Thomas Bewick

“ Truth long struggled with error, before system after system passed away. Notwithstanding the exertions of power to keep them up, they exist now only in story. But do the laws of nature ever alter? Do the sun, moon, and stars shine in any other way than they did to the votaries of Jupiter? Do the human passions operate in any other manner than they did thousands of years ago? No, indeed! Let us, then, rejoice that true religion is independent of human caprice; it is founded upon the immutable principles of truth, reason, and common sense, and therefore must be durable as nature itself. ”

“ I had long considered it to be the duty of every man, on changing his life, to get a healthy woman for his wife, for the sake of his children, and a sensible one, as a companion, for his own happiness and comfort,—that love is the natural guide in this business, and much misery is its attendant when that is wanting. This being the fixed state of my mind, I permitted no mercenary considerations to interfere. Impressed with these sentiments, I had long, my dear Jane, looked upon your mother as a suitable helpmate for me. ”

“ If so, in my way of judging, he was an honour to the peerage, and set an example worthy of himself and worthy of imitation. By going a step further, and planting healthy, strong, men and women on these spots, his patriotism would have been crowned with immortality; for I cannot help thinking that, if the same pains were taken in breeding mankind that gentlemen have bestowed upon the breeding of horses and dogs, human nature might, as it were, be new modelled, hereditary diseases banished, and such a race might people the country as we can form no conception of. ”

“ It is paying too dear for female accomplishments. It is surely desirable that a change should take place, by which fashionable follies may be narrowed in their boundaries, and a better line drawn out; prescribed by propriety, affability, modesty, and good sense, on which the courtesies of life, and the invaluable embellishments of civilisation, and everything graceful and charming in society, is founded. I wish the ladies of the British Isles may set the example, and take the lead in this, so that ignorant rudeness and vulgarity may be banished from the face of the earth. ”

“ In exchange for men, they have filled the country with sheep! Property, in every country, should be held sacred, but it should also have its bounds; and, in my opinion, it should be, in a certain degree, held in trust, jointly, for the benefit of its owners, and the good of society. To exercise a right of property beyond this is despotism, the offspring of misplaced aristocratic pride. ”

“ This was long before I had reasoned myself into a detestation of war, its cruelty, its horrors, and the superlative wickedness of the authors of it. I had not pictured to my mind the thousands and tens of thousands of men in their prime being pitted against a like number of others towards whom they could have no enmity—to murder each other!!—for what? It is foreign to my purpose to enlarge upon this subject: I must leave that to others; and there is an abundant scope to dilate upon, and to depicture, the horrors of war in their true colours. ”

“ Before the religious and moral precepts of the venerable old Book made their way over a more civilized world, and taught rational beings to worship one God, the Father of All, and to consider each other as brethren, it does not appear that the great mass of mankind had bestowed a thought upon the astonishing miracles of creation by which they were surrounded, and which were presented to their understanding and sight in so visible and tangible a shape that it required no faith to believe in them, nor any thing to raise doubts in their minds as to their reality. ”

“ I first picture to myself that I see such a body of learned, rationally religious, moral, and patriotic men as this clergy spread over our already matchless country: and that the effects of their tuition and example, founded on honour and virtue, would very soon be seen and felt amongst all ranks of society, and would further exalt the character of our countrymen over the whole globe, as patterns for imitation to the rest of mankind. It is only by an education like this, that any country can hope that its institutions can remain unbroken up, and endure as a nation for ever ”

“ The crime to which I allude needs only to be examined to convince any one of its cruelty to the fair sex, and its extensively demoralising influence on society. Let any man ask himself how he would feel were his daughter or his sister to be betrayed. This question ought to be fairly canvassed. Although it will be allowed that men, devoid of honour and modesty, who have let loose their unbridled, bad passions, will not be easily stopped in their career, yet, notwithstanding, this evil may be, by the strong arm of the law, greatly banished from the land, and innate modesty planted in its stead. ”

“ Then follow lessons of truth, sincerity, industry, honesty. It ought to be impressed upon their minds that, though they are young, yet the longest life is only like a dream; and, short as it is, it is rendered shorter by all the time lost in wickedness, contention, and strife. They ought to be taught that all they can do, while they sojourn in this world, is to live honourably, and to take every care that the soul shall return to the Being who gave it as pure, unpolluted, and spotless as possible; and that there can be no happiness in this life, unless they hold converse with God. ”

“ Despotism, urged on and supported by this country, was rooted too deeply in the governments of Europe to think of making any change to better the condition of the people. It would appear that that is a business they cannot think of; and the old maxim, that the many are made only to support the few, seems continually uppermost in their resolves. If Bonaparte had been as good a man as he was a great one, he had it in his power to settle all this, and to have established the happiness of both the governors and the governed, over all the civilised world, for ages to come. ”

“ But, be all this as it may, she has spread out her beauties to feast the eyes, and to invite the admiration of all mankind, and to whet them up to an ardent love of all her works. How often have I, in my angling excursions, loitered upon such sunny braes, lost in extacy, and wishing I could impart to others the pleasures I felt on such occasions: but they must see with their own eyes to feel as I felt, and to form an opinion how far the scenes depictured by poets fall short of the reality. The naturalist’s poet—Thompson—has done much: so have others. ”

