THOMA S BE WICK. 



59 



the Nativity, the Wise Men offering gifts, the Crucifixion, the Descent from 

 the Cross, and the Resurrection are well composed. Those which more par- 

 ticularly display a feeling of Bewick's later style are the camel, donkey, and 

 sheep on p. 15, the donkey on p. 37, the peacock on p. 43, the fowls on p. gi, 

 the children on p. 122, and the border of cut on p. 134. 



On a portrait published in 1815 Bewick is called the " Restorer of the 

 Art of Wood Engraving," but, as has been frequently pointed out since, if 

 Bewick was the restorer, how could he have found ready employment on the 

 art at more than one workshop ? It is of course perfectly obvious that how- 

 ever much Bewick may have done for wood engraving, he had no claim to 

 be called its restorer in the sense of its re-finder. He had every title to be 

 styled the reviver or recoverer of the art from neglect, but he had no right, 

 nor did he personally pretend to have any, to be entitled the restorer of wood 

 engraving in the sense of being its re-discoverer. Possibly Bewick was 

 indiscreet in permitting the words to be placed on his portrait, but it 

 amounted to nothing more than indiscretion. Yet though he may have meant 

 the word restorer to be understood in its original sense, he might have 

 known that the hasty reasoning of some would infer that he called himself 

 its re-inventor. 



There is less to be said for Atkinson, who, in 1833, wrote the interesting, 

 though short, account of Bewick's life. In it Bewick is styled the discoverer 

 of the lost art of wood engraving. But Bewick was then only recently dead, 

 and Atkinson was possibly carried away by his personal enthusiasm for his 

 friend's character, and too much disposed to apply every panegyric and 

 virtue to one who was only mortal. But no purpose is served in dwelling 

 on such an incident ; enough for us to understand clearly that, however 

 much the artistic world owes to Bewick, it does not owe the re-discovery of 

 the so-called lost art of wood engraving. 



Bewick's sojourn in London, though it opened his eyes to the competition 



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