Chapter VII: Revival of Wood Engraving (2)

Papillon, in his account of the practice of the art, explains the manner of engraving and printing chiaro-scuros; and in illustration of the process he gives a cut executed in this style, together with separate impressions from each of the four blocks from which it is printed. There is also another cut of the same kind prefixed to the second part of the first volume, containing the history of engraving in chiaro-scuro. Scarcely anything connected with the practice of wood engraving appears to have escaped his notice. He mentions the effect of the breath in cold weather as rendering the block damp and the drawing less distinct; and he gives in one of his cuts the figure of a “mentonnière,”--that is to say, a piece of quilted linen, like the pad used by women to keep their bonnets cocked up,--which, being placed before the mouth and nostrils, and kept in its place by strings tied behind the head, screened the block from the direct action of the engraver’s breath.

He frequently complains of the careless manner in which wood-cuts were printed;[VII-20] but from the following passage we learn that the inferiority of the printed cuts when compared with the engraver’s proofs did not always proceed from the negligence of the printer. “Some wood engravers have the art of fabricating proofs of their cuts much more excellent and delicate than they fairly ought to be; and the following is the manner in which they contrive to obtain tolerably decent proofs from very indifferent engravings. They first take two or three impressions, and then, to obtain one to their liking, and with which they may deceive their employers, they only ink the block on those places which ought to be dark, leaving the distances and lighter parts without any ink, except what remained after taking the previous impressions. The proof which they now obtain appears extremely delicate in those parts which were not properly inked; but when they come to be printed in a page with type, the impression is quite different from the proof which the engraver delivers with the blocks; there is no variety of tint, all is hard, and the distance is sometimes darker than objects in the fore-ground. I run no great risk in saying that all the three _Le Sueurs_ have been accustomed to practise this deception.”[VII-21]

[Footnote VII-20: He complains in another part of the work that
many printers, both compositors and pressmen, by pretending to
engrave on wood, had brought the art into disrepute. They not only
spoiled the work of regular engravers, but _dared_ to engrave
wood-cuts themselves.]

[Footnote VII-21: Traité de la Gravure en Bois, tom. ii. p. 365.]

All the cuts in Papillon’s work, except the portrait prefixed to the first volume,[VII-22] are his own engraving, and, for the most part, from his own designs. The most of the blocks were lent to the author by the different persons for whom he had engraved them long previous to the appearance of his work.[VII-23] They are introduced as ornaments at the beginning and end of the chapters; but though they may enable the reader to judge of Papillon’s abilities as a designer and engraver on wood, beyond this they do not in the least illustrate the progress of the art. The execution of some of the best is extremely neat; and almost all of them display an effect--a contrast of black and white--which is not to be found in any other wood-cuts of the period. A few of the designs possess considerable merit, but in by far the greater number simplicity and truth are sacrificed to ornament and French taste. Whatever may be Papillon’s faults as a historian of the art, he deserves great credit for the diligence with which he pursued it under unfavourable circumstances, and for his endeavours to bring it into notice at a time when it was greatly neglected. His labours in this respect were, however, attended with no immediate fruit. He died in 1776, and his immediate successors do not appear to have profited by his instructions. The wood-cuts executed in France between 1776 and 1815 are generally much inferior to those of Papillon; and the recent progress which wood engraving has made in that country seems rather to have been influenced by English example than by his precepts.

[Footnote VII-22: The portrait was engraved “_in venerationis
testimonium_,” and presented to Papillon by Nicholas Caron,
a bookseller and wood engraver of Besançon. The following
complimentary verses are engraved below the portrait:

“Tu vois ici les traits d’un Artiste fameux
Dont la savante main enfanta des merveilles;
Par ses travaux et par ses veilles
Il resuscita l’Art qui le trace à tes yeux.”

Papillon speaks favourably of Caron as a wood engraver; he says
that “he is much superior to Nioul, Jackson, Contat, Lefevre, and
others his contemporaries, and would at least have equalled the Le
Sueurs had he applied himself to drawing the figure.”]

[Footnote VII-23: From several of those blocks not less than sixty
thousand impressions had been previously taken, and from one of
them four hundred and fifty-six thousand had been printed.]

Nicholas Le Sueur--born 1691, died 1764,--was, next to Papillon, the best French wood engraver of his time. His chiaro-scuros, printed entirely from wood-blocks, are executed with great boldness and spirit, and partake more of the character of the earlier Italian chiaro-scuros than any other works of the same kind engraved by his contemporaries.[VII-24] He chiefly excelled in the execution of chiaro-scuros and large cuts; his small cuts are of very ordinary character; they are generally engraved in a hard and meagre style, want variety of tint, and are deficient in effect.

[Footnote VII-24: In the chiaro-scuros from original drawings in
the collection of Monsieur Crozat, with the figures etched by
Count Caylus, the wood-blocks from which the sepia-coloured tints
were printed were engraved by Nicholas Le Sueur.--About the same
period Arthur Pond and George Knapton in England, and Count
M. A. Zanetti in Italy, executed in the same manner several
chiaro-scuros in imitation of drawings and sketches by eminent
painters. The taste for chiaro-scuros seems to have been revived
in France by the Regent-Duke of Orleans, who declared that Ugo da
Carpi’s chiaro-scuros afforded him more pleasure than any other
kind of prints.]

