SUPPL

SUPPL. VOL. II. Part II.

that Mr Bielby, who was accustomed to employ his apprentices in such work, advised him to prosecute engraving in that line. The advice was followed; and young Bewick inventing tools, even making them with his own hands, and sawing the wood on which he was to work into the requisite thickness, proceeded to improve upon his own discoveries, without assistance or instruction of any kind. When his apprenticeship expired, he went to London, where the obscure wood-engravers of the time wished to avail themselves of his abilities, while they were determined to give him no insight into their art. He remained some years in London; and during that time, if we mistake not, received from the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, &c. a premium of considerable value for the best engraving in wood. Returning to Newcastle, he entered into copartnership with his old master; and established his reputation as an artist by the publication of his admirable History of Quadupeds. This was followed by his History of Birds, of which only one volume has yet (1800) appeared.

John Bewick, brother to Thomas, learned the art of him, and practised it for several years in London with great applause. His abilities, however, though respectable, were not, by the best judges, deemed to be brilliant as his brother's; and owing to bad health, and the nature of his connection with the booksellers and others, he seems not to have advanced the art beyond the stage at which he received it. He died, three or four years ago, at Newcastle.

Mr Nesbit, who executed the admirable Hudibras published by Verner and Hood (A), and Mr Anderson, whose beautiful cuts adorn the poem entitled Grove Hill, were the next, and hitherto have been the last of Thomas Bewick's pupils, who have appeared before the public as artists. By these gentlemen we are authorized to say, that the method practised by the ancient engravers on wood, whose works are still admired, must have been different from that of Bewick and his pupils. What that method was seems to be altogether unknown. Papillon, who writes the best history extant of the art, guesses indeed in what manner the old engravers proceeded so as to give to their works the spirit and freedom for which they are famed; but that his guesses are erroneous seems evident from the stiffness of his own works. The principal characteristic in the mechanical department of the productions of the ancient masters is the crossing of the black lines, which Papillon has attempted with the greatest awkwardness, though it seems to have been accomplished by them with so much ease, that they introduced it at random, even where it could add nothing to the beauty of the piece. In Bewick's method of working, this cross hatching is so difficult and unnatural, that it may be considered as impracticable (B).

The engravers of Bewick's school work on the end of the wood which is cut across the trunk of the tree,

Wood-cuts in pieces of the proper thickness. As wood-cuts are generally employed in the printer's press amidst a form of types, this thickness must be regulated by the height of the types with which they are to be used. The tools employed are nearly the same with those used in copperplate engraving, being only a little more deep, or lozenge, as engravers call it. They must have points of various degrees of fineness for the different purposes to which they are applied, some of them being so much rounded off at the bottom as to approach to the nature of a goodge, whilst others are in fact little chisels of various sizes. These chisels and goodges, to which every artist gives the shape which he deems most convenient, are held in the hand in a manner somewhat different from the tool of the engraver on copper, it being necessary to have the power of lifting the chips upwards with ease. To attempt a description of this in writing would be in vain; but it is easily acquired, we are told, by practice.

The pupils of the school of Bewick consider it as quite improper to speak of his invention as a revival of the ancient art. Some old prints, it is true, have the appearance of being executed in the same way with his; but others have certainly been done by a method very different. It is therefore not fair to appreciate the present art by what has been done, but by what may be done; and that remains yet to be shewn. The art is in its infancy; and those who are disposed to compare it with the art of engraving on copper, ought to look back to the period when copperplate engraving was of as recent invention as Bewick's method of engraving on wood. Marc Antonio, who engraved under the direction of the great painter Raphael, thought it no mean proof of his proficiency in his art, that he was able to imitate on copper plates the wood-cuts of Albert Durer; and Papillon is highly indignant that there should have been persons so very blind as to mistake the copies for the originals. If copper has its advantages over wood in point of delicacy and minuteness, wood has, in its turn, advantages not inferior in regard to strength and richness. Those prints which were executed under the auspices of Titian and Rubens, will always remain a monument of the spirit and vigour natural to wood-engraving; and if there be not found in them all the attention to chiaro scuro, which the present age demands, it must not be attributed either to defect in the art, or to want of abilities in the artists, but to the taste of the times when chiaro scuro was little understood. It remains for some enterprising artist to shew that the vigour of the ancient art may be attained by the present one, and at the same time to add to that vigour those gradations of shade which are so much admired in good copperplates. As there seems to be a more perfect, or at least a more pleasant black produced by wood than by copperplate printing, and certainly a more perfect white (c), who will say that any intermediate shade whatever may not be produced by wood-cuts? To attempt this on a small scale would indeed be vain, because the slightest variation, produced by a little more or less ink, or a harder pressure in printing, bears such a proportion to a very short line, as must necessarily render the attempt abortive.

Wood-engraving, therefore, must always appear to disadvantage while it is confined to small subjects, and will never reach its station at a fine art, till those who are engaged in its cultivation improve upon the discoveries of one another, and apply to subjects to which it is properly adapted. As an economical art for illustrating mechanics and other subjects of science, it is too little employed even in its present state.

The works of Bewick and his pupils, which have hitherto been published, are not numerous. Besides his quadrupeds and birds, the Hudibras by Nesbit, and the Grove Hill by Anderson, which have been already noticed, we are acquainted with none but the following:—Goldsmith's Traveller and Deserted Village with elegant plates, all by Thomas Bewick, except one or two which were executed by John; Somerville's Chace by the same artist, executed in a style of elegance which perhaps has never been surpassed; a View of St Nicholas's Church, Newcastle, 15 inches long, by Mr Nesbit, who received for it a silver medal from the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, and an honorary letter from the Society of Antiquaries.