LIFE AND LETTERS OF WILLIAM BEWICK (ARTIST). EDITED BY THOMAS LANDSEER, A.R.A. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON: HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, 13 GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 1871. The right of Translation is reserved. THESE records of the artistic life of William Bewick* consist, with very little exception, of autobiographic and literary sketches by himself, and of his correspondence with distinguished artists and intimate friends. He had the happiness to be on terms of friendly intimacy with many renowned artists and literary men during the first half of the present century; and his remains contain a rich store of anecdote * William Bewick was born at Darlington, October 20, 1795 a fact which, so far as the date is concerned, he has forgotten to mention in the autobiographic sketches with which this work commences. VOL. L a respecting a number of the most illustrious authors and painters of that brilliant period. Enjoying the friendship of Hazlitt, Haydon, Shelley, Keats, and others-entertained by Scott, Hogg, Jeffrey, Maturin, and many of the most distinguished novelists, poets, and essayists of his time-he had the best opportunities of collecting incidents in illustration of the career of men of whom we can never know too much. In his early life he was the pupil of Haydon, and was employed afterwards to execute some very important commissions by Sir Thomas Lawrence, President of the Royal Academy. He lived on intimate terms with Wilkie, the Landseers, and Gibson, the sculptor, whose friendship he enjoyed in Rome, and who, in testimony of his esteem, executed a very beautiful bust of him. These records, though pretty full with respect to some periods of his life, still leave gaps which it would have been desirable, if possible, |