P. S. Fournier, the younger, a letter-founder of considerable reputation,--born at Paris 1712, died 1768,--occasionally engraved on wood. Papillon says that he was self-taught; and that he certainly would have made greater progress in the art had he not devoted himself almost exclusively to the business of type-founding. Monsieur Fournier is, however, better known as a writer on the history of the art than as a practical wood engraver. Between 1758 and 1761 he published three tracts relating to the origin and progress of wood engraving, and the invention of typography.[VII-25] From these works it is evident that, though he takes no small credit to himself for his practical knowledge of wood engraving and printing, he was very imperfectly acquainted with his subject. They abound in errors which it is impossible that any person possessing the knowledge he boasts of should commit, unless he had very superficially examined the books and cuts on which he pronounces an opinion. He seems indeed to have thought that, from the circumstance of his being a wood engraver and letter-founder, his decisions on all doubtful matters in the early history of wood engraving and printing should be received with implicit faith. Looking at the comparatively small size of his works, no writer, not even Papillon himself, has committed so many mistakes; and his decisions are generally most peremptory when utterly groundless or evidently wrong. He asserts that Faust and Scheffer’s Psalter, 1457-1459, is printed from moveable types of wood, and that the most of the earliest specimens of typography are printed from the same kind of types; and in the fulness of his knowledge he also declares that the text of the Theurdank is printed not from types, but from engraved wood-blocks. Like Papillon, he seems to have possessed a marvellous sagacity in ferreting out old wood engravers. He says that Andrea Mantegna engraved on wood a grand triumph in 1486; that Sebastian Brandt engraved in 1490 the wood-cuts in the Ship of Fools,[VII-26] after the designs of J. Locher; and that Parmegiano executed several wood-cuts after designs by Raffaele. He decides positively that Albert Durer, Lucas Cranach, Titian, and Holbein were wood engravers, and, like Papillon, he includes Mary de Medici in the list. Papillon appears to have had good reason to complain that Fournier had availed himself of his volume printed in 1738. His taste appears to have been scarcely superior to his knowledge and judgment: he mentions a large and coarsely engraved cut of the head of Christ as one of the best specimens of Albert Durer’s engraving; and he says that Papillon’s cuts are for excellence of design and execution equal to those of the greatest masters!

[Footnote VII-25: The following are the titles of those tracts,
which are rather scarce. They are all of small octavo size, and
printed by J. Barbou. 1. Dissertation sur l’Origine et les Progrès
de l’Art de Graver en Bois, pour éclaircir quelques traits de
l’Histoire de l’Imprimerie, et prouver que Guttemberg n’en est pas
l’Inventeur. Par Mr. Fournier le Jeune, Graveur et Fondeur de
Caractères d’Imprimerie, 1758. 2. De l’Origine et des productions
de l’Imprimerie primitive en taille en Bois, 1759. 3. Remarques
sur un Ouvrage intitulé, Lettre sur l’Origine de l’Imprimerie, &c.
1761. This last was an answer to a letter written by M. Bär,
almoner of the Swedish chapel in Paris, in which the two former
tracts of Fournier were severely criticised.--Fournier was also
the author of a work in two small volumes, entitled “Manuel
Typographique, utile aux Gens de lettres, et à ceux qui exercent
les differentes parties de l’Art de l’Imprimerie.”]

[Footnote VII-26: The cut here introduced is the first in the
_Stultifera Navis_, or “Ship of Fools,” and is copied from
Pyason’s edition of 1509. The following lines accompany it:

“----this is my mynde, this one pleasoure have I,
Of bokes to have great plenty and aparayle.
I take no wysdome by them; nor yet avayle
Nor them perceyve not: And then I them despyse.
Thus am I a foole and all that serve that guyse.”]

From a passage in one of Fournier’s tracts--Remarques Typographiques, 1761,--it is evident that wood engraving was then greatly neglected in Germany. It relates to the following observation of M. Bär’s, almoner of the Swedish chapel at Paris, on the length of time necessary to engrave a number of wooden types sufficient to print such a work as Faust and Scheffer’s Psalter: “M. Schœpflin declares that, by the general admission of all experienced persons, it would require upwards of six years to complete such a work in so perfect a manner.” The following is Fournier’s rejoinder: “To understand the value of this remark, it ought to be known that, so far from there being many experienced wood engravers to choose from, M. Schœpflin would most likely experience some difficulty in finding one to consult.” The wood-cuts which occur in German books printed between 1700 and 1760 are certainly of the most wretched kind; contemptible alike in design and execution. Some of the best which I have seen--and they are very bad--are to be found in a thin folio entitled “Orbis Literatus Germanico-Europaeus,” printed at Frankfort in 1737. They are cuts of the seals of all the principal colleges and academical foundations in Germany. The art in Italy about the same period was almost equally neglected. An Italian wood engraver, named Lucchesini, executed several cuts between 1760 and 1770. Most of the head-pieces and ornaments in the Popes’ Decretals, printed at Rome at this period, were engraved by him; and he also engraved the cuts in a Spanish book entitled “Letania Lauretana de la Virgen Santissima,” printed at Valencia in 1768. It is scarcely necessary to say that these cuts are of the humblest character.

Though wood engraving did not make any progress in England from 1722 to the time of Thomas Bewick, yet the art was certainly never lost in this country; the old stock still continued to put forth a branch--_non deficit alter_--although not a golden one. Two wood-cuts tolerably well executed, and which show that the engraver was acquainted with the practice of “lowering,” occur in a thin quarto, London, printed for H. Payne, 1760. The book and the cuts are thus noticed in Southey’s Life of Cowper, volume I. page 50. The writer is speaking of the Nonsense Club, of which Cowper was a member.

“At those meetings of

Jest and youthful Jollity,
Sport that wrinkled Care derides,
And Laughter holding both his sides,

there can be little doubt that the two odes to Obscurity and Oblivion originated, joint compositions of Lloyd and Colman, in ridicule of Gray and Mason. They were published in a quarto pamphlet, with a vignette, in the title-page, of an ancient poet safely seated and playing on his harp; and at the end a tail-piece representing a modern poet in huge boots, flung from a mountain by his Pegasus into the sea, and losing his tie-wig in the fall.” The following is a fac-simile of the cut representing the poet’s fall. He seems to have been tolerably confident of himself, for, though the winged steed has no bridle, he is provided with a pair of formidable spurs.

