1$$ Mr. Jtx-inson's Sketch of the late T. Bewick. 



diffidence of her own talent, that we are to attribute the absence of this, 

 and many other memorials of a name so interesting to naturalists. 



In drawing the Birds, his sketches of the Woodcock and Corncrake, 

 were from living specimens, the former of these is quite the perfection 

 of his complication of talent ; displaying his usual intricate knowledge 

 of the habits of the bird, in the character of the back g/ound, unrival- 

 ed facility of pencil in his design, and a skill which cannot easily be 

 equalled in engraving it. His Ski/lark is almost equally good, so is the 

 Yellow Hammer, Wood Lark, Nightjar, Wryneck, Domestic Cock, Pea- 

 cock, Turkey, Quail, Partridge, Bittern, Snipe, ^c. ^c. 



In engraving them, a very imperfect outline sufficed : in the vignettes 

 he often worked without any, though he had some blocks usually 

 by him, with most humourous designs on them, ready for his graver, 

 Avhich he used to exhibit for the amusement of his visitors : one I re- 

 member was a parcel of old men and boys, conning over the bills 

 stuck up at the corner of the street ; a large advertisement seems par- 

 ticularly to engross their attention ; it is one of an abridgment of the 

 Law of England in 500 volumes ! 



His inducement for writing a life of himself, which he did, and 

 he meant to intersperse with profile likenesses of his friends, was, 

 seeing in the introduction to a novel called " Such is the World," pub- 

 lished by Whitaker, in 1821, an erroneous statement of the circum- 

 stances attendant on the prefixture of his thumb mark to Gay's Fables. 

 This determined him to give to the world a life of himself, which, con- 

 sidering his originality, force of language, and strength of understand- 

 ing, must be a work of considerable interest, particularly, when it is to 

 contain likenesses of those with whom he was intimate. 



Could I have persuaded myself of a possibility, that the members of 

 his family would be induced to publish it I should certainly not have 

 obtruded this imperfect notice of him ; and my only reason for doing 

 so now, is, that hitherto no memoir of him has been published at the 

 place where he was so well known and respected. 



And now I come to the mournful circumstance of his dissolution : I 

 saw him on the Saturday previous in excellent health and spirits ; on 



