]8 MEMOIR C5F TROMAS BEWICK. 



of engraving on blocks of wood may probably be 

 traced higher than that of printing usually so called 

 and though, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, 

 designs were executed of great beauty and accuracy, 

 such as Holbein's " Dance of Death," the vignettes 

 and head-letters of the early Missals and Bibles, 

 and the engravings of flowers and shells in Ge- 

 rard, Gesner, and Fuhschius ; yet the bare inspec- 

 tion of these is sufficient to prove that Uieir me- 

 thods must have been very different from that which 

 Bewick and his school have followed. The princi- 

 pal characteristic of the ancient masters is the cross- 

 ing of the black lines, to produce or deepen the shade, 

 commonly called cross-hatching. Whether this was 

 done by employing different blocks, one after ano- 

 ther, as in calico-printing and paper-staining, it may 

 be difficult to say ; but to produce them on the same 

 block is so difficult and unnatural, that, though Nes- 

 bit, one of Bewick's early pupils, attempted it on a 

 few occasions, and the splendid print of Dentatus by 

 Harvey shews that it is not impossible even on a large 

 scale, yet the waste of time and labour is scarcely 

 worth the effect produced. 



To understand this, it may be necessary to state, 

 for the information of those who may not have seen 

 an engraved block of wood, that whereas the lines 



