly as it began. But there was much sanctimony yet to come. Audubon continued blithely along as if he had never written the letter to Haines, certainly unaware that Bonaparte had seen it. He continued to write to the Prince from Louisiana, and mailed him a letter on May 16, 1826, shortly before sailing for Liverpool from New Orleans. He sent another from England in late August. The volume of American Ornithology was in Audubon’s luggage, and he showed it to numerous people in England. As he discovered, the Bonaparte name was a valuable asset in England, where the magnanimous British, having subdued Napoleon, now considered his kin romantic. Of course, the Prince’s particular branch of the family had spent four years in England, during which they undoubtedly made acquaintances. In later October, seriously planning a publication, Audubon wrote the Prince to ask if he and his uncle would allow their names to be included on a list of subscribers, hastening to add that this would entail no obligation to buy – he sought only the prestige attached to their good will.

On October 25, 1826 Audubon arrived in Edinburgh. Within the week he met William Lizars, one of the foremost engravers in the city, who was completely overwhelmed by the quality of Audubon’s work. In a few days arrangements had been made for Lizars to begin engraving the plates for the Birds of America. In general, Audubon was well received in Edinburgh. He was feted by the leaders of science and society, his exhibition was popular, and he was lionized as a noble savage of sorts – an image he did his best to cultivate. On December 7, the same day that the proofs of the first two plates were given him by Lizars, Audubon read in the newspapers that Charles Bonaparte had landed in Liverpool. Now that he too was published, the artist felt on a more equal footing. He quickly wrote Bonaparte, wishing to send him a complete number of five plates when published. Audubon was briefly worried when he did not receive a reply, but a few days later the Bonaparte family doctor showed up in Edinburgh and brought regards from the Prince.

It was not until June 1827 that Audubon and Bonaparte crossed paths again. Audubon remained in Edinburgh several weeks after the first number was completed, leaving March 24. He traveled south slowly, canvassing for subscriptions, and reached London May 21. On June 18 he returned to his lodging to find a note telling him Bonaparte was in town. Audubon was delighted: “We were pleased to meet each other on this distant shore. His fine head was not altered, his mustachios, his bearded chin, his keen eye, all was the same. He wished to see my drawings, and I, for the first time since I had been in London, had pleasure in showing them. Charles at once subscribed, and I felt really proud of this.” Four days later Bonaparte called in the evening with the naturalist Nicholas Vigors and others. The Prince offered to give the correct names to Audubon’s unnamed birds, and “actually christened upwards of fifty.” This display of ability made Audubon think again of collaboration: “Oh, that our knowledge could be arranged in a solid mass. I am sure that the best ornithological publication of the birds of my beloved country might be published.” The idea was apparently broached, but again there was no way to contain the two egos on one title page.

Before the end of June Bonaparte left London for Liverpool to sail back to America. He brought with him the first number of five plates of the Birds of America, colored by Lizars. These five are not part of the group now owned by the Amon Carter Museum, nor were they the first Audubon plates to reach America. The Prince left Audubon with the impression that he was returning to America to stay; in fact, he was going back to close his affairs before moving back to Italy. Audubon did not learn this until December.

In the meantime, problems had arisen with Lizars. On the same day that Bonaparte first called on Audubon in London, a letter came from Lizars to say that his colorers had gone on strike. Three days later another letter informed Audubon that Lizars did not want to continue with the work. After the production of only two numbers, the Birds of America seemed stalled. Audubon had the prints of the first ten plates – colored or uncolored – shipped to London. By the end of July, he had met the Havells and arranged for the father and son to take over production of the elephant folio. The Havells were cheaper than Lizars, and in Audubon’s opinion did much better work. The half-complete state in which materials were sent from Edinburgh, and later restrikes by the Havells to improve on Lizars, account for the many variants found in the first ten plates. Audubon and Lizars parted amiably, when the artist returned to Edinburgh later in the year and showed the engraver a sample of Havell work. Lizars “admired them much; called his workmen, and observed to them that the London artists beat them completely.”

Waldemar Fries, in his work The Double Elephant Folio, devotes a chapter to discussing the variants in the legends of the first ten plates. Not all of the plates were struck at one time, and it is not unusual, especially among the earlier plates, for the Whatman paper to bear a watermark later than the date given on the legend. All of the Amon Carter plates are on Whatman paper watermarked 1826 or 1827. All measure a full 26 1/2 by 39 1/2 inches. The Bonaparte-Amon Carter group contains the apparent first Lizars issue of plates 1, 3, 4, 5, and 6, with the Lizars-Havell first issue of 7, 8, 9, and 10. Plate 2, the yellow-billed cuckoo, is notable because the first Lizars issue of this plate misnamed the bird “Black-billed Cuckoo,” with the Latin name for that species. In some copies, “Black-billed” and the Latin proper name are erased and replaced in manuscript (figs. 1 and 2). This is the case with four copies located by Fries, the Amon Carter plate, and a plate in my possession.

