Life, Genius, and Personal Habits of Bewick. 7 
that dead knight in moonlit armour, cold, and recumbent on a 
sepulchral monument under the Gothic window of a ruined 
monastic cemetery — I just heard the sullen toll of the spectral 
curfew. Methinks no mean amusement might be elicited by 
extemporaneous little novelets, taking the colour of the occa- 
sion, invented for the nonce, from Bewick’s tail-pieces, to 
minds utterly awearied and disgusted with the cards and cant 
of a fashionable drawlingroom. But I must on. We enjoyed 
our evenings as may well be conceived, with such a host at 
our head; often till broad morning began to spread her 
bright drapery along the east ; and even the admonishing sun- 
beams to seek through the shutters, laughing out the candles. 
Be up as early as I could, I always, were the morning fine, 
found him walking briskly in his garden, for exercise. His 
ornithic ear was quick and discriminative; he one morning 
told me he had then first caught the robin’s autumnal melody, 
and said we should have a premature fall of the leaf; we had 
so, after the excessively hot summer of 1825. I had heard this 
robin as I lay in bed, feeble and infrequent ; and as we walked 
in the garden, a passerine warbler, S¥lvia horténsis (whom, 
from his profusion of hurried and gurgled notes in May, I call 
the Ruckler), just gave a touch of his late song, which the fine 
ear of Bewick instantly caught, though in loud and laughing 
conversation. At meals he ate very heartily, and, after a 
plentiful supply, often said he could have eaten more. In 
early, and indeed late in, life he had been a hardish drinker ; 
but was at this time advised by his medical friends to be more 
abstemious, which he abode by as resolutely as he could, 
though not without now and then what he called a marlock. 
It has been said that Linnzeus did more in a given time than 
ever did any one man. If the surprising number of blocks of 
every description, for his own and others’ works, cut by 
Bewick, be considered, though perhaps he may not rival our 
beloved naturalist, he may be counted among the indefa 
tigably industrious. And amid all this he found ample time 
for reading and conviviality. I have seen him picking, chip- 
ping, and finishing a block, talking, whistling, and sometimes 
singing, while his friends have been drinkmg wine at his 
profusely hospitable table. At nights, after a hard day’s 
work, he generally relieved his powerful mind in the bosom 
of his very amiable family; either by hearmg Scotch songs 
(of which he was passionately fond) sung to the piano-forte ; 
or his son Robert dirl hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys, and reels, 
which failed not to put life and mettle in the heels of the 
females and younger friends, to his glorious delight. Occa- 
sionally his fondling Jane would read Shakspeare to him, or 
B 4 