The cuts in a collection of humorous pieces in verse, entitled “The Oxford Sausage,” 1764, are evidently by the same engraver, and almost every one of them affords an instance of “lowering.” At the foot of one of them, at page 89, the name “Lister” is seen; the subject is a bacchanalian figure mounted on a winged horse, which has undoubtedly been drawn from the same model as the Pegasus in Colman and Lloyd’s burlesque odes. In an edition of the Sausage, printed in 1772, the name of “T. Lister” occurs on the title-page as one of the publishers, and as residing at Oxford. Although those cuts are generally deficient in effect, their execution is scarcely inferior to many of those in the work of Papillon; the portrait indeed of “Mrs. Dorothy Spreadbury, Inventress of the Oxford Sausage,” forming the frontispiece to the edition of 1772, is better executed than Monsieur Nicholas Caron’s votive portrait of Papillon, “the restorer of the art of wood engraving.”

In 1763, a person named S. Watts engraved two or three large wood-cuts in outline, slightly shaded, after drawings by Luca Cambiaso. Impressions of those cuts are most frequently printed in a yellowish kind of ink. About the same time Watts also engraved, in a bold and free style, several small circular portraits of painters. In Sir John Hawkins’s History of Music, published in 1776, there are four wood-cuts; and at the bottom of the largest--Palestrini presenting his work on Music to the Pope--is the name of the engraver thus: _T. Hodgson. Sculp._ Dr. Dibdin, in noticing this cut, in his Preliminary Disquisition on Early Engraving and Ornamental Printing, prefixed to his edition of the Typographical Antiquities, says that it was “done by Hodgson, the master of the celebrated Bewick.”[VII-27] If by this it is meant that Bewick was the apprentice of Hodgson, or that he obtained from Hodgson his knowledge of wood engraving, the assertion is incorrect. It is, however, almost certain that Bewick, when in London in 1776, was employed by Hodgson, as will be shown in its proper place.

[Footnote VII-27: Dr. Dibdin adds: “Mr. Douce informs me that Sir
John Hawkins told him of the artist’s obtaining the prize for it
from the Society for the Encouragement of Arts.”]

Having now given some account of wood engraving in its languishing state--occasionally showing symptoms of returning vigour, and then almost immediately sinking into its former state of depression--we at length arrive at an epoch from which its revival and progressive improvement may be safely dated. The person whose productions recalled public attention to the neglected art of wood engraving was

This distinguished wood engraver, whose works will be admired as long as truth and nature shall continue to charm, was born on the 10th or 11th of August, 1753, at Cherry-burn, in the county of Northumberland, but on the south side of the Tyne, about twelve miles westward of Newcastle.

His father rented a small land-sale colliery at Mickley-bank, in the neighbourhood of his dwelling, and it is said that when a boy the future wood engraver sometimes worked in the pit. At a proper age he was sent as a day-scholar to a school kept by the Rev. Christopher Gregson at Ovingham, on the opposite side of the Tyne. The Parsonage House, in which Mr. Gregson lived, is pleasantly situated on the edge of a sloping bank immediately above the river; and many reminiscences of the place are to be found in Bewick’s cuts; the gate at the entrance is introduced, with trifling variations, in three or four different subjects; and a person acquainted with the neighbourhood will easily recognise in his tail-pieces several other little local sketches of a similar kind. In the time of the Rev. James Birkett, Mr. Gregson’s successor, Ovingham school had the character of being one of the best private schools in the county; and several gentlemen, whose talents reflect credit on their teacher, received their education there. In the following cut, representing a view of Ovingham from the south-westward, the Parsonage House, with its garden sloping down to the Tyne, is perceived immediately to the right of the clump of large trees. The bank on which those trees grow is known as the _crow-tree bank_. The following lines, descriptive of a view from the Parsonage House, are from “The School Boy,” a poem, by Thomas Maude, A.M., who received his early education at Ovingham under Mr. Birkett.

“But can I sing thy simpler pleasures flown,
Loved OVINGHAM! and leave the _chief_ unknown,--
Thy _annual Fair_, of every joy the mart,
That drained my pocket, ay, and took my childish heart?
Blest morn! how lightly from my bed I sprung,
When in the blushing east thy beams were young;
While every blithe co-tenant of the room
Rose at a call, with cheeks of liveliest bloom.
Then from each well-packed drawer our vests we drew,
Each gay-frilled shirt, and jacket smartly new.
Brief toilet ours! yet, on a morn like this,
Five extra minutes were not deemed amiss.
Fling back the casement!--Sun, propitious shine!
How sweet your beams gild the clear-flowing Tyne,
That winds beneath our master’s garden-brae,
With broad bright mazes o’er its pebbly way.
See Prudhoe! lovely in the morning beam:-- }
Mark, mark, the ferry-boat, with twinkling gleam, }
Wafting fair-going folks across the stream. }
Look out! a bed of sweetness breathes below,
Where many a rocket points its spire of snow;
And from the _Crow-tree Bank_ the cawing sound
Of sable troops incessant poured around!
Well may each little bosom throb with joy!
On such a morn, who would not be a boy?”

