THOMAS BEWICK. 



'65 



side at the Forth like a little heaven. I hope I shall, when I return, but I think it 

 will be about three weeks yet before I have that pleasure. I have plenty of work 

 before me to keep me closely employed a much longer time ; but I am tired out 

 already and wish it was over. I have dulled myself with sticking to it so closely. 

 In short, I lose no time in order to get through with the business. . . . Tell Jane 

 and Robert that if they behave well I will let them see a vast of little pictures 

 of Birds when I come home, and I hope my little Bell will be able to say more than 

 dadda when I see her again." And he signs himself, " My Bell's loving husband." 



Having completed his mission at Wycliffe, Bewick set off on foot again 

 for Newcastle, and on his arrival at home at once commenced engraving the 

 drawings he had been employed with. 



" But," he says in his Memoir, " I had not been long thus engaged till I found 

 the very great difference between preserved specimens and those from nature ; no 

 regard having been paid, at that time, to fix the former in their proper attitudes, nor 

 to place the different series of the feathers so as to fall properly upon each other. 

 It had always given me a great deal of trouble to get at the markings of the dis- 

 hevelled plumage ; and, when done with every pains I never felt satisfied with them. 

 I was on this account driven to wait for birds newly shot, or brought to me alive, 

 and in the intervals employed my time in designing and engraving tail-pieces, or 

 vignettes." 



For over two months, therefore, Bewick had laboured almost entirely in 

 vain. The only good he got by his residence at Wycliffe was a more 

 thorough knowledge of the colours of the various birds ; and also, no doubt, 

 the studies he made of the heads and claws would be afterwards found useful. 

 Through having to wait for specimens from which he could make drawings 

 true to natural form, many delays took place in the preparation of the 

 volume, and nothing was publicly announced for some years. As to the 

 time Bewick took to execute individual blocks of the Birds, it is mentioned 

 by Atkinson that he was sometimes able to finish one in a day, or sometimes 

 in a few hours, when the foliage was slight, or when there was none at all ; 

 but, as he seldom wrought a complete day at a block, it would have been 

 difficult even for him to say exactly how long an engraving would have 

 taken him if he had kept right on without attending to other work. 



