THOMAS BEWICK. 



33 



The "Annual Review" for 1804 contains an acute critical opinion on the 

 Quadrupeds, which ably sums up the character of the work. It says : — 



" Bewick's particular turn of mind led him to observe and to delineate the form 

 and manners of the animal creation, and he soon found that the yielding consistence 

 of wood is better fitted to express the ease, freedom, and spirit, which ought to 

 characterize portraits of animated beings, than the stubborn surface of a metallic 

 substance ; he accordingly engraved wooden blocks of all the domestic and most of 

 the wild British Quadrupeds, and neglected no opportunity of drawing such foreign 

 animals as were exhibited in the itinerant collections which visited Newcastle-upon- 

 Tyne. These universally show the hand of a master. There is in them a boldness 

 of design, a correctness of outline, an exactness of attitude, and a discrimination of 

 general character, conveying at a first glance a just and lively idea of each different 

 animal, to which nothing in modern times has ever aspired, and which the most 

 eminent old artists have not surpassed. But Mr. Bewick's merits as an artist extend 

 far beyond the simple delineation of the animal ; the landscapes which he sometimes 

 introduces as a background and relief to his principal figures, as well as the greater 

 part of his numerous vignettes, have a similar excellence, and though the parts of 

 which they consist are extremely minute, there is in them a truth to nature, which 

 admits of strictest examination, and will be admired in proportion as they are more 

 attentively observed and better understood." 



The Greyhound Fox. " The General History of Quadrupeds." 



