While the sale of edition after edition of the “Quadrupeds” was going on with great success, I turned my thoughts to the “History of British Birds.” I felt greatly charmed with, and had long paid great attention to, the subject; and I had busied myself very much in reading various works. As far as I can now recollect, the first books I had become acquainted with were “Brookes and Miller’s Natural History,” and “Dr. Smellie’s Abridgement of Buffon.” These were now thrown, as it were, into the back-ground; having been succeeded by Pennant’s works. I might name others I had perused, chiefly lent to me by my kind friend George Allan, Esq. These consisted of “Albin’s History of Birds,” Belon’s very old book, Willoughby and Ray, &c. Mr. John Rotherham^[28] gave me “Gesner’s Natural History.” With some of these I was in raptures. Willoughby and Ray struck me as having led the way to truth, and to British Ornithology. The late Michael Brian, Esq., of London, lent me the splendid volumes, “Planche EnluminÉe,” of Buffon, and George Silvertop, Esq., of Minsteracres, “Edward’s Natural History.” I was much pleased with “White’s History of Selborne.” Pennant, however, opened out the largest field of information, and on his works I bestowed the most attention. Latham seems to have wound up the whole, and I have often lamented that it was not—by being embellished with correct figures—made a great national work, like the Count de Buffon’s. The last of our Ornithologists, and one of the most indefatigable, was the late Col. George Montagu,^[29] author of the “Ornithological Dictionary.”

As soon as it was spread abroad that I was engaged with the history of birds and their figures, I was in consequence led into a seemingly endless correspondence with friends and amateurs; so much so, that I often felt myself unable duly to acknowledge the obligations I owed them, and many a letter I have written after being wearied out with the labours of the day.

At the beginning of this undertaking I made up my mind to copy nothing from the works of others, but to stick to nature as closely as I could; and for this purpose, being invited by Mr. Constable, the then owner of Wycliffe, I visited the extensive museum there, collected by the late Marmaduke Tunstal, Esq., to make drawings of the birds. I set off from Newcastle on the 16th July, 1791, and remained at the above beautiful place nearly two months, drawing from the stuffed specimens. I lodged in the house of John Goundry, the person who preserved the birds for Mr. Tunstal; and boarded at his father’s, George Goundry, the old miller there. Whilst I remained at Wycliffe, I frequently dined with the Rev. Thomas Zouch,^[30] the rector of the parish. He watched my going out of church on the Sundays, where I attended, accompanied by old Goundry, to invite me to dine with him. On these occasions he often made the character of his late neighbour, Mr. Tunstal, and of George Goundry, the subject of his conversation, and dwelt with great pleasure on the excellence of both. Mr. Tunstal was a Roman Catholic, and had a chapel in his own house; Mr. Zouch was a Church of England minister; and George Goundry was a Deist; and yet these three uncommonly good men, as neighbours, lived in constant charity and goodwill towards each other. One might dwell long with pleasure on such singularly good characters. I wish the world was better stocked with them.

I have often reflected with pain on the asperity with which one description of Christians has commonly treated others who differed from them in opinion on religious matters; or, rather, as to their different modes of faith; and I have thought that the time would come when that cruel, bloody, and disgusting portion of history would not be believed, which has recorded the fact that one denomination of Christians actually burned others alive, who differed from them in opinion on matters which ought to have been considered beneath contempt. But, judging from the past, it is certain that, when men give up their reason, and substitute faith, or anything else, in lieu thereof, there is nothing however absurd that may not be believed, and no punishments, however cruel, that may not be resorted to, to enforce that belief. Men thus degraded may fairly be called man-tigers, being fitted for any cruel, wicked purpose; and, under equally wicked governments, they have been guided and commanded to deluge the earth with blood. It is strange to think that this should have been the case, when it is considered that the whole of the authorities are derived from one and the same pure source; bewildered, indeed, by the twisted imaginations of ignorance, bigotry, and superstition.

The inspired and benevolent Author of Christianity taught neither intolerance nor persecution. The doctrines He laid down are plain, pure, and simple. They hold out mercy to the contrite, aid to the humble, and eternal happiness to the good. For my own part, it is long since I left off bewildering myself with dogmas and creeds, and I feel pity for those that do so. I am quite clear and willing to believe and to allow, that, whatever modes of faith honest and well-meaning people think best to adopt, they may in sincerity of heart, and to the best of their judgments, be doing what is called serving God. They surely ought not to interfere with the creeds of others, who are equally as sincere as themselves in the means they pursue for the same end. However various these modes of faith may be, there is one rule that ought to guide the whole, and it appears to me to be simple and easy to comprehend,—and that one is, that all men, to the utmost of their power, should endeavour through life to steer clear of everything that may degrade their own souls; that the mysterious, incorporated compound may not, when summoned to leave this world, have to appear before Omnipotence polluted and debased. The man who attends to this will fear nothing, but that of erring and doing wrong. He will fear the face of no man. The little, strutting authorities of despotism he will despise, and the virtuous magistrate will ever be his friend. He will break no good laws that have been made for the guidance of man in society; and, as to his religion, that is an affair between himself and his Maker only. With the Author of his Being he will, with unentangled mind, commune freely, at all times, when his spirit moves him to do so; and no man ever did, or ever will, feel himself happy that does not pursue this course through life.

