Note (return) — BIRTHPLACE OF BEWICK, THE ENGRAVER.

Bewick's principal work, or that which established his fame, was his History of Quadrupeds, which appeared in 1790. He had been employed many years in preparing this publication, all the cuts in which were not only engraved by himself or his brother, but were all copied from his own drawings. He had cultivated his early talent for the delineation of animals with unwearied industry: he had not the advantages of academical studies, which education in the metropolis might have afforded him, but he drew from life, taking sketches of all the striking specimens that came under his notice, and visiting whatever menageries of exotic animals were brought to Newcastle. 2 Thus he studied assiduously from nature, and to this course may be attributed the excellence of the cuts in the History of Quadrupeds. Many of the vignettes also, with which this publication was adorned, had uncommon merit as original sketches; for Bewick did not confine his pencil to the mere delineation of animals. His vignettes have been said to partake of his determinate propensity to morality, tenderness, and humour; each telling articulately its own tale. 3 and bearing in every line a lesson.