Notice of British Naturalists. 159 
affluence, and moved in a humble although respectable station of 
ive. At an early age he was sent to a dame’s school, and he af- 
terwards completed his English education under a better instruc- 
tor. Here he strongly manifested his love for the picturesque, 
and his taste for drawing. So evident, indeed, were those traits 
of character, that his father was induced to bind him, at the age 
of fourteen, an apprentice to a copper-plate engraver, at Newcastle 
upon Tyne. Of this part of his life nothing particular is known, 
except his dislike to his business, which was chiefly the coarse 
and dirty work of cutting brass dial-faces for clocks; but he ap- 
pears to have worked industriously, and to have been steady and 
diligent in his habits: In 1770 he first proved his talents for 
Wood-engraving, while his employer was engaged in executing 
the cuts for Hutton’s Monsuration. The mathematical dia- 
grams requiring greater correctness than could be attained by the 
use of the ordinary chisel, he invented a double-edged instrument 
which answered every purpose in making a very fine and straight 
line. His attention once turned in this direction, he made rapid 
Progress. 'Till 1787 he was employed in illustrating some vol- 
umes of fables, and other small books; and, as in such works, 
birds and animals were the frequent subjects of his graver, he ac- 
quired an excellent accuracy in their delineation. By degrees he 
Improved. With this progress he made new experiments and in- 
Ventions, and with the growing facility of execution, his mind 
Was daily more fixed upon his subject. 
In 1786 he was married; and in 1789 he published his cele- 
brated print of the Chillingham wild Bull, the largest and most 
highly finished wood engraving which he ever executed. 
Tn 1790 he published, as we have said, his work on quadrupeds ; 
and in 1797, after nearly six years of constant labor, the first vol- 
ume of his ‘ British Birds’. appeared. After the lapse of nearly 
8 similar period, in 1804, the second volume, that on water birds, 
Was presented to the public—the whole term proving, if any proof 
Were wanting, his great perseverance, and that the work was not 
hastily nor crudely executed. 'The book went through six edi- 
lions before 1826. ‘The Wycliffe or Tunstall Museum, of which 
We have already made mention, was the occasion of this popu- 
Work ; for Mr. Tunstall perceiving Bewick’s great abilities as 
an engraver, first proposed the subject to him, and offered him all 
= facilities of which he afterwards made use. While this gen- 
Man lived he was the constant and liberal patron of Bewick. 
