L\fe^ Genius, and Per'sonal Habits of BewicJc, 7 



that dead knight in moonht 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 keek 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 1 825. I had heard this 

 robin as I lay in bed, feeble and infrequent ; and as we walked 

 in the garden, a passerine warbler, Sylvia hortensis (whom, 

 from his profusion of hurried and gurgled notes in May, I call 

 the Buckler), 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 Linnaeus 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 timf^ 

 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 drinking 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 hearing Scotch songs 

 (of which he was passionately fond) sung to the piano-forte ; 

 or his son Robert dii'l 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" 



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