MEMOIR OF THOMAS BEWICK. 01 



stone ; dreary snows, stormy waves, rolling ships, 

 and screaming sea-fowl; quiet fountains, forest 

 glades, and woodland solitudes ; fairy haunts, 



4 Right seldom seen, 



Lovely, lonesome, cool, and green.' 



" The commonest capacity might read a history 

 in every one of these rich and romantic tale-nieces. 

 and a mind of wit and fancy may open to each, 

 and feel arise from it the simultaneous power of 

 delivering a bright or blooming narrative of melan- 

 choly or mirth. Thus the copious, capacious, and 

 bountiful mind of Bewick, not merely content to 

 fling around each bird and figure the most beautiful 

 and appropriate scenery, but revelling in exuberance 

 of imagination, drops, on almost every leaf, some 

 gem of genius, ' to point a moral or adorn a tale.' 

 These fling on our sunny memories gleams and 

 glances of nature, that impulsively shed on the 

 feelings a delicate mental and bosom emotion, indi- 

 cating the presence and influence (and probably 

 constituting much) of that fine but indefinable 

 power called genius ; whence emanating on conge- 

 nial dispositions, like rich tones on accordant vibra- 

 tions, awaken, in successive combination, all the 

 melodious harmonies of the heart. 



" In his Memoir he has detailed his sentiments 

 on the purity of representation and free government 

 in a manner worthy the pen of a Bacon or Lockos 

 a history of the art of wood-engraving ; and obser^ 

 vations on the progress of his own mind. Though 



