consummately elegant his execution: and his musical memory was so
tenacious that he could whistle through the melodies of whole overtures;
and these, he said, he could obtain having once heard from the orchestra
of a playhouse, or a holiday band, in both of which he took extreme
delight." Bewick's contempt for luxury was remarkable. He generally slept,
even in the depth of winter, with the windows of his chamber open, though
in consequence he sometimes, on awakening, found the snow lying on his
bed-clothes. For money, which men in general prize so highly, Bewick had
all the indifference of a philosopher.

But we must let Mr. Dovaston tell Bewick's last labours, and the close of
his well-spent life:

"Having exhausted the quadrupeds and British birds as vehicles to his art,
instruction, and amusements, he, late in life, took up a fervent
resolution to engrave all the British _Fishes_, and write their histories.
To this his mind was well trained, having been ever a lover of the
fountains and rills, the still pools and broad waters, the majestic rivers
and the mighty ocean. Here he felt the seeds of his talent stirring all
a-life, where he should have to display the beauties of the finny tribe,
and treat of the wonders of the great deep. When I was last in
Northumberland, they showed me _thirty_ fishes he had cut by way of trial,
with the spirit and execution whereof himself was well satisfied, and his
judicious friends enraptured; together with more than a hundred
tail-pieces, conceived and cut, 'ay, every inch,' with all his usual
imaginative appropriation and power. His art here got entirely into a new
element; for, as he was forced to show the fishes _out_ of water, he was
deprived of his favourite excellence, _motion_; yet such motion as a fish
new-landed _has_, he has given with elasticity and life: brilliance to the
scaly, and lubricity to the smooth; so as to remind the naturalist of