THOMAS BEWICK. 



199 



standing on a pinnacle overlooking the sea ; a few gravestones surround it, 

 and on one close to the foreground are the words, " This stone was erected to 



perpetuate the memory " exhibiting the fallacy of human hopes, for the 



stone, which was to make the memory imperishable, is broken in two, and 

 likely soon to be swallowed by the waves. Page 248 contains a vignette 

 which might easily pass unnoticed. It appears as if it only represented a 

 rock by the seashore ; but, on looking closely, it will be seen to have the 

 topmasts of a sunken ship a short distance from the shore. Half in the 

 waves close at hand there is a sailor's hat thrown up by the treacherous 

 waters. Yesterday it seethed and foamed around, and finally overwhelmed 

 the vessel, perhaps within sight of home and harbour ; to-day it encircles and 

 almost fondles the only remnant which has come to land of the once-gallant 

 ship now falling to pieces at the bottom of the sea. 



The Monkey turning the roast with a red-\\o\. poker, at page 263, is a 

 capital print, giving the household appliances of Bewick's time. Farther on 

 are two pretty vignettes — one a man crossing a falling stream by a plank 

 on which he trembles ; the other a man getting over a quiet water by a more 

 precarious method, yet with considerable confidence in his manner. At page 

 271 is the cut of Geese going home, which Mr. Stephens says " is full of the 

 fruits of study and knowledge laboriously and faithfully accumulated, and 

 delineated with ineffable skill and delicacy." At page 286 an old man takes 

 his geese to market on a bleak wintry day, the birds tied in sacks, and their 

 heads protruding, and all laid on the back of the tired horse. 



The large engravings of the Geese are all excellent, the backgrounds 

 being frequently fine landscapes from nature. That in the Grey Lag Goose 

 is a faithful drawing of a scene beside a frozen loch, and that behind the 

 Tame Goose is a farmhouse — very like that which Bewick often drew. The 

 Eider Duck is well engraved ; and the Mallard is also one on which much 

 labour was bestowed, but the most beautiful of all the birds is the Tame 

 Duck, given in fac-simile as a heading to our Introduction. The care 



