66 MEMOIR OF TOOMAS BEWICK. 
picking, chipping, and finishing a block, talking, 
whistling, and sometimes singing, while his friends 
have been drinking wine at his profusely hospitable 
table. At nights, after a hard day’s work, he gene- 
rally relieved his powerful mind in the bosom of his 
very amiable family ; either by hearing Scotch songs 
(of which he was passionately fond) sung to the 
piano-forte ; or his son Robert dir l hornpipes, jigs, 
strathspeys, and reels, which failed not to put life 
and mettle in the heels of the females and younger 
friends, to his glorious delight. Occasionally his 
fondling Jane would read Shakspeare to him, or 
the delightsome romances of Shakspeare’s congener 
(not to speak profanely), Sir "Walter Scott. It has 
been supposed by many, and publicly asserted by a 
few, that Bewick never wrote his own works, but 
was wholly and solely employed on the designs ; to 
this I have his positive contradiction, which would 
be enough ; but that in addition to his own Memoir, 
which I have read in his own MS., I have seen him 
compose, extract, and translate passages for each 
bird he has engraved while I was in his house. If 
his works have any great defect, ’tis the defect of 
omission ; every one laments he has given so little 
of the history of each bird. I have often offered 
him to re-write the whole of the birds wherewith 
from early and lasting habits I was well acquainted, 
their characters and manners, interspersed with 
anecdotes and poetry, particularly from good old 
Chaucer, the bard of birds, and passages of every 
bearing brought together, flinging over the whole 