Bewick’s school acquirements probably did not extend beyond English reading, writing, and arithmetic; for, though he knew a little Latin, he does not appear to have ever received any instructions in that language. In a letter dated 18th April, 1803, addressed to Mr. Christopher Gregson,[VII-28] London, a son of his old master, introducing an artist of the name of Murphy, who had painted his portrait, Bewick humorously alludes to his _beauty_ when a boy, and to the state of his coat-sleeve, in consequence of his using it instead of a pocket-handkerchief. Bewick, it is to be observed, was very hard-featured, and much marked with the small-pox. After mentioning Mr. Murphy as “a man of worth, and a first-rate artist in the miniature line,” he thus proceeds: “I do not imagine, at your time of life, my dear friend, that you will be solicitous about forming new acquaintances; but it may not, perhaps, be putting you much out of the way to show any little civilities to Mr. Murphy during his stay in London. He has, on his own account, taken my portrait, and I dare say will be desirous to show you it the first opportunity: when you see it, you will no doubt conclude that T. B. is turning _bonnyer_ and _bonnyer_[VII-29] in his old days; but indeed you cannot _help knowing this_, and also that there were _great indications_ of its turning out so _long since_. But if you have forgot our earliest youth, perhaps your brother P.[VII-30] may help you to remember what a _great beauty_ I was at that time, when the grey coat-sleeve was _glazed_ from the cuff towards the elbows.” The words printed in Italics are those that are underlined by Bewick himself.

[Footnote VII-28: Mr. Christopher Gregson, who was an apothecary,
lived in Blackfriars. He died about the year 1813. As long as he
lived, Bewick maintained a friendly correspondence with him.]

[Footnote VII-29: _Prettier_ and _prettier_.]

[Footnote VII-30: Philip.]

Bewick, having shown a taste for drawing, was placed by his father as an apprentice with Mr. Ralph Beilby, an engraver, living in Newcastle, to whom on the 1st of October 1767 he was bound for a term of seven years. Mr. Beilby was not a wood engraver; and his business in the copper-plate line was of a kind which did not allow of much scope for the display of artistic talent. He engraved copper-plates for books, when any by chance were offered to him; and he also executed brass-plates for doors, with the names of the owners handsomely filled up, after the manner of the old “_niellos_,” with black sealing-wax. He engraved crests and initials on steel and silver watch-seals; also on tea-spoons, sugar-tongs, and other articles of plate; and the engraving of numerals and ornaments, with the name of the maker, on clock-faces,--which were not then enamelled,--seems to have formed one of the chief branches of his very general business.[VII-31]

[Footnote VII-31: “While with BEILBY he was employed in engraving
clock-faces, which, I have heard him say, made his hands as hard
as a blacksmith’s, and almost disgusted him with
engraving.”--Sketch of the Life and Works of the late Thomas
Bewick, by George C. Atkinson. Printed in the Transactions of the
Natural History Society, Newcastle, 1830.]

Bewick’s attention appears to have been first directed to wood engraving in consequence of his master having been employed by the late Dr. Charles Hutton, then a schoolmaster in Newcastle, to engrave on wood the diagrams for his Treatise on Mensuration. The printing of this work was commenced in 1768, and was completed in 1770. The engraving of the diagrams was committed to Bewick, who is said to have invented a graver with a fine groove at the point, which enabled him to cut the outlines by a single operation.

The above is a fac-simile of one of the earliest productions of Bewick in the art of wood engraving. The church is intended for that of St. Nicholas, Newcastle.

Subsequently, and while he was still an apprentice, Bewick undoubtedly endeavoured to improve himself in wood engraving; but his progress does not appear to have been great, and his master had certainly very little work of this kind for him to do. He appears to have engraved a few bill-heads on wood; and it is not unlikely that the cuts in a little book entitled “Youth’s Instructive and Entertaining Story Teller,” first published by T. Saint, Newcastle, 1774, were executed by him before the expiration of his apprenticeship.

Bewick, at one period during his apprenticeship, paid ninepence a week for his lodgings in Newcastle, and usually received a brown loaf every week from Cherry-burn. “During his servitude,” says Mr. Atkinson, “he paid weekly visits to Cherry-burn, except when the river was so much swollen as to prevent his passage of it at Eltringham, when he vociferated his inquiries across the stream, and then returned to Newcastle.” This account of his being accustomed to _shout_ his enquiries across the Tyne first appeared in a Memoir prefixed to the Select Fables, published by E. Charnley, 1820. Mr. William Bedlington, an old friend of Bewick, once asked him if it were true? “Babbles and nonsense!” was the reply. “It never happened but once, and that was when the river had suddenly swelled before I could reach the top of the _allers_,[VII-32] and yet folks are made to believe that I was in the habit of doing it.”

[Footnote VII-32: Alders--the name of a small plantation above
Ovingham, which Bewick had to pass through on his way to
Eltringham ferry-boat.]

On the expiration of his apprenticeship he returned to his father’s house at Cherry-burn, but still continued to work for Mr. Beilby. About this time he seems to have formed the resolution of applying himself exclusively in future to wood engraving, and with this view to have executed several cuts as specimens of his ability. In 1775 he received a premium of seven guineas from the Society of Arts for a cut of the Huntsman and the Old Hound, which he probably engraved when living at Cherry-burn after leaving Mr. Beilby.[VII-33] The following is a fac-simile of this cut, which was first printed in an edition of Gay’s Fables, published by T. Saint, Newcastle, 1779. Mr. Henry Bohn, the publisher of the present edition, happening to be in possession of the original cut, it is annexed on the opposite page.

[Footnote VII-33: The Reverend William Turner, of Newcastle, in a
letter printed in the Monthly Magazine for June 1801, says that
Bewick obtained this premium “_during his apprenticeship_.” This
must be a mistake; as his apprenticeship expired in October 1774,
and he obtained the premium in 1775. It is possible, however, that
the engraving may have been executed during that period.]

In 1776, when on a visit to some of his relations in Cumberland,[VII-34] he availed himself of the opportunity of visiting the Lakes; and in after-life he used frequently to speak in terms of admiration of the beauty of the scenery, and of the neat appearance of the white-washed, slate-covered cottages on the banks of some of the lakes. His tour was made on foot, with a stick in his hand and a wallet at his back; and it has been supposed that in a tail-piece, to be found at page 177 of the first volume of his British Birds, first edition, 1797, he has introduced a sketch of himself in his travelling costume, drinking out of what he himself would have called the _flipe_ of his hat. The figure has been copied in our ornamental letter T at page 471.

