8 J^ifiy Genius^ and Personal Habits of Bewick. 



the delightsome Romances of Shakspeare's Congener (not to 

 speak profanely), Sir Walter Scott. It has been supposed by- 

 many, and publicly asserted by a few, that Bewick never 

 wrote his own works, but was wholly and solely employed on 

 the designs ; to this I have his positive contradiction, which 

 would be enough ; but that in addition to his own Memoir, 

 which I have read in his own MS., I have seen him compose, 

 extract, and translate passages for each bird he has engraved 

 while I was in his house. If his works have any great defect, 

 'tis the defect of omission; every one laments he has given so 

 little of the history of each bird. I have often offered him to 

 rewrite the whole of the birds wherewith from early and 

 lasting habits I was well acquainted, their characters and 

 manners, interspersed with anecdotes and poetry, particularly 

 from good old Chaucer, the bard of birds, and passages of 

 every bearing brought together, flinging over the whole what 

 may be called the poetic bloom of nature, in which none have 

 so sweetly succeeded as honest White of Selborne. But this 

 he always resolutely refused ; alleging that his descriptions, 

 whether original, copied, or compared, were unimpeachably 

 accurate ; and that was enough. And not only did he write 

 his own language, but I often thought his talent in that depart- 

 ment not surpassed even by the other effusions of his genius ; 

 witness his unparalleled Preface to his Fables, and his other 

 Introductions. He said, even to the last, he felt no deficiency 

 of his imaginative powers, in throwing-off subjects for his 

 ^aZ^-pieces (as I named them), which were always his favourite 

 exercise ; the bird or figure he did as a task, but was relieved 

 by working the scenery and back-ground ; and after each 

 figure he flew to the tail-piece with avidity, for in the in- 

 ventive faculty his imagination revelled. 



Lingering, and loth to depart, I had now to enter on a 

 long, dreary, and restless travel of three days and nights; 

 through a country the very diametrically reverse of my be- 

 loved Scotland, in every thing physical, moral, and intellectual; 

 alone; and immediately leaving the warm precincts of such 

 cheerful and bright society ; and deprived of the solace and 

 conversation of my kind and intelligent friend. Bowman, with 

 whom I had just been journeying (I may truly say) some 

 thousands of miles. I felt depressed with a cloud of melan- 

 choly to which my merry spirit is unused ; yet not unimbued 

 with a sort of soothing glow, that Ossian beautifully calls 

 " the joy of grief." My venerable friend having fondly re- 

 quested a few verses of mine in his Memoir^ I feebly broke off 

 (as I do now), leaving, a foil to the gems of far brighter pages, 

 the following " Fourteener : " — 



