Review of the Memoir 0/ Thomas Bewick. 377 



modern works, yet none have surpassed Bewick in fidelity to 

 nature ; and this is shown in a remarkable way in his distant 

 flights of birds, when the species can always be recognized, as 

 in the vignette of two crows persecuting a hawk, while a pair of 

 magpies enjoy the fun. 



Bewick's guileless love for nature was exemplified in the 

 smallest things. He could not bear the idea of wanton destruc- 

 tion of life, or of harsh treatment of the lower animals. His 

 last contemplated work was to have been a series illustrative of 

 the claims of the horse on humanity, of which the well-known 

 'Waiting for Death' is the only finished plate. He would 

 drily remark to youths shooting swallows, that they were 

 destroying creatures of infinitely more use than themselves. 

 But we are becoming garrulous as the old man himself, and 

 must conclude this notice with the expression of our satisfaction 

 at receiving any addition to our souvenirs of Bewick, and our 

 regi-et that thirty years have elapsed since the memoir ought to 

 have been published. We could have wished to have seen all 

 his chisel has left, before its interest has become merely anti- 

 quarian, and, in place of many chapters of political and theolo- 

 gical dreams, some reminiscences, such as Mr. A. Hancock, 

 amongst others, could have supplied, illustrative of the man and 

 his works. There is no list of his publications attached, but this 

 omission we have ventured to supply in a note*, as far as we can, 



* The following is a list of Bewick's Works : — 



Gay's Fables. 1779. Saint. 



Select Fables. 1783. Saint. 



History of Quadrupeds. Editions of 1790, 1791, 1792, 1800. Hodgson. 



History of Quadi-upeds. 5th edition, 1807; 6th, 1811; 7th, 1820. 

 E. Walker. 



[The Bats are omitted in the first edition. The fourth, in 1800, is the 

 best, and is the first with the Linnean names appended. In 1818, twenty- 

 five copies were taken on 4to paper.] 



History of British Birds. Vol. i. 1797. Hodgson, 



History of British Birds. Vol. ii. 1804. Walker. 



[The second, third, and fourth editions were pubhshed in 1805, 1809, 

 and 1816, by Walker. In 1800 a small edition of the Land Birds, plates 

 and vignettes only, was published, without letter -press ; and in 1817 

 twenty-five copies of the whole work, without letter-press, were pubhshed 

 in 4to. Owing to this circumstance and to the great care employed in 



