6 have originated in Northumberland, few graving be expected to equal hands in and valueless as they are when placed be- the metropolis, whose sole employment was side that body of fine and original song to to take impressions from plates; and that, which Scotland and Ireland have given therefore, he ought to resort to London. birth. Nay, so far did he carry this par- But this was a doctrine that jarred with the tiality, that there is reason to believe he sensitive feelings of the artist. All his actually preferred these simpler tunes, Northumbrian prejudice boiled up at once, when performed upon the Northumbrian and surged against the suggestion. In vain bag-pipe, to the exquisite melodies of the he was reminded that both fame and inteNorth and West when played by educated rest might be at stake. He was not to be players, and with an appropriate and accu- reasoned with. He resolutely declared rate bass, upon more perfect instruments. that no cockney should touch his blocks;' Nor was this extraordinary predilection of and he religiously adhered to his determina powerful and naturally candid mind con- ation. The whole of his works have been fined to native scenery and music; it ex- printed in the town where they were contended itself to every thing; and for the ceived and executed; and it is for those who men and women of Northumberland he would blame him to show that his or their claimed the same pre-eminence that he reputation has suffered in consequence. awarded to the music and the landscape. Such was the strong attachment to localTo see the dances ordinarily used in the ity inherent in the intellectual constitution rural parts of the district danced by an of this singular man. That its operation assemblage of young people, was one of may be traced in his works is most certain. Bewick's great delights; and when his own In those exquisite river-side sketches, in daughters aided the graces of the female which he has so truly portrayed the varied part of the company, the circumstance, of pursuits of the angler, and the elite of his course, gave additional zest to the natural haunts, the scenery depicted is precisely feelings of the father. On such occasions that which occurs in the northern counties his enjoyment was very great. The dan- of England, and on the Scottish border. cers and the dance were Northumbrian, It varies from that which is met with in reand of course matchless; and if, in addi- gions exclusively mountainous; and where tion, the air was 'Tyneside' in origin, and the instrument the Northumberland smallpipes,' (on which his son performed, and yet performs, admirably,) the rapture of the artist was at its height, and he would exclaim, with almost tears of pleasure in his eyes, 'There they go-queens of England! queens of England l' The scene was, indeed, animating, and the sight beautiful; and few, we suppose, could scruple to join Bewick in his exclamation, or fail to respect and love enthusiasm such as his, even when carried thus far. Perhaps the most extraordinary proof, however, of this surpassing love of the artist for every thing connected with home, was his determination as to the printing of his works. As far as the letter-press was concerned, doubtless his books might have been as well, and peradventure as cheaply printed in the town of Newcastle itself as elsewhere. But as to taking impressions from the blocks, the matter was very different. It was represented to Mr. Bewick, indeed he himself must have well known it, that though, for all ordinary purposes, the pressmen whom he could command in the town were excellent workmen, they could not, in taking impressions from a wood enVol. VII.-No. II. 18 the landscape is flat, and the course of the streams nearly on a level, it is not to be found. It is adorned with bold natural wood and a luxuriant vegetation, whilst its crags and rocks are of a formation different from those which pervade regions emphatically mountainous. Such turns of streams as Bewick has drawn, are to be found in plenty amid the windings of the Tyne, the Coquet, the Till, the Teviot, the Kale, the Reed, the Jed, or the Eden. In these rivers, pool alternates with stream; both are long, but the first longer than the last; whilst with the crag and the rock, natural wood is, for the most part, richly mingled, and the picturesque stream is cradled in a bed of suitable ornament and kindred garniture. In the pages of Bewick these streams are seen to purl. We see, if we do not hear, their music: and where the wooded crag overhangs the darkened water, the practised eye detects the hold of the trout or the lair of the salmon, as instinctively as if, the moment before, one or the other had giv en signal of locality, by dashing at the fly just dropped from the foliage above. We would refer those who ask for instances or examples, (we use the edition of 1826, royal 8vo.) to pages 18, 32, 73, 120, 193, and 259, of the volume of Water-birds, and to page 366 of custom-house or police-office, where the the Land-birds. To those who cannot whole catalogue of his most interesting gather our meaning from some of these, we peculiarities are called over, and found to should despair of elucidating it by words be as per description. But with Bewick In his moor-sketches, the same principle is this is not necessary. In order to recognize discernible, though more faintly, and less one of his birds, the naturalist is not comeasy to be traced. The 'fells' of Northum-pelled, however rapidly, to go over the inberland are, generally speaking, of a forma- ventory of his characteristics-to compare tion less bold than those of Cumberland and the greater or lesser coverts, the quills Westmoreland, but the dreary and desolate primary or secondary-to glance at the coneffect of most of them by no means suffers from this circunstance. Of some of these spots Bewick has given us limnings which cannot be mistaken. They have not the imposing savageness of