Ever since I habituated myself to think, I have always seen, as clearly as I could see anything, that, it is the intention of the Deity that mankind should live in a state of civilised society, and that no period of human existence can be comfortable without the pleasures and endearments of social intercourse. Every object in nature that can be contemplated shews this; and the full and exact fitness of all its component parts clearly prove that man, from his social nature, is destined to live in this state. He has been endowed with reason, as his guide, for the purpose of regulating and conducting the whole; but, when that guide is neglected, and he suffers his selfish propensities and bad passions to mislead him from the path of rectitude, from that moment, everything, so far as this reaches, goes wrong. For reasons of this kind, it is necessary that equitable and just laws should be made and enforced, to restrain vice from breaking down the barriers that are erected to protect virtue and patriotism. To break through these laws is sin. But, in the present wretched state of society, it may be difficult to bring about such a reformation of manners as would ensure the accomplishment of so desirable an end; for it appears to me that the character of mankind ought to be new modelled before this can effectually be done.

Having long busied myself in wading through systems of natural history,—the orders, genera, species and varieties,—the whim has often struck me to lay down an imaginary one of classing mankind. The genus homo may be made to consist of three species and their varieties. The first (including in one, the wise and the good) is honest men; the second is knaves; and the third fools. 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. Out of the two latter species, when conjoined, are formed the great mass of the wicked, gross, vulgar herd (high and low) of mankind. Amongst these, knaves of great ability ought to be particularly guarded against. They are a kind of splendid devils who have from time immemorial spread abroad much misery in the world; but, notwithstanding their abilities, they would not have got forward in their public wickedness, nor have formed their majorities, had they not enlisted, as tools, their ready-made auxiliaries—the fools; and, if we take only a slight glance at individual misery, it will be seen that most of it is inflicted by one man upon another:—

Could this be remedied, what a beautiful world would this appear to thousands, instead of their being obliged to view it through the medium of an almost perpetual cheerless gloom.

I have often amused myself in considering the character of the canine species, and of comparing it, and its varieties, with those of the untutored part of mankind; and it is curious and interesting to observe the similarity between them. To his master the dog is an uncommonly submissive, obedient, and faithful servant, and seems to look upon him as if he were a god; his sagacity and his courage are equally conspicuous; and, in defence of his master, he will suffer death. But to his own species he is ill-behaved, selfish, cruel, and unjust; he only associates with his fellows for the purpose of packing together to destroy other animals, which cannot be effected otherwise. He will sometimes, indeed, let a supplicating dog, into which he has inspired terror, sneak off; and I have often watched to see the wary, circumspect plan that a strange dog adopts on his being obliged to pass through a village, or through amongst those of his equally ill-behaved brethren, the butchers’ dogs in a town. It is curious to see the stranger, upon these occasions, view his danger, and then affect lameness, and go “hirpling” through amongst them unmolested. I knew their instinct was surprising, but some of their reasoning powers I had not tried; and, for this purpose, when a boy, I cut two thin slices of meat and plastered the insides with mustard, and then threw it to one of my father’s dogs. This, he being very apt at “kepping” caught in his mouth, and, as quickly as he could, got quit of it again; and, from that time, he would rather run the risk of losing it than “kep” any more. To prove how far selfishness and malignity would operate upon him, I placed two basins filled with very hot, fat broth, at a distance from each other, when he ran from one to the other to prevent a spaniel bitch from partaking of either of them. His attention was so taken up with thus watching her, that at length his patience was exhausted, by going so often from one basin to the other, that, with the utmost vengeance, he seized her, and tore away his mouthful of skin from her side.

On my return from Wycliffe, being thoroughly drenched with an incessant rain, I called upon an old and much-esteemed schoolfellow, at Bishop Auckland, and spent a day or two with him, in busy converse about our former transactions at school, &c. Perhaps few have passed through life without experiencing the pleasure that a retrospect of the times gone by thus afford to old cronies, in talking over the recollections of youthful frolics, and even of the discipline which followed in consequence of them.

