MEMOIR OF THOMAS BEWICK. 57 



had not even a lesson from William Beilby, or 

 his brother Thomas, who, along with their other 

 profession, were also drawing" masters. In the 

 later years of my apprenticeship, my master kept 

 me so fully employed that I never had any oppor- 

 tunity for such a purpose, at which I felt much 

 grieved and disappointed. The first jobs I was 

 put to do was blocking-out the wood about the 

 lines on the diagrams (which my master finished) 

 for the " Ladies Diary," on which he was em- 

 ployed by Charles Hutton,* and etching sword 

 blades for William and Nicholas Oley, sword 



* Afterwards the great Dr. Hutton. He died 2yth January, 1823, 

 in the 86th year of his age. [The " Ladies' Diary" dated as far back 

 as 1704. It was long edited by Hutton. Another book upon the 

 diagrams of which Bewick was employed was Huttori's " Treatise on 

 Mensuration," which first appeared in sixpenny parts, and was pub- 

 lished in 1770 as a quarto volume. One of the cuts, often referred 

 to with exaggerated interest, contains a rude representation of the 

 tower of St. Nicholas's church, later a frequent feature in Bewick's 

 designs. In that haven of treasure-trove, the "four-penny box," 

 the writer of 'his note recently came upon a curious relic of the 

 Hutton-Bewick connection. It is a copy of the once-famous 

 " Pursuits of Literature," Seventh Edition, 1798. "To the lines in 

 Dialogue II : 



" From Bewick's magick wood throw borrow'd rays 



O'er many a page in gorgeous Bulmer's blaze," 



the following note, mercifully spared by the binder's plough, is 

 appended in a contemporary hand: " I was chiefly instrumental to 

 this ingenious artist's excellence in this art. I first initiated his 

 master, Mr. Ra. Beilby (of Newcastle) into the ait, and his first 

 essay was the execution of the cuts in my Treatise on Mensuration, 

 printed in 4to, 1770. Soon after I recommended the same artist to 

 execute the cuts to Dr Horsley's edition of the works of Newton. 

 Accordingly Mr. B. had the job, who put them into the hands of his 

 assistant, Mr. Bewick, who executed them as his first work in wood, 

 and that in a most elegant manner, tho' spoiled in the printing by 

 John Nichols, the Black-letter printer. C.H. 1798." C.H. is 

 Charles Hutton. He evidently, in 1798, did not know, or did not 

 recollect, that Bewick had worked on the " Ladies' Diary" and the 

 " Mensuration." In 1822 he printed another and slightly different 

 account of the circumstances, but in both cases he exaggerated his 

 influence.] 



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