MEMOIR OF THOMAS BEWICK. 3l 



whole of this work, the drawings are minutely ac- 

 curate, and express the natural delicacy of feather, 

 down, and accompanying foliage, in a manner par- 

 ticularly happy. And the variety of vignettes and 

 tail-pieces, and the genius and humour displayed in 

 the whole of them (illustrating, besides, in a manner 

 never before attempted, the habits of the birds), 

 stamps a value on the work superior to the former 

 publication on Quadrupeds. * This also has passed 



* " Of Bewick's powers, the most extraordinary is the 

 perfect accuracy with which he seizes and transfers to pa- 

 per the natural objects which it is his delight to draw. His 

 landscapes are absolute fac-similes; his animals are whole- 

 length portraits. Other books on natural history have fine 

 engravings ; but still, neither beast nor bird in them have 

 any character; dogs and deer, lark and sparrow, have all 

 airs and countenances marvellously insipid, and of a most 

 flat similitude. You may buy dear books, but if you want 

 to know what a bird or quadruped is, to Bewick you must 

 go at last. It needs only to glance at the works of Bewick, 

 to convince ourselves with what wonderful felicity the very 

 countenance and air of his animals are marked and distin- 

 guished. There is the grave owl, the silly wavering lap. 

 wing, the pert jay, the impudent over-fed sparrow, the airy 

 lark, the sleepy-headed gourmand duck, the restless tit- 

 mouse, the insignificant wren, the clean harmless gull, the 

 keen rapacious kite every one has his character." 



" His vignettes are just as remarkable. Take his British 

 Birds, and in the tail-pieces to these volumes vou shall 

 find the most touching representations of Nature in all her 

 forms, animate and inanimate. There are the poachers 

 tracking a hare in the snow; and the urchins who have ac- 

 complished the creation of a " snow-man ;" the disap- 



