500 OUR WOOD ENGRAVERS. 



trations of the line of beauty, which flows perpetually in all his 

 groupes : his compositions are full of life sometimes crowded ap- 

 parently from the prodigality of his fancy. But amid the wildest 

 revelry of imagination, the same sound principles which have been 

 the objects of study to the greatest painters of ancient or modern 

 times are constantly displayed. His learning not only accompanies 

 but ministers to his fancy. His wit and invention seem to be bound- 

 less. Is an illustration required ? His mind soars with eagle velo- 

 city over all the regions of fiction and fact, and invariably seems to 

 pounce upon the most apt and appropriate subject. 



With such a designer, the engravers on wood in a mass, though 

 individually unknown and unappreciated, rose with astonishing 

 rapidity. Printing kept pace with them ; partly through the exer- 

 tions of Harvey himself, who personally superintended the working 

 of his " Henderson on , Wines," and partly too by the practical skill 

 and experiments at press of the elder Branston and his talented eldest 

 son Robert, now of the firm of Vizetelly, Branston, and Co. Mean- 

 while Whittingham was making gigantic strides as a fine printer, and 

 the wood engravers received, from time to time, valuable additions to 

 their little corps. Samuel Williams, a self-taught artist, who had com- 

 menced wood-engraving, by copying some paltry cock-robin cuts, 

 while a printer's apprentice at Colchester, pushed forward into the 

 foremost ranks, and displayed considerable talent as a designer : his 

 brother Thomas followed close in his rear ; the pupils of Branston 

 soared up to individual distinction; Jackson, an eleve of Bewick, 

 came to town ; and the veteran Nesbitt, after a long retirement, re- 

 turned to the practise of his profession. George and Robert Cruik- 

 shank, especially the former, added by their designs to the popu- 

 larity of the art ; then came Seymour ; and after him Meadows 

 fruitful in fancy, and most felicitous in the delineation of graceful 

 cupids and graceless blackguards, pre-eminent in portrait, and 

 pretty considerable in all things besides a few designers of minor 

 powers, and a multitude of mere copyists and fac-simile transcribers. 

 Other engravers now started up Bonner, John Wright, and Frede- 

 rick Branston, pupils of the father of the latter ; Smith, an emanation 

 from Jackson; Landells, a pupil of Bewick, and others of inferior 

 fame. 



With two or three splendid exceptions, the second series of North- 

 cote's fables affords specimens of the works of all the living engravers 

 who have attained to eminence in their art. It is truly a most 

 extraordinary work, and merits a very extensive sale. Its pro- 

 duction casts a lustre even on the name of the great John Murray. 

 It is a portable gallery of beautiful pictures pictures of the highest 

 merit redolent of imagination, grace, the most profound wit, and 

 the most delicate humour a monument of the genius of Harvey. 

 We say of the genius of Harvey, for Northcote merely played the 

 bellows-blower in concocting it. Our indignation is boundless, 

 at the impudence of withholding Harvey's name from the title-page, 

 and at the shallow impertinence of our sage reviewers in attri- 

 buting the designs to Northcote an incompetent twaddler, who, had 

 he reached to the age of Methusalem, and enjoyed full possession of 



