MEMOIR OF THOMAS BEWICK. 57 



in cleaning with chalk for every impression ; but edi- 

 tions of wood-blocks must be very numerous indeed 

 before they show any feebleness. In early life he 

 had cut a vignette for the Newcastle newspaper; 

 and this year it had been calculated that more than 

 nine hundred thousand impressions had been worked 

 off ; yet is the block still in use, and not perceptibly 

 impaired. A faint impression therefore, is by no 

 means to be attributed to the wearing out of the 

 block but to the feebler pull of the pressman ; and 

 this may be proved by observing that when any one 

 is remarkably black or light, all that are pulled off 

 that same form partake of a similar degree of 

 strength or faintness. I have now in my library a 

 copy, though, I am sorry to say, spoiled with my 

 having written the margins all over with ornitho- 

 logical observations, of the very first edition of the 

 Birds, in which many of the impressions are far 

 feebler than the corresponding ones in the very last 

 edition; and in the same edition the same blocks 

 vary in all shades. Let not collectors, therefore, 

 yet despair, who have missed becoming purchasers 

 in the rapid, and now, since the good man's death, 

 more rapid sale of his valuable works. 



" At his table we had the pleasure of dining with 

 several gentlemen of distinguished literary character, 

 whom he had most politely invited on our account. 

 After dinner, having largely enjoyed the full flow of 

 his friends' conversation, and launched on its tide 

 many a full and sunny sail of his own, our good 

 host for a moment fell asleep in his elbow-chair ; 