“ How vividly do recollections of the enjoyment angling has afforded me return to the mind, now when those days have passed away, never more to return. Like the pleasing volume of the patriarch of anglers—Izaac Walton—volumes might yet be written to point out and to depicture the beautiful scenery of woods and water sides, in the midst of which the pleasures attendant upon this exhilarating and health-restoring, hungry, exercise is pursued. ”

“ Thus prepared by the hand of Omnipotence, his reasoning powers commence their operations; his mind is then his kingdom, and his will his law as to his deeds in this life, but for which he must render an account before the justice of his Maker, in another state of existence—in another world; otherwise he has lived in vain in this. If he avails himself of the reasoning power,—the choicest gift of his Maker, and by which He has revealed himself to man,—then will he feel something of a foretaste of the future happiness he is preparing for himself in eternity. ”

“ I have always been more charmed with the human voice, when well attuned, than with any instrumental music whatever; and his voice was extremely good. Many others, perhaps, might have as good a voice, and as correct an ear for music as he, and would have been equally as charming had they not been spoiled by the fashion they had got into to please the surfeited tastes of coxcombical connoisseurs and a vitiated, aping public. I have ever been much disgusted to hear and see these spoiled performers, quavering and spinning out their unnatural falsetto voices until almost spent. ”

“ The brilliantly studded canopy of suns and worlds above their heads, and, as a part of these, the equally wonderful globe of this earth and sea, which is allotted to them, they could not, with their clouded intellects and want of science see nor appreciate, till the mind by research became illumined by degrees, in the varied blaze of light spread abroad—which will in some degree enable men to see the perfection of the Omnipotent Author of the whole. ”

“ The strange propensity, however unaccountable, in almost all men TO KILL, and the pleasurable excitement to do so, is equally strong in the poacher as in the gentleman sportsman. This excitement, or an extreme desire to exhilarate the spirits, and to give them energy, as well as pleasure, pervades more or less, the minds of all mankind, and shows itself in every species of gambling, from cock-fighting, dog and man fighting, hunting, horse-racing, and even up to the acme of excitement—or excitement run mad—that of horrid war. ”

“ The student of landscape can never consult the works of Bewick without improvement. The backgrounds to the figures of his Quadrupeds and his Birds, and his vignettes, have a charm of nature quite his own. He gives us, in these, every season of the year; and his trees, whether in the clothing of summer, or in the nakedness of winter, are the trees of an artist bred in the country. ”

“ These and their gradations and varieties, gliding into each other, form the present jumbled mass of society—the community of which we all form a part. As any of these may happen to predominate in the government of society, so, in exact proportion, will the good, bad, and indifferent effects of their management be felt by the whole people. I think it will be admitted that, out of the first species ought to be chosen the persons,—every man according to his mental powers and the education he may have received to call forth these powers,—to fill every public office from the constable upwards. ”

“ Those who think for themselves, and can believe in one God, and reverence, adore, and worship Him, must ever feel disgusted to dwell on the endless modes of faith with which mankind have been pestered and stultified for ages past, and also feel grieved to think upon the evils—the persecutions—the wars—and the miseries, these have from time to time inflicted upon the half-civilized world. ”

“ The times in which Galileo lived have passed away, but we still see the same kind of despotism and superstition ready as ever to burn such men alive, and to strew their ashes in the wind. The affairs of mankind, managed in this way, will be likely at no distant period to put such kings and their priests out of fashion. Superstition makes despots and tyrants of all the sovereigns whom it influences: they become the confirmed enemies of knowledge. ”

“ Thus situated, any alteration or improvement may be looked for in vain, while self-interest and pride continue so powerfully to guide the actions of mankind.
Time, indeed, may bring about wonders, and the example and influence of North America can perhaps alone be looked up to to lead the way as the regenerator of the Old World. There they have none of the old protecting laws, nor the old prejudices of Europe, Asia, and South America, to contend against, and must see the errors these have fallen into, and may move forward upon clear ground. ”

“ If we examine the history of these times, and look back to those of old, we shall find that the in-roads of ignorance have ever been the same. The time was when the magistrates of Newcastle sent to Scotland for a man who was reputed clever in discovering witches. He came, and easily convicted many a fine woman, as well as those who were wrinkled by age and wisdom, and they were by his means tried and put to death. [32]
I think, if there be a plurality of devils, ignorance must be their king. The wretchedness which ignorance has, from time to time, spread over the world is truly appaling. ”

“ The wood cuts that illustrate his books of natural history may be studied with advantage by the most ambitious votary of the highest classes of art—filled as they are by the truest feeling for nature, and though often representing the most ordinary objects, yet never, in a single instance, degenerating into common-place. The charming vignettes that ornament these books abound in incidents from real life, diversified by genuine humour, as well as by the truest pathos—of which the single figure of a shipwrecked sailor saying his prayers on a rock, with the waves rising round him, is an instance. ”

“ The minds of men ought therefore, to be unbent at certain times,—especially in some constitutions,—to prevent their becoming nerveless and hypochondriacal, the worst of all diseases, in which the mind sees everything with an obliquity of intellect, and creates numberless cruel and imaginary evils which continually surround and embarrass it. Only let a man who cannot employ himself with some hobby or other know that he is provided for, and has nothing to do, and it will soon be seen how ennui, with benumbing steps, will thrust itself upon him, and what a stupid and unhappy being he is. ”