desolate mountain landscape, but their approach to flatness, whilst it diminishes the picturesque, sometimes adds to the impression of desolation and solitude. For examples of this, the reader who chooses it may turn to page 367 of the land-birds, and to pages 33, 36, 98, 245, and 319, of the water-birds. The last is almost a portrait, and must strongly remind every one who has seen it of that tract of country lying between Rimside Moors and the foot of Cheviot, so rich in historical recollections, and including in it the north-east slope of Rothbury Forest' of yore, Percy's Leap,' Millfield Plain, and Flodden Field. ་ 6 tents of his tail, or ascertain the length, breadth, or thickness of his bill. The bird, whether rich or rare, is before him, and he recognizes it as he would the living origi nal. In the best of Bewick's landscape sketches, much of the same wonderful precision is unquestionably to be found. It is difficult to study them attentively, and not arrive at the conclusion that many of them are literal transcripts of that which existed, altogether or in part. It may be objected here, to be sure, that the artist himself, when questioned upon this subject, would not admit that he copied nature thus servilely, if upon such a theme such a word is to be introduced; but his unconsciousness of this by no means, as its eems to us, settles the question. He was probably not wholly aware of the scope of his observation, and the retentiveness of his memory. So acOf the marvellous correctness of Bewick's customed was his eye to keen, minute, and eye, and of the wonderful precision with perpetual and unceasing scrutiny, that his which he seized and transferred the form mind, no doubt, became stored with imageand lineaments of whatever in nature, ani- ry, of which he was hardly aware. There mate or inanimate, he chose to depict, it is seems to be reason for suspecting that this almost superfluous to speak. In that extraor- habit of incessant scrutiny of the forms of dinary power resides the great charm of all objects was carried so far as to be, at times, he has done. The sheer truth of Bewick's troublesome and painful to him. He was drawing was, perhaps, hardly ever matched, accustomed to assert, and we fully believe certainly never exceeded. Whether his sub-it, that he never could so completely enjoy ject be animated or lifeless, in motion or at rest, he at once seizes and impresses its form and character. Verisimilitude is too weak a word for some of his most finished portraitures. They are not like the truth: they are the truth itself. In some of his quadrupeds and birds, we have not only the form and action of the animal, but its very air and physiognomy. We know it as we know an acquaintance, at once, by his tout ensemble and general characteristics. There is no hesitation, because there can be no mistake, about the matter. It is in this that the finest of this great artist's animal portraits differ from those of all others. We admit the others to be likenesses, but we only do so after an examination. We make them undergo the same sort of scrutiny that a traveller undergoes at a French conversation as by the dim light of a fire which had burned down in the grate. His waggish friends were wont to attribute this idea to the inclination, for which they gave him credit, to effect savings in candle-ends. As a joke, this might pass; but the truth probably was, that the presence of visible objects, even in a room, always somewhat distracted his attention, and hence the comfort he felt in such a negation of light as rendered forms almost invisible. Be this as it might, however, as it is impossible to look at some of his pictures of animals, and not to feel them to be portraits; so is it extremely difficult to examine some of his landscapes and not to be impressed with the reality of the scenes as given. As instances of this, we would refer the curious to the volume of land-birds, page 72, and to pages 39, 92, and 282, of the waterbirds. To us, the impression of these sketches being portraits of actual scenes is so strong as to be irresistible. light breeze is marvellously caught. A collection of half a dozen sea-gulls are resting on the water, and we are made distinctly to perceive that the swell is just in The extreme delicacy and tact, however, the act of passing under that which occuof Bewick's power of observation, in its pies the place next to the extreme on the essence, as well as in its use, are sufficient-left hand. The most strongly marked, ly manifest in various portions of his works. however, of all these marine sketches, The figure of the miller's old overloaded beautiful as they are, is, perhaps, that at horse, which evidently has what farriers page 179 of the same volume, of the man denominate the string-halt,' has been re- and boat. Nothing can be drearier than ferred to; but there are others that evince the situation. The sea, we perceive, is riquite as strongly his ability to seize and sing. The vessel in the horizon will, we convey the most minute peculiarities of see, be out of sight in ten minutes more, animal action. We would instance partic-and-where is the land? The view of this ularly that exquisite sketch at page 15 of characteristic sketch absolutely produces a his quadrupeds,' (edition of 1807,) where chill upon the imagination; and we are, in the child, whilst the nurse is otherwise en- spite of ourselves, imbued with that feeling gaged, has strayed to the colt's heels. The of desolateness and disaster so strongly scene is depicted so strongly as almost to impressed in the line of Valerius Flaccusbe painful. We see that, in one moment 6 Exoritur notus; et toto-ratis una profundo more, the animal will strike, probably with cernitur.' fatal effect, and that the frantic mother is too late. Equally admirable is the atti-The very waves seem dark with fate, and tude of the cat, proceeding along a rail, at we hear the gale whistle more and more