APPENDIX. 



267 



at work at a small table after dinner, while his friends are drinking wine, and enjoys their 

 conversation whilst cutting his blocks. And if he goes from home, as he sometimes does, to 

 Tynemouth, for the benefit of the sea-breezes, he takes his tools and work with him. He says 

 his chief delight is in throwing off subjects of fancy for his fo/<?-pieces. He does the birds, &c, 

 more as a task, but is relieved by working the scenery and background ; and after each figure he 

 flies to cut an ornamental tail-piece with avidity; for in the inventive faculty his imagination 

 revels. It has been supposed by many, and publicly asserted by a few, that he does not write 

 his works, but is wholly and solely employed on the designs : to this we had his positive 

 contradiction ; and, in addition to the Memoir about to be named, which we saw in his own 

 manuscript, Dovaston saw him draw up the accounts of several of the Birds ; and not only does 

 he write his own language, but (judging from his Prefaces) I think his talent in that department 

 is not surpassed even by the other effusions of his genius. His son engraves the Fishes for his 

 new work, and Bewick says he does them admirably, and is very intent upon them ; but, from 

 what we saw of him, though modest and ingenious, I fear he does not inherit the brilliant talent 

 and imaginative genius of his father. His eldest daughter, Jane, is a very superior woman, 

 animated, intelligent, and gentle : she is mistress of her father's house, which she conducts with 

 such silent and easy management that everything is done, as it were, by magic, without bustle or 

 disturbance. She also corrects the press for his works, and attends to the getting of them up ; 

 writes his letters of business, and superintends the arrangements of the workshops. He calls her 

 his right hand, as, indeed, she truly is j and she, in her turn, almost adores, in affection and 

 ceaseless attention to his comforts, the virtues and talents of her excellent father." 



Vol. II. pp. 313 — 326.— "After dinner our friend read to us large portions of a thick quarto 

 volume of his own Memoirs, which he had drawn up at the request of his daughter Jane, but 

 which will not be printed till after his death. His countenance would often become animated and 

 beam with benevolence when he touched upon passages relative to scenes of his early life, which 

 he stopped to explain or illustrate. Dovaston, who remained behind, and spent six days with him 

 after I had left, read the whole volume. . . ." 



After detailing what is known of Bewick's early life the manuscript continues : — " He was 

 frequently sent out among the braes of Tyneside to cut birch rods ; and in these truant hours of 

 sunshine he would loiter along the river banks, watching the sand martins hovering like butterflies 

 about the precipitous promontories, or the speckled trout sporting among the flies that streaked 

 the dimpling waters beneath; and in these delicious moments nature was busy depositing in his 

 fine and fertile mind those seeds that have since produced such a plenitude of rich blossoms and 

 wholesome fruits. His first tendency to drawing was noticed by his chalking the floors and grave- 

 stones with all manner of fantastic figures, and by sketching the outline of any well-known charac- 

 ter of the village, dogs, horses, &c, which were instantly recognised as faithful portraits 



In consequence of his propensity to drawing, some liberal people, of whom he says there are 

 many in Newcastle, got him bound apprentice to a Mr. Beilby, an engraver in copper and brass. 

 .... His infant genius was bound down by his master to cut clock-faces and door-knockers, and 

 he actually showed Dovaston several in the streets of Newcastle he had cut. Still his restless 

 enthusiasm for nature stirred within him, and on his master's ' licking' him, he one morning gave 



