266 MEMOIR OF THOMAS BEWICK. 



had William Woollett been a wood engraver, he 

 would have shown its excellence long ago : his 

 prints from copper have not been equalled ; but, 

 from the nature of the wood, and the effect it pro- 

 duces, he would have advanced a step further, and 

 on it have outdone his excellence on copper.* If I 

 live, health and sight continued, I will make the 

 attempt to show that all this is not a visionary 

 theory. Should I not live to get this Memoir 

 printed under my own inspection for the benefit 

 of yourself, your brother and sisters, or whether 

 it will ever be printed at all, I know not, but at 

 any rate the manuscript itself which I leave to my 

 dear Jane will satisfy her, were that necessary, how 

 ardently I have ever wished well to arts and artists; 

 and though, in my endeavours to show this, I have 

 often been thwarted and disappointed, yet I never 

 lost sight of my object, nor became disheartened in 

 my struggles to fight through, and surmount num- 

 berless difficulties and bars thrown in my way. 



You know a part of those I met with in the 

 course of my business, in which my time was 

 misspent, and also the waste of it bestowed upon 

 useless and wicked pupils. I know you wish me 

 to give you a history and description of such; 

 but to do so would be an irksome task and I 

 cannot now be troubled to think about it. I shall 

 however give you a curtailed list (as a whole), and 

 only speak of such as served out their time. I have 



[* Bewick was a great admirer of Woollett. In the parlour at 

 Gateshead hung, inter alia, impressions of Wilson's "Celadon and 

 Amelia," a landscape after Poussin, and the "Spanish Pointer" of 

 Stubbs, which he reproduced for the "Quadrupeds." Another of the 

 prints, "The Rural Cot," after G. Smith, had written at the back: 

 "This print cost 75. 6d., the frame and glass us., iSs. 6d., March, 

 1787. T. Bewick."] 