On September 7, 1827, William Cooper of New York wrote to Bonaparte at his Bordentown home welcoming him back from Europe. Cooper was an old friend of the Prince, a collaborator on the American Ornithology project and a distinguished member of the New York Lyceum of Natural History, where he had been recording secretary. After Bonaparte’s removal to Italy he served as the Prince’s American agent and saw the second, third, and fourth volumes of American Ornithology through publication. In his letter, Cooper asked if Bonaparte could show him the first number of Audubon’s work. “There has been a copy of Audubon’s no. 1 in this city for some time, but I have not seen it,” he wrote. This copy probably belonged to Miss Harriet Douglas, a New York heiress who was in Edinburgh in the spring of 1827. Audubon had noted in his journal: “Called on Miss D—, the fair American. To my surprise I saw the prints she had received the evening before quite abused and tumbled. This, however, was not my concern, and I regretted it only on her account, that so little care should be taken of a book that in fifty years will be sold at immense prices because of its rarity.” In any case, by late October Cooper had seen Miss Douglas’s rumpled set. “I have heard so much of the drawings,” he wrote Bonaparte, “that I was much disappointed with the engravings. The Turkey is very good indeed, at least the drawing. The cuckoo makes a pretty picture, but like the others the artist’s study has been more for effect than accuracy.

In the meantime, the Havells moved swiftly into production. Sometime in late September or October Audubon sent the first three numbers, or fifteen plates of the Birds of America to Bonaparte via New York. These are the same plates not owned by the Amon Carter Museum. He sent a second set of the first number since he felt that “the first number you took with you to America was very indifferently coloured.” On December 1 Audubon himself put Bonaparte’s fourth number on the boat at Liverpool. After he shipped this group of plates he heard from mutual friends, the Rathbones of Liverpool, that Bonaparte intended to move to Italy. He immediately wrote the Prince a letter requesting a new address and regretting that his friend would no longer reside in America. He added that the Birds of America was firmly established, with 125 subscribers. The letter finally reached Bonaparte in Italy five months later. Before the end of 1827 Audubon sent one more number to America, making a total of twenty-five plates. Since only fifteen are at the Amon Carter, what happened to the other ten?

Apparently, the plates were shipped tightly rolled in an oblong wooden box. The Amon Carter Museum owns the box in which its fifteen plates were found. Flat shipping crates were probably used for whole volumes, but for a few numbers, the oblong box may have been the forerunner of today’s mailing tube.

Any items coming into the United States at New York had to clear the customs house there. On November 11, Cooper wrote to Bonaparte, “You have certainly not been well-treated at our Customs house, but I am afraid you have no redress….” Troubles with the customs are mentioned several times in their correspondence of November and December, which is mostly concerned with work on the second and third volumes of American Ornithology. Immediately after Christmas 1827, the Prince departed from Bordentown for Washington. Cooper wrote him on the last day of the year, saying he had ascertained that there were boxes of books for Bonaparte in the customs house, although he was not sure of their contents. In any case, it was “…too late to send anything of that kind to Norfolk,” where the Prince was taking ship. Thus the prints languished in the customs while Bonaparte sailed on the U.S.S. Delaware in mid-February. He arrived at Leghorn on April 14, 1828 to discover from Audubon’s much-forwarded letter that his plates were in New York. He immediately wrote Cooper apprising him of this, and Cooper must have recovered the plates shortly thereafter. Since Bonaparte never returned to the United States, it is evident that when Cooper recovered the missing plates, he kept them. He never subscribed to the Birds of America. The plates stayed in the family until Cooper’s grandson, Hermann F. Cuntz, offered them to the American Philosophical Society in 1943. The Society did not buy them, and they were eventually purchased by Rockwell Gardiner, a well-known Connecticut book and antique dealer, who sold them to Harry Shaw Newman of the Old Print Shop in New York. They were purchased by the Amon Carter Museum from Newman in 1965.

When Audubon finally heard from Bonaparte in Italy he was apologetic for the confusion and sent a set of the Birds completed to that time, thirty-five plates in all. Their friend Rathbone had shown Audubon a letter from Bonaparte saying that “I have shown his first [number] everywhere within my reach in the States, where no other copy was to be found.” This pleased Audubon greatly; he thanked the Prince and requested copies of the new volumes of his work.

