62 



THOMAS BEWICK. 



one's scarce yet acknowledged gifts, and the other's well-earned reputation, 

 and thus by mutual assistance make to themselves a more rapid independence 

 than if they became rivals, and, as the saying goes, "cut each other's throat." 



Bewick's Memoir having been written after the unfortunate quarrel with 

 Beilby at the close of the century, his narrative is strongly influenced by later 

 experience. He appears to doubt very much if the friend — unnamed — who 

 brought about the partnership acted in good faith ; the tone and style seem 

 to indicate unusual feeling on Bewick's part, and he proceeds in a manner 

 scarcely warranted by the circumstances. 



" I did not relish the proposal so warmly as our mutual friend expected. I had 

 formed a plan of working alone, without apprentices, or being interrupted by any 

 one ; and I am not certain whether I would not have been happier in doing so than 

 in the way I was led to pursue. I had often, in my lonely walks, debated this busi- 

 ness over in my mind ; but whether it would have been for the better or for the worse I 

 can now only conjecture. I tried the one plan, and not the other; perhaps, each 

 might have had advantages and disadvantages. I should not have experienced the 

 envy and ingratitude of some of my pupils, neither should I on the contrary have 

 felt the pride and the pleasure I derived from so many of them having received 

 medals or premiums from the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, and taken the 

 lead, as engravers on wood, in the metropolis. Notwithstanding this pride and this 

 pleasure, I am inclined to think I should have had — balancing the good against the 

 bad — more pleasure in working alone for myself." 



It was certainly ungracious of Bewick to write in this manner ; for Beilby, 

 his partner, was of great use to him in after-years in getting up the 

 " History of Quadrupeds" and the first volume of the " History of British 

 Birds;" of so much use, indeed, that when the contention arose and Beilby 

 departed, Bewick was grievously distracted, and found much difficulty in 

 carrying on the literary part of the work without him. Bewick, however, 

 seems scarcely to have arrived at a self-satisfactory opinion on the question ; 

 he is only " inclined to think," not by any means strongly of the opinion, that 

 he would have had more pleasure in working alone. And even on the 

 ground of consideration of his own happiness, it seems as if he erred in judg- 



