24 



THOMAS BEWICK. 



a less favourable position he might have spent many years longer in learning 

 his proper sphere of action. 



The first work that Bewick was put to in the art of engraving on wood 

 was blocking out or rough-hewing the wood round the lines for diagrams ; 

 not very high art it is true, but necessary. The diagrams having been drawn 

 on the smooth surface of the boxwood, he was taught to cut away the corners 

 or large open spaces between the lines, but without approaching the marks 

 very closely. This was Bewick's occupation with the blocks for the diagrams 

 in " The Ladies' Diary," edited by Charles Hutton, and also for the cuts for 

 the same writer's " Mensuration." After the boy had gone as far as he was 

 permitted, Beilby took the blocks and finished them. But this was work that 

 Beilby did not enjoy ; his delight was to ornament silver with the elaborate 

 chasing in which he really excelled ; so, finding his pupil apt to learn, he 

 soon allowed him to execute the blocks from first to last without any 

 assistance. 



Dr. Hutton, the mathematician mentioned, published a statement in 

 1822, giving the story of Bewick's first woodcuts in a somewhat different 

 though substantially the same manner ; adding, moreover, details which are 

 full of interest to those who wish to know exactly how Bewick first came to 

 engrave on wood. He says, "The first edition of the work on 'Mensuration' 

 was printed in Newcastle in 1768, where I then resided as a mathematical 

 master, and it becoming necessary or convenient to have the numerous 

 diagrams which occur in the work executed on wood in that town, and having 

 during the course of several visits to London seen the process of cutting 

 similar diagrams, I applied to Mr. Beilby to execute those which I required. 

 I explained to him the process, and he agreed that the apprentice should 

 undertake the work, and in consequence I procured the necessary blocks of 

 boxwood from London, with the tools proper for cutting or engraving them, 

 with instructions how to cut and square the blocks, and to cut or engrave on 

 their smooth faces the necessary lines and letters in the diagrams, by which, 



