8146 



Notices of New Books, 



his own designs remind me, therefore, much more of Burns than the 



few he made from the poet."* 



It will be seen that the preceding sentences were penned by one 

 in all respects able to appreciate Bewick as an artist ; our business 

 with him in the pages of the ' Zoologist 1 is both as artist and naturalist, 

 and confining ourselves to this view of the greatest of wood engravers 

 there is much in this volume that we pass by as foreign to our object. 

 It is quite clear that this autobiography was written for the object 

 avowed, to amuse near and dear relations, not to instruct that larger 

 world to whom the works of the writer of right belong. These are 

 his words, " My dear Jane, — It is in compliance with your wish that I 

 have, after much hesitation and delay, made up my mind to give you 

 some account of my life, as it may at a future day amuse you and your 

 brother and sisters in your passage through the crooked as well as the 

 pleasant paths of the world." Thus most truthfully is the object of 

 the work set forth, and in strict accordance with this intention is it 

 performed throughout; and thus there are introduced faithful portraits 

 of Bewick's neighbours, though unconnected with him in any way, 

 but whose history and conduct attracted his notice. Such was Anthony 

 Liddell, a man who formed his character by the Bible, and yet was a 

 vagabond who preferred jail to liberty, because he was better fed by 

 the country than when he fed himself, and who treated all men as 

 equals. Such was Thomas Forster, whose weakness, or strength as 

 some would call it, was in bees. Such was John Chapman, who lived 

 on bread, potatoes and oatmeal for six weeks at a time, that he might 

 enjoy a regular drinking bout at Newcastle with his savings, which 

 periodical treat he called "lowsening his skin." 



It is not for me to object to such scraps of biography or with the 

 object for which they were written, but I cannot help feeling and ex- 

 pressing that — as the heroes in question had not the most remote con- 

 nection with Thomas Bewick — I should greatly have preferred their 

 absence to their presence in this unpretending narrative. I should 

 have liked it all Bewick, and would gladly have been saved the trouble 

 of picking out the scraps of Bewickian lore from a mass of extraneous 

 information. Nevertheless these scraps are well worth the picking, 

 and begin in very early life. Here is the first, when the little boy is 

 condemned to learn Latin. "As I never knew for what purpose 1 had 

 to learn it, and was rather wearied out in getting off long tasks, I rather 

 flagged in this department of my education, and the margins of my 



* Leslie's 1 Hand-book for Young Painters.' I am pleased to adopt without alter- 

 ation sucb judicious praise. — E. N. 