As soon as I arrived in Newcastle, I immediately began to engrave from the drawings of the birds I had made at Wycliffe; but I had not been long thus engaged till I found the very great difference between preserved specimens and those from Nature; no regard having been paid, at that time, to fix the former in their proper attitudes, nor to place the different series of the feathers so as to fall properly upon each other. It has always given me a great deal of trouble to get at the markings of the dishevelled plumage; and, when done with every pains, I never felt satisfied with them. I was on this account driven to wait for birds newly shot, or brought to me alive, and in the intervals employed my time in designing and engraving tail-pieces, or vignettes. My sporting friends, however, supplied me with birds as fast as they could; but none more so than my kind friend the late Major H. F. Gibson, of the 4th Dragoons. Lieut.-Col. Dalton, Major Shore, Captain (now General) Dalbiac, and other officers of the same regiment, also shewed great attention to the growing work. Besides these, many birds were sent to me by friends from various parts of the Kingdom, but the obligations I owe are mostly acknowledged in their proper places in the work. After working many a late hour upon the cuts, the first volume of the book was at length finished at press in September, 1797. Mr. Beilby undertook the writing or compilation of this the first volume, in which I assisted him a great deal more than I had done with the Quadrupeds. After this, Mr. Beilby gave up the engraving business, and dedicated his whole time to the watch-crystal and clock manufactory, in which he had been long engaged before our separation.

The printing of other editions of the first volume of the Birds still met with a ready sale; but some disputes happening respecting the printing of the Quadrupeds, Mr. Beilby, who now sought repose, and could not be turmoiled with disputes of any kind, sold me his share of that publication. Sometime before the second volume of the Birds was put to press, he also sold me his share of the first volume. I had no sooner agreed to give the price demanded than many recollections of the past crowded upon my mind, and, looking at the unfavourable side, I could not help thinking of the extra labour and time I had spent in the completion of these works, wherein he had born comparatively a small part—not even an equivalent in time and labour in the other department of our business; and in this instance I could not help thinking that he had suffered greediness to take possession of his mind; but, having promised to pay the sum, I made no further observations to any one. On the other side of this account, I called to my remembrance the many obligations I owed him, for the wise admonitions he had given, and the example he had set me, while I was only a wild and giddy youth. These I never could forget, and they implanted so rooted a respect for him that I had grudged nothing I could do to promote his happiness. I had noticed, for some time past, that he had been led under a guidance and influence that made an alteration in his conduct for the worse; and he appeared to me not to be the Ralph Beilby^[31] he had been. I used to think him careful and sometimes penurious, and this disposition might indeed have crept and increased upon him; but, whatever natural failings might be in his composition, these had heretofore been checked and regulated by the rules of morality and religion. It seemed to me that it must have been a maxim with him to do justice to all, but not to confer favours upon any one; and yet he often joined me in conferring such, in various ways, upon our apprentices and others of our workpeople, for which we commonly had dirt thrown in our faces.

It does not require any great stretch of observation to discover that gratitude is a rare virtue, and that, whatever favours are conferred upon an ungrateful man, he will conclude that these would not have been bestowed upon him had he not deserved them. In these our gifts, I was to blame in thus conferring favours that it would have been as well to let alone. In other charities he was not backward in contributing his mite, but in these matters he was led by wisdom. In the former case, mine, by giving vent to my feelings, were led by folly; but, indeed, these follies were trivial compared with others relative to money matters, in which I had been led away by my feelings, in lending money to some, and in being bound for the payment of it for others, which, if I had been more of his disposition, would not have happened; and I now clearly see and feel that, had it not been for these imprudences, I should, at this day, have found myself in better and very different circumstances than those I am in. My partner, indeed, often watched, and sometimes prevented me, from engaging in such ruinous concerns, and would remark to me that it was impossible to serve any man who would not serve himself.

As soon as Mr. Beilby left me, I was obliged, from necessity, not choice, to commence author. As soon as each bird was finished on the wood, I set about describing it from my specimen, and at the same time consulted every authority I could meet with, to know what had been said; and this together with what I knew, from my own knowledge, were then compared; and, in this way, I finished as truly as I could the second volume of the History of Birds. I also examined the first volume, with a view to correct its errors, and to add many new figures and descriptions of them to it. Although all this could not be done but by close, and, indeed, severe confinement and application, yet I was supported by the extreme pleasure I felt in depicturing and describing these beautiful and interesting aerial wanderers of the British Isles. I also hoped that my labours might perhaps have the effect of inveigling my youthful countrymen to be smitten with the charms which this branch,—and, indeed, every other department of Natural History,—imparts, and with the endless pleasures afforded to all who wish to “trace Nature up to Nature’s God.”

While I was thus proceeding, I was encouraged and flattered by amateurs, who took a deep interest in my growing work, and seemed to partake of the ardour in which I had long indulged. From them birds were sent to me from far and near; but, to give a list of the names of these friends, and to detail the kindness I experienced first and last, might indeed be giving vent to my feelings of gratitude, but it would far exceed the bounds prescribed to this Memoir.