26o 



THOMAS BEWICK. 



political matters were not omitted. It is the artist life of Thomas Bewick which 

 one desires to possess, not his opinions about subjects on which he was and could 

 be no authority." 



This sums up the defects of the volume very pithily, yet gently. Other 

 critics have been harder, and one, although a friendly reviewer, in an article 

 in a prominent Northern newspaper printed the day after the publication 

 of the Memoir, feels himself called on to condemn one sentence as unworthy 

 of the writer, and to wish "that some friendly hand had suppressed his 

 lucubrations," or that the writer had not dwelt so much upon religious topics. 

 The Memoir was published at the end of May, 1862, "in one volume, 

 demy 8vo, embellished by numerous vignettes never before published, with 

 an Appendix containing the finished cuts for the author's intended work on 

 British Fishes; price 18s." It is a book which has constantly been referred 

 to in this volume, and its fifty engravings have mostly been described. 



It is not necessary to mention every one of the Bewick books published 

 since 1828. The following are the most interesting, and every one ought to 

 be in a complete collection of Bewick's works : — " Sketch of the Life and 

 Works of the late Thomas Bewick," by G. C. Atkinson, published in the 

 " Transactions of the Natural History Society of Newcastle " for 1831 (this, 

 although short, contains one of the best sketches of Bewick's career) ; 

 the "Gentleman's Magazine," vol. xcix., January and February, 1829; the 

 "Annual Biography," vol. xiv., 1830; and Jardine's "Naturalist's Library," 

 Edinburgh, 1843, where the volume on Parrots contains the Rev. Mr. Turner's 

 Memoirs of Bewick, which are full of genial observations and interesting 

 anecdotes. The "British Quarterly Review" for November, 1845, includes a 

 remarkably brilliant article on Bewick, and " Howitt's Journal," September, 

 1846, has an equally pleasant account of him. Chatto and Jackson's " Treatise 

 on Wood Engraving," 1839, *86i, and 1882, possesses an account of Bewick's 

 works, with many authentic stories regarding their author, as well as giving a 

 complete general survey of the Art of Engraving on Wood. Bell's Catalogue 