Such good feeling could not last. On December 29, 1829, Audubon sent the Prince the next three numbers of the Birds. The first plate of this group, Plate 36, was named “Stanley’s Hawk” after Lord Stanley, the Earl of Derby, an amateur naturalist and patron of Audubon. It was in fact a Cooper’s Hawk, named by Bonaparte after his friend Cooper, and is known by that name today. Bonaparte was indignant and affronted. He protested the change of the name to Audubon, and to Cooper he wrote that only thirty-six of the first forty-five plates were correctly named. When Audubon arrived back in New York in May 1829, after three years in Europe, Cooper received him very coolly.

Audubon was outwardly apologetic about his “lack of classical education” and his errors in naming birds (which were considerable), but he nursed resentment. He felt Bonaparte, an armchair ornithologist who had never gotten his hands dirty, was presumptuous in referring constantly to The Genera of North American Birds…, the first systematic assigning of North American species, which Bonaparte had assembled with Cooper’s aid and which the New York Lyceum of Natural History had published in 1826. Audubon was not adverse to naming species himself – he even named one, the Bonaparte Flycatcher, after the Prince (fig. 3) – but in the introduction to the first volume of his Ornithological Biography (the text written to accompany the Birds and published in 1831), Audubon indulged in some remarks on assigners of names:

“Since I became acquainted with Mr. Alexander Wilson, the celebrated author of the well-known and duly appreciated work on American Birds, and subsequently with my excellent friend, Charles Lucien Bonaparte, I have been aware of the keenness with which every student of Natural History presses forward to describe an object of his discovery, or that may have occurred to travellers in distant countries. There seems to be a glory in doing this, that thrusts aside every other consideration; and I really believe that the ties of friendship itself would not prevent some naturalists from even robbing an old acquaintance of the merit of first describing a previously unknown object. Although I have certainly felt very great pleasure, when, on picking up a bird, I discovered it to be new to me, yet I have never known the desire above alluded to.”

Bonaparte was deeply offended, as Audubon must have realized he would be. They did not correspond for more than two years. Finally Audubon decided he owed an apology: “I am sadly grieved to hear through our friend, William Cooper, that you have taken umbrage to a passage in the introduction of my first volume of Ornithological Biographies. To tell you that not even a thought of disparagement ever existed in my mind towards you, would not be enough….” How could a “plain-sailing man” praise a friend in one place, wrote Audubon, and attack him in another? That, of course, was exactly what he had done, but the complex (and rather paranoid) minds of the two naturalists could apparently rationalize anything. Again the friendship was repaired, and a desultory correspondence resumed. Audubon’s sons, John Woodhouse and Victor Gifford, visited Italy in 1835, and Bonaparte took them to the opera and other sights of interest. Audubon stayed in England, overseeing the Birds, and made several trips back to America to paint, but did not travel on the Continent.

In the summer of 1837 the final breaking point was reached. Audubon was again in London, laboring to complete the Birds of America. Bonaparte arrived rather unexpectedly in early August. At first Audubon was happy to see him after a decade of sporadic communication, and wrote the Reverend John Bachman of Charleston that “I really believe him to be my Friend.” Two weeks later he was less disposed to think so. Bonaparte hounded him constantly for information, even calling after Audubon had gone to bed and staying more than an hour asking questions about various species. By October the artist was thoroughly tired, and felt he had been “pumped sadly too much.” Disgusted, he wrote Bachman that he could now give a “real view of the character of Charley,” and lambasted him over several pages. Further, Bonaparte was in arrears on his payments for the Birds, and Audubon announced he had no intention of completing the Prince’s set without payment. In January 1838, without informing Audubon, Bonaparte published in London his Geographical and Comparative List of the Birds of Europe and North America. Much of the information was gleaned from Audubon but not credited. Bonaparte also compared Audubon’s work unfavorably with that of the Englishman Gould, calling the latter’s work on European birds “The most beautiful that has ever appeared in this or any other country.” Audubon was completely disgusted. “So much for a Prince!” he wrote Bachman, “What a directly mean fellow he proved himself at last!”

The Birds of America was completed in June 1838, and a year later Audubon returned to America for the last time. (Incidentally, it is surprising that during the period 1826-1839 Audubon spent only a third of his time on American shores, living mainly in Europe.) Once back, he devoted himself to preparing the octavo edition of the Birds, then to working on his Quadrupeds project. Bonaparte’s attempts at reconciliation and pleas for the final plates had been relayed to him by New York friends. In 1843, as he prepared to go on his Missouri River expedition, Audubon wrote the last letter of the complex friendship:

“That I was displeased with your conduct towards me in London is the truth, and I acknowledge that I said to some of your remarkable friends there that I would not deliver you any more of my work unless you did pay me the balance then standing….I have put up all the plates you want…and to prove further that I feel no enmity towards you, I sent you a copy of the first number of a work on the Quadrupeds of North America.”

It was a cool parting gesture, not untinged by bitterness, to “one whom some 20 years ago I did love as a Brother.”