MEMOIR OF THOMAS BEWICK. 29 



man, to conceive the desire of giving to the world a 

 complete specimen of the improved arts of type and 

 block-printing ; and for this purpose he engaged the 

 Messrs Bewicks, two of his earliest acquaintances, 

 to engrave a set of cuts to embellish the poems of 

 Goldsmith, The Traveller and Deserted Village, 

 and Parnell's Hermit. These appeared in 1795, in 

 a royal quarto volume, and attracted a great share of 

 public attention, from the beauty of the printing and 

 the novelty of the embellishments, which were exe- 

 cuted with the greatest care and skill, after designs 

 made from the most interesting passages of the 

 poems, and were universally allowed to exceed every 

 thing of the kind that had been produced before. 

 Indeed, it was conceived almost impossible that such 

 delicate effects could be obtained from blocks of 

 wood ; and it is said that his late Majesty (George 

 III.) entertained so great a doubt upon the subject, 

 that he ordered his bookseller, Mr G. Nicol, to pro- 

 cure the blocks from MrBulmer, that he might con- 

 vince himself of the fact. 



The success of this volume induced Mr Bulmer 

 to print, in the same way, Somerville's Chase. The 

 subjects which ornament this work being entirely 

 composed of landscape scenery and animals, were 

 peculiarly adapted to display the beauties of wood- 