[Footnote VII-34: Bewick’s mother, Jane Wilson, was a daughter of
Thomas Wilson of Ainstable in Cumberland, about five miles
north-north-west of Kirk-Oswald.]

In the same year, 1776, he went to London, where he arrived on the 1st of October. He certainly did not remain more than a twelvemonth in London,[VII-35] for in 1777 he returned to Newcastle, and entered into partnership with his former master, Mr. Ralph Beilby. Bewick--who does not appear to have been wishful to undeceive those who fancied that he was the person who rediscovered the “long-lost art of engraving on wood”[VII-36]--would never inform any of the good-natured friends, who fished for intelligence with the view of writing his life, of the works on which he was employed when in London. The faith of a believer in the story of Bewick’s re-discovering “the long-lost art” would have received too great a shock had he been told by Bewick himself that on his arrival in London he found professors of the “long-lost art” regularly exercising their calling, and that with one of them he found employment.

[Footnote VII-35: Bewick, in London, in 1828, observed to one of
his former pupils, that it was then fifty-one years since he left
London, on his first visit, to return to Newcastle.]

[Footnote VII-36: Mr. Atkinson talks about wood engraving having
taken a nap for a century or two “after the time of Durer and
Holbein,” and of Bewick being the restorer of the “long-lost art;”
and yet, with singular inconsistency, in another part of his
Sketch, he refers to Papillon, whose work, containing a minute
account of the art as then practised, was published about two
years before Bewick began to engrave on wood.--The Reverend
William Turner, who ought to have known better, also speaks of the
“long-lost art,” in his Memoir of Thomas Bewick.]

There is every reason to believe that Bewick, when in London, was chiefly employed by T. Hodgson, most likely the person who engraved the four cuts in Sir John Hawkins’s History of Music. It is at any rate certain that several cuts engraved by Bewick appeared in a little work entitled “A curious Hieroglyphick Bible,” printed by and for T. Hodgson, in George’s Court, St. John’s Lane, Clerkenwell.[VII-37] Proofs of three of the principal cuts are now lying before me. The subjects are: Adam and Eve, with the Deity seen in the clouds, forming the frontispiece; the Resurrection; and a cut representing a gentleman seated in an arm-chair, with four boys beside him: the border of this cut is of the same kind as that of the large cut of the Chillingham Bull engraved by Bewick in 1789. These proofs appear to have been presented by Bewick to an eminent painter, now dead, with whom either then, or at a subsequent period, he had become acquainted. Not one of Bewick’s biographers mentions those cuts, nor seems to have been aware of their existence. The two memoirs of Bewick, written by his “friends” G. C. Atkinson and John F. M. Dovaston,[VII-38] sufficiently demonstrate that neither of them had enjoyed his confidence in matters relative to his progress in the art of wood engraving.

[Footnote VII-37: I have not been able to discover the date of the
first edition of this work. The third edition is dated 1785.]

[Footnote VII-38: “Some Account of the Life, Genius, and Personal
Habits of the late Thomas Bewick, the celebrated Artist and
Engraver on Wood. By his Friend John F. M. Dovaston, Esq. A.M.,”
was published in Loudon’s Magazine of Natural History, 1829-1830.
Mr. Dovaston seems to have caught a knowledge of Bewick’s personal
habits at a glance; and a considerable number of his observations
on other matters appear to have been the result of a peculiar
quickness of apprehension. What he says about the church of
Ovingham not being “parted into proud pews,” when Bewick was a
boy, is incorrect. It had, in fact, been pewed from an early
period; for, on the 2nd of September, 1763, Dr. Sharp, Archdeacon
of Northumberland, on visiting the church, notices the pews as
being “very bad and irregular;” and on a board over the
vestry-door is the following inscription: “This Church was new
pewed, A. D. 1766.” No boards from this church containing
specimens of Bewick’s early drawing were ever in the possession of
the Duke of Northumberland. Mr. Dovaston is frequently
imaginative, but seldom correct. His personal sketch of Bewick is
a ridiculous caricature.]

Mr. Atkinson, in his Sketch of the Life and Works of Bewick, says that when in London he worked with a person of the name of Cole. Of this person, as a wood engraver, I have not been able to discover any trace. Bewick did not like London; and he always advised his former pupils and north-country friends to leave the “province covered with houses” as soon as they could, and return to the country to there enjoy the beauties of Nature, fresh air, and content. In the letter to his old schoolfellow, Mr. Christopher Gregson, previously quoted, he thus expresses his opinion of London life. “Ever since you paid your last visit to the north, I have often been thinking upon you, and wishing that you would _lap up_, and leave the metropolis, to enjoy the fruits of your hard-earned industry on the banks of the Tyne, where you are so much respected, both on your own account and on that of those who are gone. Indeed, I wonder how you can think of turmoiling yourself to the end of the chapter, and let the opportunity slip of contemplating at your ease the beauties of Nature, so bountifully spread out to enlighten, to captivate, and to cheer the heart of man. For my part, I am still of the same mind that I was in when in London, and that is, _I would rather be herding sheep on Mickley bank top than remain in London, although for doing so I was to be made the premier of England_.” Bewick was truly a _country_ man; he felt that it was better “to hear the lark sing than the mouse cheep;” for, though no person was capable of closer application to his art when within doors, he loved to spend his hours of relaxation in the open air, studying the character of beasts and birds in their natural state; and diligently noting those little incidents and traits of country life which give so great an interest to many of his tail-pieces. When a young man, he was fond of angling; and, like Roger Ascham, he “dearly loved a main of cocks.” When annoyed by street-walkers in London, he used to assume the air of a stupid countryman, and, in reply to their importunity, would ask, with an expression of stolid gravity, if they knew “Tommy Hummel o’ Prudhoe, Willy Eltringham o’ Hall-Yards, or Auld Laird Newton o’ Mickley?”[VII-39] He thus, without losing his temper, or showing any feeling of annoyance, soon got quit of those who wished to engage his attention, though sometimes not until he had received a hearty malediction for his stupidity.

