22 MEMOIR OF THOMAS BEWICK. 



him his peculiar line of excellence, and to enjoy with- 

 out jealousy his merit and success, even when it ap- 

 peared, in some respects, to throw himself into the 

 shade. When Mr Charles Hutton, afterwards the 

 eminent Professor Hutton of Woolwich, hut then 

 a schoolmaster in Newcastle, was preparing, in 1770, 

 his great work on Mensuration, he applied to Mr 

 Beilhy to engrave on copper-plates the mathemati- 

 cal figures for the work. Mr Beilhy judiciously ad- 

 vised that they should be cut on wood, in which 

 case, each might accompany, on the same page, the 

 proposition it was intended to illustrate. He em- 

 ployed his young apprentice to execute many of 

 these ; and the beauty and accuracy with which 

 they were finished, led Mr Beilby to advise him 

 strongly to devote his chief attention to the improve- 

 ment of this long-lost art. Several mathematical 

 works were supplied, about this time, with very 

 beautiful diagrams ; particularly Dr Enfield's trans- 

 lation of Rossignol's Elements of Geometry. 



On the expiration of his apprenticeship, he visited 

 the metropolis for a few months, and was, during 

 this short period, employed by an engraver in the 

 vicinity of Hatton-Garden. But London, with all 

 its gaieties and temptations, had no attractions for 

 Bewick : he panted for the enjoyment of his native 



