ENGRAVING 295 



seen in the first edition of ' Gulliver's Travels,' 1 726, vol. ii. p. 47. An engraver named 

 Lister executed some cuts of a much better character than usual about 1760, particu- 

 larly those in the 'Oxford Sausage ;' and in Sir John Hawkins's ' History of Music' 

 are some of the largest and most ambitious cuts at that time attempted anywhere. 

 They were engraved by T. Hodgson. Three other persons named respectively, "W. 

 Pennock, S. Watts, and H. Cole, occasionally devoted themselves to wood- engraving, 

 which seems to have been practised by such copper-plate engravers as occupied them- 

 selves with ' general work ' for the printing trade or the public, and who varied their 

 labours by occasionally engraving shop-bills or door-plates. 



There is one great change in the cuts produced during this period, the result of a 

 different style of drawing made for the wood engravers, and which discarded cross- 

 hatching and its consequent tedious labour, for a tinted or washed drawing which 

 could be cut into a series of lines by the tool, expressing the varied tints more simply 

 and readily. The art of ' lowering ' or scraping down to a lower level various parts 

 of a cut that should appear light, and so assist the press in its labours, was also prac- 

 tised, and the harder wood of the box-tree used. Such was the state of the art when 

 a Northumbrian peasant boy was destined to appear, again draw universal attention 

 to the neglected profession, and found the modern school of wood engraving. 



Thomas Bewick was the son of parents engaged in a colliery, who lived at Cherry- 

 burn twelve miles west of Newcastle-on-Tyne ; he was born in 1753 and passed his 

 early years helping his father's labour. His leisure hours were earnestly devoted to 

 the small amount of knowledge a village school could impart ; but as a strong love 

 for nature, and for its imitation, soon developed itself in the boy, his father determined 

 to apprentice him to an engraver of Newcastle, Mr. E, Beilby, whose work was of that 

 ' general ' kind undertaken in a busy country town. There he occasionally engraved 

 initials on tea-spoons or names on door-plates, until, in the second year of his ap- 

 prenticeship, his master received an application from Dr. Hutton for woodcut 

 diagrams, such as were then executed in London, to illustrate his treatise on 

 Mensuration. Beilby knew that young Bewick had been making some attempts in 

 this style, and he encouraged him to persevere ; he did so, and Button's book was 

 published in 1770 with Bewick's cuts. The young engraver had many difficulties to 

 contend against, and he had even to construct his own tools ; among the rest, a double- 

 pointed graver to enable him to cut both sides of a line at once, and so ensure its 

 equal thickness throughout. In 1775, he executed a cut and sent it to the Society of 

 Arts, in London, who awarded him a medal ; and in the following year he visited 

 London, and was employed by Hodgson, whom we have already noted as the engraver 

 of the cuts in Hawkins's ' History of Music ;' as well as by H. Cole. There need be 

 little doubt that this visit to the London wood engravers was useful to Bewick, for he 

 must have become by that means acquainted with the usual mode of practising the art, 

 the proper kinds of tools used, and the various things which make the mechanical part 

 of the profession ; but he had fortunately formed a style of his own, so very original, 

 and based so firmly on the study of nature, that wood-engraving in his hands became 

 an art presenting many novel and attractive features never visible before. The wood 

 engravers from the days of Diirer, or from the first invention of the art, depended 

 slavishly on the drawings made upon the wood, and did little more than cut away the 

 interstices ; but Bewick cut out of the wood a vast deal of that which no draughtsman 

 could so draw ; for with the aid of a slightly-tinted drawing, he would cut the foliage 

 of trees, the plumage of birds, the texture of animals, or small figures and birds, by 

 the graving tool alone. His dextrous hand was guided by a perfect knowledge of 

 nature, and every line he cut expressed drawing ; in this was his great distinction over 

 all other wood engravers ; he cut his pictures out of the wood, the others cut the 

 wood out of the pictures. 



Bewick disliked London, and speedily returned to his native place. His first work 

 was an illustrated edition of Gay's Fables,' published in 1779 by T. Saint, a printer of 

 Newcastle, much engaged in the publication of children's books, and such as the 

 travelling chapmen carried in their packs for the edification of the villagers. These 

 cuts bear the earliest traces of that accurate delineation of nature, and minute truth- 

 fulness of expression, which ultimately gave his works universal renown. The wild 

 plants and grasses, however minute they are cut, can always be distinguished by the 

 naturalist ; the proper foliage of every tree is truthfully cut by his graver ; the birds 

 and insects, however minute, are perfect in drawing ; and the general effect of his 

 woodcuts artistically powerful. As he fully felt the value of leaving the wood itself 

 to express solid shadow, he had not the timidity which imagines labour to be neces- 

 sary to success. The little cut of the Fox and Bramble in this volume is a good 

 illustration of Bewick's mode. Every leaf of the bramble is cut out, white upon 

 black, with the most truthful power of drawing ; the spines on the stem of the bramble 

 are visible to the eye ; the fern beside it is similarly expressed by cutting the form 



