MEMOIR OF THOMAS BEWICK. 
31 
whole of this work, the drawings are minutely ac- 
curate, and express the natural delicacy of feather, 
down, and accompanying foliage, iu a manner par- 
ticularly happy. And the variety of vignettes and 
tail-pieces, and the genius and humour displayed in 
the whole of them (illustrating, besides, in a manner 
never before attempted, the habits of the- birds), 
stamps a value on the work superior to the former 
publication on Quadrupeds.* This also has passed 
* “ Of Bewick’s powers, the most extraordinary is the 
perfect accuracy with which he seizes and transfers to pa- 
per the natural objectswhich it is his delight to draw. His 
landscapes are absolute /ac-simi/es; his animals are whole- 
length portraits. Other books on natural history have fine 
engravings ; but still, neither beast nor bird in them have 
any character; dogs and deer, lark and sparrow, have all 
airs and countenances marvellously insipid, and of a most 
flat similitude. You may buy dear books, but if you want 
to know what a bird or quadruped fa, to Bewick you must 
go at last. It needs only to glance at the works of Bewick, 
to convince ourselves with what wonderful felicity the very 
countenance and air of his animals are marked and distin- 
guished. There is the grave owl, the silly wavering lap- 
wing, the pert jay, the impudent over-fed sparrow, the airy 
lark, the sleepy-headed gourmand duck, the restless tit- 
mouse, the insignificant wren, the clean harmless gull, the 
keen rapacious kite — every one has his character.” 
“ His vignettes are just as remarkable. Take his British 
Birds, and in the tail-pieces to these volumes you shall 
find the most touching representations of Nature in all her 
forms, animate and inanimate. There are the poachers 
tracking a hare in the snow; and the urchins who have ac- 
complished the creation of a “ snow-man the disap- 
