own and others' works, cut by Bewick, be considered, though perhaps he may
not rival our beloved naturalist, he may be counted among the
indefatigably industrious. And amid all this he found ample time for
reading and conviviality. I have seen him 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 generally relieved his powerful mind in the bosom of
his very amiable family."

"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 rewrite 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 what may be called
the poetic bloom of nature, in which none have so sweetly succeeded as
honest White of Selborne. But this he always resolutely refused; alleging
that his descriptions, whether original, copied, or compared, were
unimpeachably accurate; and that was enough. And not only did he write his
own language, but I often thought his talent in that department not
surpassed even by the other effusions of his genius; witness his
unparalleled Preface to his Fables, and his other Introductions. He said,
even to the last, he felt no deficiency of his imaginative powers, in
throwing-off subjects for his _tail_-pieces (as I named them), which were