page 133 of the land-birds. Something loudly and shrill. Something loudly and shrill. A similar tale is told, has, for the moment, attracted her atten- though in a different fashion, at page 236. tion, and she is just in the attitude of paus- We have there a simple, insulated, waveing, in order to make that cautious survey worn rock. Behind it the treacherous wawhich is characteristic of the animal.ters are smooth and calm, but above their These are nicer touches drawn from ani- moveless surface is the remnant of a mast mated beings. In some of those which are of a sunken vessel. On the right, a seathe result of inanimate nature, the artist man's hat lies upon the shore, just left has been equally successful. Those sea- there; on the left, a minute shell-fish, of side sketches, which he has scattered with the crab species, is crawling forth to enjoy such ornamental profusion over the second the calm after that storm in which so many volume of his British Birds,' present human beings-fathers, sons, husbands, many specimens of this happy delineation and brothers-peradventure, have perishof water in motion, which, when in the ed. shape of waves, it is one of the great diffiTo insist upon the genius of the man culties of art successfully to portray. In who, by a few touches, can produce effects some of these Bewick has been wonderful-like these, would be needless. It is clear, ly felicitous. At page 128, (vol. ii.,) we however, that his unreserved confidence in have that peculiar chafing of the sea, nature helped him to this; and that to the which is the result of a fresh breeze blow-combined strength and simplicity of his ing a point or two off the land, given with must attribute the result. Beexquisite truth and nature. At pages 145 wick had no theories to bewilder him. He and 378 of the same volume, the action of saw that creation was beautiful; he endeathe rising tide is admirably expressed. At vored to grasp and transfer those beauties, page 314, the motion of the sea before the and that was enough for him. His creed wind is delineated with equal life and pow-was very brief; At page 218, we have a chase at sea, portrayed with immense force and spirit of execution; and at page 173, the anger of the ocean, when thoroughly roused, is set before us. The haze of foam, and the bro- He essayed to portray things as they were; ken rudder cast upon the shore, speak more not as they might be, or ought to be. In eloquently than can any language. Again, point of fact, he had no idea of improvat page 206, the motion of swell under a ing upon the work of the Almighty Crea er. mind we The good old rule 6 tor. He believed it perfect, and was contented so to believe it. For metaphysics of all sorts he had a rooted dislike, and was the last man in the world to suffer a metaphysician to argue him out of the testimony of his own eyesight. For all the idealities of painters and connoisseurs he had a thorough contempt. He disbelieved in the whole process of endeavoring to paint the lily, or throw a perfume on the violet.' He could see beauty in all natural objects whatsoever; more in some, less in others, but beauty in all. Hence he held that the commonest bit of meadow that ever the sun shone upon, if truly painted, would embody in itself some portion of the beautiful and true. This was his theory, and his practice squared with it. Out of the most ordinary natural objects he evolved the poetical and the reflective. He found the artist was taken in his coat and waist- With that vein of satirical and grave moralizing which runs through the works of this singular man, all who have seen his works are familiar. In the indulgence of this humor he sometimes, it must be admitted, descends to coarseness; but where he escapes this, Hogarth himself has hardly excelled some of Bewick's touches of keen but moral satire. What, for instance, can be better than the thief who sees a fiend in Tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, his path in every rugged branch, cragstone, Sermons in stones, and good in every thing.' or stump of a tree? What a moral lesson This was the secret of Bewick's success. do we not read in the ass that rubs himself He worshipped nature in pure simplicity of against the moss-clad stone, set up to comheart, and richly she repaid him. His utter memorate some conflict, thus helping to dislike to any innovation upon that which render more illegible an inscription already was, he displayed very amusingly, and on three parts obliterated? What a stroke is an interesting occasion, towards the close that of the Scotsman, who is fording the of his life. A few of the members of the river with the help of his cow's tail, in order Literary and Philosophical Society in New- to save paying toll at the bridge, but who castle, for the most part friends of the artist, is losing his hat in the adventure? What wished to present a marble bust of him to a scene is that of the two quid nuncs' in the Society, in order that it might be placed humble life, earnestly engaged in some inin their library. To expect the artist to teresting discussion, but forgetting, in the go to London to sit to any sculptor there earnestness of the inter-communication of was a somewhat hopeless expectation, and great things, that all the water is running was therefore not entertained; but Mr. out of the water-cart? Or, lastly, where Bailey was brought down in order to make shall we find a picture of contented sensuthe model, from which the bust was after-ality like that of the old fellow leaning over wards to be cut. So far all went smoothly; his gate, with his pot and pipe, feeding his but when it came to be debated in what ducks, who are fattening themselves much 'costume' he should be taken, a sore con- in the style of their master? Bewick has troversy arose. The sculptor, as is usual, indulged to the utmost in odd fondness for insisted upon covering the engraver's shoul-introducing 'his