[Footnote VII-39: Humble, Eltringham, and Newton were the names of
three of his country acquaintances; Prudhoe, Hall-Yards, and
Mickley are places near Ovingham.]

In 1777, on his return to Newcastle, he entered into partnership with Mr. Beilby; and his younger brother, John Bewick, who was then about seventeen years old, became their apprentice. From this time Bewick, though he continued to assist his partner in the other branches of their business,[VII-40] applied himself chiefly to engraving on wood. The cuts in an edition of Gay’s Fables, 1779,[VII-41] and in an edition of Select Fables, 1784, both printed by T. Saint, Newcastle, were engraved by Bewick, who was probably assisted by his brother. Several of those cuts are well engraved, though by no means to be compared to his later works, executed when he had acquired greater knowledge of the art, and more confidence in his own powers. He evidently improved as his talents were exercised; for the cuts in the Select Fables, 1784, are generally much superior to those in Gay’s Fables, 1779; the animals are better drawn and engraved; the sketches of landscape in the back-grounds are more natural; and the engraving of the foliage of the trees and bushes is, not unfrequently, scarce inferior to that of his later productions. Such an attention to nature in this respect is not to be found in any wood-cuts of an earlier date. The following impressions from two of the original cuts in the Select Fables are fair specimens; one is interesting, as being Bewick’s first idea of a favourite vignette in his British Land Birds; the other as his first treatment of the lion and the four bulls, afterwards repeated in his Quadrupeds. In the best cuts of the time of Durer and Holbein the foliage is generally neglected; the artists of that period merely give general forms of trees, without ever attending to that which contributes so much to their beauty. The merit of introducing this great improvement in wood engraving, and of depicting quadrupeds and birds in their natural forms, and with their characteristic expression, is undoubtedly due to Bewick. Though he was not the discoverer of the art of wood engraving, he certainly was the first who applied it with success to the delineation of animals, and to the natural representation of landscape and woodland scenery. He found for himself a path which no previous wood engraver had trodden, and in which none of his successors have gone beyond him. For several of the cuts in the Select Fables, Bewick was paid only nine shillings each.

[Footnote VII-40: Bewick could engrave on copper, but did not
excel in this branch of engraving. The following are the principal
copper-plates which are known to be of his engraving. Plates in
Consett’s Tour through Sweden, Swedish Lapland, Finland, and
Denmark, 4to. Stockton, 1789; The Whitley large Ox, 1789; and the
remarkable Kyloe Ox, bred in the Mull, Argyleshire, 1790--A set of
silver buttons, containing sporting devices, engraved by Bewick
for the late H. U. Reay, Esq. of Killingworth, which passed into
the possession of Mr. Reay’s son-in-law, Matthew Bell, Esq. of
Wolsingham.]

[Footnote VII-41: Mr. Atkinson says that “about the same time he
executed the cuts [sixty-two in number] for a small child’s book,
entitled ‘A pretty Book of Pictures for little Masters and Misses,
or Tommy Trip’s History of Beasts and Birds.’”--An edition of the
Select Fables, with very bad wood-cuts, was printed by Mr. Saint
in 1776. The person by whom they were engraved is unknown. Bewick
always denied that any of them were of his engraving.]

In 1789 he drew and engraved his large cut of the Chillingham Bull,[VII-42] which many persons suppose to be his master-piece; but though it is certainly well engraved, and the character of the animal is well expressed, yet as a wood engraving it will not bear a comparison with several of the cuts in his History of British Birds. The grass and the foliage of the trees are most beautifully expressed; but there is a want of variety in the more distant trees, and the bark of that in the fore-ground to the left is too rough. This exaggeration of the roughness of the bark of trees is also to be perceived in many of his other cuts. The style in which the bull is engraved is admirably adapted to express the texture of the short white hair of the animal; the dewlap, however, is not well represented, it appears to be stiff instead of flaccid and pendulous; and the lines intended for the hairs on its margin are too _wiry_. On a stone in the fore-ground he has introduced a _bit_ of cross-hatching, but not with good effect, for it causes the stone to look very much like an old scrubbing-brush. Bewick was not partial to cross-hatching, and it is seldom to be found in cuts of his engraving. He seems to have introduced it in this cut rather to show to those who knew anything of the matter that he could engrave such lines, than from an opinion that they were necessary, or in the slightest degree improved the cut. This is almost the only instance in which Bewick has introduced black lines crossing each other, and thus forming what is usually called “cross-hatchings.” From the commencement of his career as a wood engraver, he adopted a much more simple method of obtaining colour. He very justly considered, that, as impressions of wood-cuts are printed from lines engraved in _relief_, the unengraved surface of the block already represented the darkest colour that could be produced; and consequently, instead of labouring to produce colour in the same manner as the old wood engravers, he commenced upon colour or black, and proceeded from _dark to light_ by means of lines cut in intaglio, and appearing white when in the impression, until his subject was completed. This great simplification of the old process was the result of his having to engrave his own drawings; for in drawing his subject on the wood he avoided all combinations of lines which to the designer are easy, but to the engraver difficult. In almost every one of his cuts the effect is produced by the simplest means. The colour which the old wood engravers obtained by means of cross-hatchings, Bewick obtained with much greater facility by means of single lines, and masses of black slightly intersected or broken with white.

