128 



THOMAS BEWICK. 



The procession is headed by two performing dogs, the bearward following, 

 and leading a white bear, a dressed monkey on its back ; the wife trudges 

 along with a large bundle and one of the dogs in her arms, and she is 

 followed by another actor, also heavily burdened. One of the dancing 

 dogs brings up this strange group, odd enough to make most people 

 turn and look, and to the rustic mind conveying all sorts of marvels and 

 dreads. By way of comment on these poor players' probable reception, 

 Bewick places a scaffold in the distance. At page 265 the tail-piece is 

 a beautiful vignette of a fox running from its pursuers by the edge of 

 a rock, above which the foliage is thick and beautiful ; magpies above follow 



Strolling Players. Vignette in the " General History of Quadrupeds." 



Reynard, marking out his path. Farther on "two unfeeling fellows enjoy the 

 pleasures of hanging a dog ; a gibbet seen in the distance, to denote that 

 those who could quietly enjoy the dying struggles of a dog would not have 

 been unlikely to hang a man." A wayside repast occupies a space at page 

 285, where a dog watches for the crumbs that fall from his master's meal, a 

 cut which bears a strong resemblance to one in " Tommy Trip," and another 

 in the " Looking Glass for the Mind." After several dog subjects, all of a 

 natural but indelicate nature, we have, at the end of the notice of Dogs, 

 a scene where a blind beggar crosses on a one-plank bridge in the midst 

 of a severe storm. Everything seems against him ; the wind carries off his 



