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APPENDIX. 



them all ' leg-bail,' and marched off, as he intended, for Scotland ; but from his ignorance of the 

 way, he walked to Carlisle, and perambulated the bold, rich, and lovely scenery of Cumberland 

 and Westmoreland, as he says, to his utter amazement and rapture. Having here somewhat slaked 

 his prodigious thirst for nature he struck off for Scotland, and for many weeks wandered among 

 the nearer Hebrides and Highlands, living on milk, bannocks, and kebbuck, for which, like poor 

 Goldsmith (whom his father once sheltered in his cottage), he repaid the hospitable Highlanders 

 with his flute. When, on his return, he came to Jedburgh, he says his heart began to fail, and the 

 walk from thence to his master's bench was the heaviest of all the hundreds of miles he had 

 tramped.* He never speaks of this wild excursion but with the most rapturous animation ; and 

 no doubt it was among that awful, amazing, and stupendous scenery those seeds of genius 

 vigorously germinated, and took most tenacious root, whose branches were strengthened by the 

 subsequent storms of life, and whose luxuriant foliage now basks in the sunshine of prosperity, 



amid the well-earned radiation of success In the Memoir he has detailed his sentiments 



on the purity of representation and free government in a manner worthy the pen of a Bacon or a 

 Locke ; a history of the art of wood engraving, of which he is the reviver, and has frequently given 

 observations on the progress of his own mind. Though some of his less important opinions may, 

 to persons who know him not, appear but as whimsical fancies, they are the levities of a great and 

 benevolent genius, that, like the brilliant airy bubbles of a deep clear fountain, rise playfully to 

 the surface without sullying its purity. The style is plain and simple, but sinewy and nervous, 

 marking his character as much as his manners and even his dress, and is strongly tinctured, like 

 his conversation, with broad Northumbrian and Scottish provincialisms, which, particularly when 

 he reads it aloud, strengthen the efficiency. The narrative is replete with anecdote, particularly 

 in the earlier parts, wittily recorded and morally applied, and very much reminded me of that 

 of Franklin; indeed, to that good and great man, both in his religious and political senti- 

 ments, he appeared to me to bear a nearer resemblance than to any other character I know. He 

 is indefatigable and intrepid in his search after truth — dauntless and strenuous in the declaration 

 of his matured sentiments, however opposite they may be to received opinions — and fearless of 

 any pains or penalties which the avowal of them might bring upon him from persecuting bigots. 

 But the objects nearest his heart are to render the works of the Creator familiar to youth by dress- 

 ing them in their most alluring form, and thereby to lead men to the knowledge and adoration of 

 their great Author, and to the principles of what he believes to be true religion, and what all 

 believe to be those of sound morality. These are his constant aim and study ; and to these he 

 considers everything else as subordinate. Of the success of his labours in this field he acknow- 

 ledges he is proud ; but it is the only point where he is sensible to flattery and praise. He was 

 unconscious of his success till made aware of it by the voluntary and unsought admiration of the 



world I repeated what I had told him on my former visit [in October, 1823], that I was 



first led, in very early life, to the study of natural history, by reading the introduction to his 

 ' History of British Birds,' and allured by his fascinating wood engravings ; that my own children 

 were passionately fond of them and never weary of examining them, but that this was an 



* This account makes Bewick go to Scotland during apprenticeship, while in his Memoir Bewick states he went 

 after that period. Mr. Bowman's statement is given as it appears ; but he must have been mistaken as to the 

 exact time. 



