XVlll EDITOR S PREFACE. 



disappoint those who look for light upon the 

 vexed question of the part taken by some 

 of these assistants in the tailpieces to the 

 two volumes of the " Birds/' since, though it 

 does enthusiastic justice to Johnson's remarkable 

 abilities as a water colour artist, it is entirely 

 silent as to any aid which may have been 

 derived from his talents. 



This, it must be confessed, is to be regretted, 

 because a word of denial or admission from 

 Bewick himself would have laid the subject for 

 ever, and discussion would have been at an end. 

 For my own part, after much consideration, I 

 am disposed to think that the information sup- 

 plied to Mr. Chatto by those of Bewick's pupils 

 from whom he obtained it, although greatly 

 exaggerated, and in part mistaken, is not 

 without a certain substratum of truth. To treat 

 it as a wholesale slander to be met by a 

 wholesale denial, savours too much of unreasoning 

 partisanship. We have the tailpieces : we have 

 the acknowledged work of certain of the pupils. 

 No one denies that the most important designs 

 for the "Poems of Goldsmith and Parnell" were 

 by Robert Johnson, because the fact is recorded 

 upon them ; no one denies that in the " Hive," 

 side by side with his master, Luke Clennell 

 is to be found executing both cuts and designs 



