56 MEMOIR OF THOMAS BEWICK. 



valuable Herbal: in that of Parkinson : and in 

 Felix Yalgrise's beautiful folio edition of Matthiolus* 

 Commentaries on Dioscorides, Venice, 1583 : and 

 many other ancient books in my collection. Mr. 

 Bewick's own Horse-traveller in a Storm, where he 

 shows black and white rain, is a specimen of the 

 use of two blocks. A person acquainted only with 

 the common method would be at a loss to conceive 

 how the union of the absolutely opposite styles of 

 engraving, on copper and wood, could be effected. 

 The black diagonal lines, particularly those on the 

 foreground, constitute its great curiosity as a wood- 

 cut. In many of his tail-pieces, he has given imi- 

 tations of etching, and cross-hatching ; but these 

 are all worked in the usual manner, the surface of 

 the wood being picked out, with infinite labour and 

 surprising skill, from between the lines. He very 

 seldom engraved from any other copy than nature, 

 having the bird (always alive if possible), or other 

 subject, before him, and sketching the outline on 

 the block, filling up the foregrounds, landscapes, 

 and light foliage of trees, at once with the tool 

 without being previously pencilled. It was curious 

 to observe his economy of box-wood ; the pieces 

 being circular, he divided them according to the 

 size of his design, so as to lose little or none ; and 

 should there be a flaw, or decayed spot, he con- 

 trived to bring that into a part of the drawing 

 that w r as to be left white, and so cut out. He 

 said, blocks, in durability of lines, incalculably out- 

 lasted engravings on copper, which wear very much 



