OUR WOOD ENGEAVERS. 



under a roller, clothed with blankets. A wood cut is printed on 

 directly the reverse principle, and in this consists its intrinsic value, 

 because it can be worked with type. All the lines instead of being 

 sunk, constitute the surface of the block ; those parts which are in- 

 tended to be white, are cut away, so that when the lines are armed 

 with ink, the impression is taken without wiping ; thus the double 

 and difficult operation is saved. In a metal plate the lines are chan- 

 nels, in a wood cut ridges. The copper or steel plate engraver has to 

 transfer his original, frequently on a decreased scale, to the material 

 on which he works : from a wood engraver this is not expected, the 

 drawing being made on ike wood for him by the artist employed to 

 design the subject. So that in an impression from wood, we have 

 the original touches of the draughtsman, while those on copper or 

 steel, are translated into the language of his own ait, by the engraver. 



Bewick may, without question, be pronounced the father of modern 

 wood-engraving. He was decidedly a genius. After having practised 

 for some years, in a provincial town, as a cutter of common metal orna- 

 ments, doors-plates, &c. &c. without education, without, apparently, 

 either hint, assistance, or encouragement from any one by his own 

 individual energy, perseverance, and extraordinary talent, he revived, 

 or rather created an art, which he carried so far towards all the perfec- 

 tion of which it is capable, that with numerous pupils and competitors, 

 he died the other day with few if any equals, and certainly no superior, 

 in force, truth, and effect, as a delineator of nature. In brilliancy 

 and elaborate execution, the men of the present day have excelled 

 him ; but for this superiority they are as much indebted to the skill 

 of their principal designer, and the recent astonishing improvements 

 in printing, as to their own professional dexterity and taste. Unlike 

 our present artists, Bewick made his own drawings ; and to these 

 the highest possible degree of praise must in justice be attributed. 

 His birds possess a truth of texture, form, and expression, an indi- 

 viduality of character, which has never been surpassed. His tail- 

 pieces, occasionally, display scenes of the most disgusting grossness ; 

 but such of them and these constitute the majority as are unpol- 

 luted by his prevailing vice, are among the finest homely pictorial 

 morals, that have ever been conferred on human nature by the 

 powers of art. In grace and imagination he was particularly de- 

 ficient his forte consisted in appreciating, and depicting with mira- 

 culous truth the poetry of matter-of-fact. When we consider the 

 difficulties he had to encounter in acquiring his new art, and the 

 tremendous obstacles which he must have overcome in the printing 

 of his cuts, we cannot but look upon his works with feelings of 

 wonder and admiration. 



While Bewick was rapidly advancing in the formation of a little 

 school of wood cutters at Newcastle, a kindred spirit arose in the 

 metropolis. This was the elder Branston. Brought up to nearly 

 the same occupation as Bewick, without any instruction in the art, 

 he began by copying some of the latter's most simple cuts, and long 

 before the close of his comparatively brief but brilliant career, became 

 one of the northern prodigy's most formiable rivals excelling him in 

 some points, though falling short of him in others. John Thompson, 