[Footnote VII-42: This cut was executed for Marmaduke Tunstall,
Esq. of Wycliffe, near Greta Bridge, in Yorkshire.]

When only a few impressions of the Chillingham Bull had been taken, and before he had added his name, the block split. The pressmen, it is said, got tipsy over their work, and left the block lying on the window-sill exposed to the rays of the sun, which caused it to warp and split.[VII-43] About six impressions were taken on thin vellum before the accident occurred. Mr. Atkinson says that one of those impressions, which had formerly belonged to Mr. Beilby, Bewick’s partner, was sold in London for twenty pounds; A. Stothard, R.A., had one, as had also Mr. C. Nesbit.

[Footnote VII-43: The block remained in several pieces until 1817,
when they were firmly united by means of cramps, and a number of
impressions printed off. These impressions are without the border,
which distinguishes the earlier ones. The border, which was
engraved on separate pieces, enclosed the principal cut in the
manner of a frame.]

Towards the latter end of 1785 Bewick began to engrave the cuts for his General History of Quadrupeds, which was first printed in 1790.[VII-44] The descriptions were written by his partner, Mr. Beilby, and the cuts were all drawn and engraved by himself. The comparative excellence of those cuts, which, for the correct delineation of the animals and the natural character of the _incidents_, and the back-grounds, are greatly superior to anything of the kind that had previously appeared, insured a rapid sale for the work; a second edition was published in 1791, and a third in 1792.[VII-45]

[Footnote VII-44: A Prospectus containing specimens of the cuts
was printed in 1787.]

[Footnote VII-45: The first edition consisted of fifteen hundred
copies in demy octavo at 8_s._, and one hundred royal at 12_s._
The price of the demy copies of the _eighth_ edition, published in
1825, was £1 1_s._ A proof of the estimation in which the work
continued to be held.]

The great merit of those cuts consists not so much in their execution as in the spirited and natural manner in which they are drawn. Some of the animals, indeed, which he had not had an opportunity of seeing, and for which he had to depend on the previous engravings of others, are not correctly drawn. Among the most incorrect are the Bison, the Zebu, the Buffalo, the Many-horned Sheep, the Gnu, and the Giraffe or Cameleopard.[VII-46] Even in some of our domestic quadrupeds he was not successful; the Horses are not well represented; and the very indifferent execution of the Common Bull and Cow, at page 19, edition 1790, is only redeemed by the interest of the back-grounds. In that of the Common Bull, the action of the bull seen chasing a man is most excellent; and in that of the Cow, the woman, with a _skeel_ on her head, and her petticoats tucked up behind, returning from milking, is evidently a sketch from nature. The Goats and the Dogs are the best of those cuts both in design and execution; and perhaps the very best of all the cuts in the first edition is that of the Cur Fox at page 270. The tail of the animal, which is too long, and is also incorrectly marked with black near the white tip, was subsequently altered.

[Footnote VII-46: The cut of the Giraffe in the edition of 1824 is
not the original one engraved by Bewick. In the later cut, which
was chiefly engraved by W. W. Temple, one of Bewick’s pupils, the
marks on the body of the animal appear like so many white-coloured
lines crossing each other, and enclosing large irregular spots.]

In the first edition the characteristic tail-pieces are comparatively few; and several of those which are merely ornamental, displaying neither imagination nor feeling, are copies of cuts which are frequent in books printed at Leipsic between 1770 and 1780, and which were probably engraved by Ungher, a German wood engraver of that period. Examples of such tasteless trifles are to be found at pages 9, 12, 18, 65, 110, 140, 201, 223, and 401. Ornaments of the same character occur in Heineken’s “Idée Générale d’une Collection complette d’Estampes,” Leipsic and Vienna, 1771. Bewick was unquestionably better acquainted with the history and progress of wood engraving than those who talk about the “long-lost art” were aware of. The first of the two following cuts is a fac-simile of a tail-piece which occurs in an edition of “Der Weiss Kunig,”[VII-47] printed at Vienna, 1775, and which Bewick has copied at page 144 of the first edition of the Quadrupeds, 1790. The second, from one of the cuts illustrative of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, 1569, designed by Virgil Solis,[VII-48] is copied in a tail-piece in the first volume of Bewick’s Birds, page 330, edition 1797.

[Footnote VII-47: Some account of this work is previously given at
page287.]

[Footnote VII-48: This work is noticed at page 407.]

The following may be mentioned as the best of the tail-pieces in the first edition of the Quadrupeds, and as those which most decidedly display Bewick’s talent in depicting, without exaggeration, natural and humorous incidents. In this respect he has been excelled by no other artist either of past or present times. The Elephant, fore-shortened, at page 162; the Dog and Cat, 195; the Old Man crossing a ford, mounted on an old horse, which carries, in addition, two heavy sacks, 244; the Bear-ward, with his wife and companion, leading Bruin, and accompanied by his dancing-dogs,--a gallows seen in the distance, 256; a Fox, with Magpies flying after him, indicating his course to his pursuers, 265; Two unfeeling fellows enjoying the pleasure of hanging a dog,--a gibbet, seen in the distance, to denote that those who could thus quietly enjoy the dying struggles of a dog would not be unlikely to murder a man, 274; a Man eating his dinner with his dog sitting beside him, expecting his share, 285; Old Blind Man led by a dog, crossing a bridge of a single plank, and with the rail broken, in a storm of wind and rain, 320; a Mad Dog pursued by three men,--a feeble old woman directly in the dog’s way, 324; a Man with a bundle at his back, crossing a stream on stilts, 337; a winter piece,--a Man travelling in the snow, 339; a grim-visaged Old Man, accompanied by a cur-dog, driving an old sow, 371; Two Boys and an Ass on a common, 375; a Man leaping, by means of a pole, a stream, across which he has previously thrown his stick and bag, 391; a Man carrying a bundle of faggots on the ice, 395; a Wolf falling into a trap, 430; and Two Blind Fiddlers and a Boy, the last in the book, at 456. In this cut Bewick has represented the two blind fiddlers earnestly scraping away, although there is no one to listen to their strains; the bare-legged _tatty_-headed boy who leads them, and the half-starved melancholy-looking dog at their heels, are in admirable keeping with the principal characters.