Satanic majesty' in propria ders with some kind of drapery, which, for persona. On some occasions, this is done want of a better word, we shall call Roman- in a way sufficiently ludicrous, but someesque. Whether it was precisely a 'toga' or not we cannot say; but it was, no doubt, something classical, in so far as it was not English! Against this, however, Bewick at once rebelled. He was resolved, if he must appear on earth after his death, to do so after the fashion of Hamlet's father, In his habit-as he lived.' and from this resolution he would not budge. The 'toga' was accordingly given up, and times not without a strong moral purpose. That sketch in which he depicts him smoking his pipe, and quietly enjoying the execution in the distance, cannot be mistaken. Enough, however, of this. Here we had purposed to pause; but there remains one other topic, upon which we feel ourselves bound to say a few words. In his treatise on wood-engraving, Mr. Jackson, author of that generally meritorious work, has given a currency-which poor little ragged urchin, probably destitute of father, mother, or friend-a true picture of the system of promotion in the British army at this hour. He who can, upon such evidence, believe this not to be the emana tion of Bewick's satirical and playful fancy, must have a good swallow. Such charges are easily insinuated, especially after the death of those most concerned. In sculpture especially, and in painting as well as in engraving, preliminary portions are often intrusted to inferior hands; yet who would listen to a whisper that Sir Francis Chantrey did not carve his own marbles, or Sir Thomas Lawrence paint his own pictures, because one left the rough-hewing, and the other the laying on of the grounds, to pu pils or assistants? We shall not say one word more on such a subject. We deemed it a duty not to pass it unnoticed; and having said thus much, we leave it to that oblivion which awaits it, regretting only that such a charge, so based, should ever have been published. we certainly are of opinion it did not de- | ist has placed the well dressed 'gentleman's serve to a statement that the celebrated son;' the next to him is sans shoe or stockengraver on wood, and great improver of ing and the last is the quintessence of a the art, owes a part of his celebrity, at all events, to his pupils; and that some of the best of his cuts were either designed or executed, or both, by his apprentices. A long list of these is given; and the names of the pupils who are said to have been, altogether or in part, the authors of these works, are appended. When the public is appealed to in this way, they who so appeal must be content to take for better, for worse,' such opinions and comments as may chance to follow. We must plainly say, we see no reason for giving implicit credit to such a statement as is here put forth. Had this assertion been made, and this claim been put in, during Mr. Bewick's lifetime, it would have been manly at all events; but during the life of the great engraver it sleeps, and when his sleep is that of death, it finds time and opportunity for waking. In a suspicious way, then, it comes forth to the day; and it is as destitute of internal as it is of external evidence What satisfactory end can it answer for any set of men to boast of leaps made at Rhodes,' if they cannot repeat them? To detract thus from the fame of their master does not increase their own. Mr. Bewick was, at the period of his death, just entered upon his seventy-sixth year. He left a son (who is also an engraver) and three daughters in a situation of How happens it, the world must natural- comfortable independence. In person he ly ask, that these claimants have no works was tall and athletic, but towards the latter indisputably theirs, and equal to those they part of his life had a slight stoop. His claim? To this there can only be one an- countenance, when at rest, was heavy; but swer, and that answer is sufficient. A well-in conversation on topics which interested earned reputation is not to be whispered him, underwent that sudden lighting up, as away thus, when the tomb stands between it were, of the features, often observed in the whisperer and him whose best legacy to men who hide high talent under a plain exposterity is to be thus vilified and deprecia- terior. In Bewick, it was very remarkable; ted. But all internal evidence is against so much so, that the effect has been comthe asseveration. Some of the designs pared to that of putting a candle behind a claimed are so manifestly those of Bewick, transparent painting. His manners were that hardly any evidence could prove them those of much simplicity, and his convernot to be his. There is, for instance, that sation strong, powerful, racy and graphic. exquisite tail-piece termed boys playing On most subjects he thought for himself; upon gravestones.' It occurs at page 255, and was strongly inclined, upon most subof the second volume of birds and is as-jects, to what are styled 'liberal opinions.' serted to have been designed by Johnson, In his dealings, he was keen, cautious, and and cut by Clennel. We question whether prudent to a high degree, and was well either of them ever understood the depth of the satire concealed under that design. The boys are seated on gravestones. The first blows a glass trumpet, and the others figure in caps made of rushes, and flourish wooden swords. This generally passes for a mere burlesque of war,' but the sting goes deeper. Upon the highest stone, next the trumpeter, it will be seen that the art aware of the great value of all that was produced by his hand. He is understood to have left behind him some memoirs of himself, which, we have reason to believe, contain not only his own annals, but some of his opinions on art, as well as on other topics in which he took an interest. That his family have not thought fit to lay them before the world may be a subject for regret, |