Notices of New Books. 



8149 



and quite irrespective of such trifling incidents as wind and rain. 

 " I had begun betimes," he writes, " and by degrees, to habituate 

 myself to temperance and exercise, which hardened the constitution 

 to such a pitch that neither wet nor cold had any bad effect on me. 

 On setting out on my weekly pedestrian flight up the Tyne, I never 

 looked out to see whether it was a good day or a bad one ; the worst 

 that ever fell from the skies never deterred me from undertaking my 

 journey. On setting out I always waded through the first pool I met 

 with, and had sometimes the river to wade at the far end. I never 

 changed my clothes, however they might be soaked with wet or 

 stiffened by the frost, on my returning home at night, till I went to 

 bed. 1 had inured myself to this hardship by always sleeping with 

 my windows open, by which a thorough air, as well as snow, blew 

 through my room. In this way I lay down rolled in a blanket, upon 

 a mattrass as hard as I could make it." During the whole course of 

 this kind of life he knew not what it was to have cold or cough or 

 rheumatism, or any of those ailments we generally suppose incidental 

 to a life of exposure. 



When out of his apprenticeship Bewick became a partner in his 

 master's business, and we must now turn to the history of his appear- 

 ance before the public. Of the origin of his 'History of Quadrupeds' he 

 writes thus : — " Having, from the time that I was a school-boy, been 

 displeased with most of the figures in children's books, and particu- 

 larly with those of the ' Three Hundred Animals,' the figures in which, 

 even at that time, I thought I could depicture much better ; and 

 having afterwards very often turned the matter over in my mind, of 

 making improvements in that publication, I at last came to the deter- 

 mination of making the attempt. The extreme interest I had always 

 felt in the hope of administering to the pleasure and amusement of 

 youth, and judging, from the feelings I had experienced myself, that 

 they would be affected in the same way I had been, whetted me up 

 and stimulated me to proceed. In this, my only reward besides was 

 the great pleasure I felt in imitating nature. That 1 should ever do 

 anything to attract the notice of the world, in the manner that has 

 been done, was the farthest thing in my thoughts ; and so far as I was 

 concerned myself at that time, I minded little about any self-interested 

 considerations. These intentions I communicated to my partner ; 

 and, though he did not doubt of my being able to succeed, yet, being 

 a cautious and thinking man, he wished to be more satisfied as to the 

 probability of such a publication paying for the labour. On this 

 occasion, being little acquainted with the nature of such under- 