On the next page is a copy of the cut of the Two Boys and the Ass, previously mentioned as occurring at page 375. This cut, beyond any other of the tail-pieces in the first edition of the Quadrupeds, perhaps affords the best specimen of Bewick’s peculiar talent of depicting such subjects; he faithfully represents Nature, and at the same time conveys a moral, which gives additional interest to the sketch. Though the ass remains immoveable, in spite of the application of a branch of furze to his hind quarters, the young graceless who is mounted evidently enjoys his seat. The pleasure of the twain consists as much in having _caught_ an ass as in the prospect of a ride. To such characters the stubborn ass frequently affords more _amusement_ than a willing goer; they like to flog and thump a thing well, though it be but a gate-post. The gallows in the distance--a favourite _in terrorem_ object with Bewick--suggests their ultimate destiny; and the cut, in the first edition, derives additional _point_ from its situation among the animals found in _New South Wales_,--the first shipment of convicts to Botany Bay having taken place about two years previous to the publication of the work. This cut, as well as many others in the book, affords an instance of lowering,--the light appearance of the distance is entirely effected by that process.

The subsequent editions of the Quadrupeds were enlarged by the addition of new matter and the insertion of several new cuts. Of these, with the exception of the Kyloe Ox,[VII-49] the tail-pieces are by far the best. The following are the principal cuts of animals that have been added since the first publication of the work; the pages annexed refer to the edition of 1824, the last that was published in Bewick’s life-time: the Arabian Horse, page 4,--the stallion, seen in the back-ground, has suffered a dismemberment since its first appearance;[VII-50] the Old English Road Horse, 9; the Improved Cart Horse, 14; the Kyloe Ox, 36; the Musk Bull, 49; the Black-faced, or Heath Ram, 56; Heath Ram of the Improved Breed, 57; The Cheviot Ram, 58; Tees-water Ram of the Old Breed, 60; Tees-water Ram, Improved Breed, 61; the American Elk, 125; Sow of the Improved Breed, 164; Sow of the Chinese Breed, 166; Head of a Hippopotamus, (engraved by W. W. Temple,) 185; Indian Bear, 293; Polar, or Great White Bear, substituted for another cut of the same animal, 295; the Spotted Hyena, substituted for another cut of the same animal, 301; the Ban-dog, 338; the Irish Greyhound, 340; the Harrier, 347; Spotted Bavy, substituted for another cut of the same animal, 379; the Grey Squirrel, 387; the Long-tailed Squirrel, 396; the Jerboa, substituted for another cut of the same animal, 397; the Musquash, or Musk Beaver, 416; the Mouse, substituted for another cut of the same animal, 424; the Short-eared Bat, 513; the Long-eared Bat, 515; the Ternate Bat, 518; the Wombach, 523; and the Ornithorhynchus Paradoxicus, 525. The cut of the animal called the Thick-nosed Tapiir, at page 139 of the first edition, is transposed to page 381 of the last edition, and there described under the name of the Capibara: it is probably intended for the Coypu rat, a specimen of which is at present in the Gardens of the Zoological Society, Regent’s Park. Bewick was a regular visitor of all the wild-beast shows that came to Newcastle, and availed himself of every opportunity to obtain drawings from living animals.

[Footnote VII-49: The Kyloe Ox, which occurs at page 36 of the
edition of 1824, the last that was published in Bewick’s
life-time, is one of the very best cuts of a quadruped that he
ever engraved. The drawing is excellent, and the characteristic
form and general appearance of the animal are represented in a
manner that has never been excelled.]

[Footnote VII-50: The Lancashire _Bull_, of the first edition, by
a similar process has been converted into the Lancashire _Ox_.]

The tail-pieces introduced in subsequent editions of the Quadrupeds generally display more humour and not less talent in representing natural objects than those contained in the first. In the annexed cut of a sour-visaged old fellow going with corn to the mill, we have an exemplification of cruelty not unworthy of Hogarth.[VII-51] The over-laden, half-starved old horse,--broken-kneed, greasy-heeled, and evidently troubled with the string-halt, as is indicated by the action of the _off_ hind-leg,--hesitates to descend the brae, at the foot of which there is a stream, and the old brute on his back urges him forward by _working_ him, as jockeys say, with the halter, and beating him with his stick. In the distance, Bewick, as is usual with him when he gives a sketch of cruelty or knavery, has introduced a gallows. The miserable appearance of the poor animal is not a little increased by the nakedness of his hind quarters; his stump of a tail is so short that it will not even serve as a _catch_ for the crupper or _tail-band_.

[Footnote VII-51: The originals of this and the three following
cuts occur respectively at pages 13, 15, 69, and 526 of the
edition of 1824. The other principal tail-pieces in this edition
are: Greyhound-coursing, (originally engraved on a silver cup for
a person at Northallerton,) drawn by Bewick on the block, but
engraved by W. W. Temple, page x, at the end of the Index; the Old
Coachman and the Young Squire, 12; Tinker’s Children in a pair of
panniers on the back of an Ass, 21; a Cow drinking, 28; Winter
scene, 34; Two Men digging, (engraved by H. White, who also
engraved the cut of the Musk Bull at page 49,) 37; Dog worrying a
Sheep, 62; Old Soldier travelling in the rain, 117; Smelling,
tail-piece to the Genet, a _strong bit_, 269; Drunken Man making
his Dam, 378; and Seals on a large piece of floating ice, 510.]