APPENDIX. 365 



And sorry, very sorry, are we to be compelled to 

 state, that this is the last effort of his incompar- 

 able genius/' 



and the sketch of Cherryburn which forms the frontispiece to this 

 volume. As an artist and engraver John is far behind Thomas Bewick. 

 Much of his work is hasty and ill-considered, violent in its contrast of 

 black and white, and at times frankly reminiscent of other illustrators. 

 Hogarth (whom he studied under his commentator Trusler), Stothard, 

 and Blake seem to have influenced him, and one of his cuts in the 

 "Progress of Man" is plainly adapted from the " GratuHrende Kinder" 

 of Chodowiecki. His bent was more to human nature than natural 

 history; and his differentia is a certain grace, (unknown to his elder,) 

 which often gives a charming naivete and old-world seduction to his 

 pictures of the "little Masters and Misses" in frill collars and mob 

 caps who frequented Mr. Stockdale's shop in Piccadilly, or that of 

 Mr. E. Newbery at the corner of St. Paul's Churchyard. As a man 

 he was amiable and popular, rather a dandy in his dress, and fond 

 of pleasure. He was also something of a musician; and a 

 hautboy-cum-walking-stick, with which he had been wont to solace 

 himself at Hornsey, was sold in the Bewick sale of February, 1884. 

 At Cherryburn, his grand-nieces still preserve his punch-ladle and 

 glass, with other relics of their "uncle John." A few of his drawings 

 are to be found in the British Museum, one being a pathetic little 

 sketch, dated the year of his death, of his "intended house" on the 

 river bank at Eltringham. He died at Ovingham, where he is 

 buried. There is a crayon portrait of him by George Gray in 

 the Museum of the Natural History Society at Newcastle, and the 

 Bewick MSS. include many of his letters from London, some of 

 which are printed in the ensuing "Correspondence."] 



