MEMOIR OF THOMAS BEWICK. 257 



transferred to the block. After labouring for some 

 time, endeavouring to produce the like effect on 

 my blocks, on the end way of the wood, not indeed 

 to my satisfaction, I felt mortified in not succeed- 

 ing to my wish ; and I then began to think the 

 impressions must have been printed from two 

 blocks. This, indeed, I soon found to be quite 

 easy to do, as well as being beautifully correct; 

 and any artist may see this in a few minutes, by 

 cutting parallel lines on a piece of wood, and from 

 it taking, by his hand, an impression on a piece of 

 paper, and then again inking the same cut, and 

 printing it in the same way, either directly in a 

 cross or in an oblique direction, upon the first 

 impression. This can also easily be done, from 

 two cuts, at a printing press, and is much easier 

 to do, and better than the labour necessarily 

 bestowed upon one cross-hatched block. When I 

 had accomplished this, and satisfied myself that 

 the process was both simple and perfect, as to 

 obtaining the object I so much wanted, my 

 curiosity on this score ceased, and I then con- 

 cluded that in this way the cross-hatching might 

 be set aside as a thing of no use at all. The 

 artists indeed of the present day have brought it 

 to such a pitch of perfection that I do not know 

 that it can be carried any further; and in this they 

 have also been so marvellously aided by the 

 improved methods now used in printing their 

 cuts, that one would be led to conclude that this 

 department has also attained to perfection; and, 

 had this not been the case, the masterly execution 

 of wood cuts, either by crossed lines, or otherwise, 

 would have continued to be beheld with disgust 



or contempt. I have long been of opinion that 



2 H 



