Review of the Memoir of Thomas Bewick. 375 



wood, I set about describiug it from my specimen, and at the 

 same time consulted every authority I could meet with to know 

 what had been said ; and this, together with what I knew from 

 my own knowledge, were then compared; and in this way I 

 finished, as truly as I could, the second volume of the ' History of 

 Birds.'" This was published in 1804. 



We cannot but regret that the Memoir before us gives us no 

 further insight into Bewick^s labours, being henceforth entirely 

 filled with disquisitions foreign to art and natural history, and in- 

 tended rather for his own family than for the public. He lived till 

 1828, and reached the age of 75, having occupied his later years 

 partly in filling up gaps in his ' History of British Birds,' as new 

 editions were called for, and also in collecting materials and 

 engraving blocks for a ' History of British Fishes.' The vignettes 

 and tail-pieces for this were completed before his death. Seven- 

 teen of the engravings of fishes are appended to the memoir, 

 and a few of the vignettes are interspersed. These are all iu 

 Bewick's happiest style, and only lead us to regret that so many 

 of his sketches have been withheld. If Bewick's hand grew old, 

 his fancy retained all its truth and beauty till the last. It is 

 no secret how many of his later vignettes have never been pub- 

 lished, or even printed. Yet it cannot be expected that, as the 

 generation to whom Bewick was personally known is passing 

 away, these sketches will have an equal interest in a few years. 

 The price at which the memoir has been published is such as might 

 have well warranted the inti'oduction of all his unpublished 

 works. Bewick had also prepared likenesses of many of his 

 friends who are mentioned in the memoir. The inti'oduction of 

 these would have largely added to the local interest of the work, 

 before the worthies of the past generation have quite gone out 

 of mind. Still more would that interest have been heightened, 

 could we have had some notes on the vignettes which stud the 

 whole of Bewick's works. His last vignette was a sketch of 

 the house in which he was born, with a prophetic picture of his 

 funeral procession emerging, and a ferry-boat waiting to convey 

 the coffin across the river to Ovingham Church. So through 

 life he always delighted to mingle in his drawings personal and 

 local associations. Many of his tail-pieces are admirable land- 



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