THOMAS BEWICK. 



103 



Bell in 1850, the details are slightly differently given, four being stated as 

 the number, and the material vellum. 



** It was laid into the shop desk," it is then said, " until the Saturday afternoon, 

 when he (Bewick) came again, and with my father went to the printing-office. My 

 father having a very fine small skin of vellum, which he had got for a plan, but 

 which had not been used, he would try how the impressions would look on it, and 

 took it with him to the printing-office, where it was divided into four, and four 

 impressions taken off, which were all of them as good as possible. . . . When the 

 printing was finished, the cut was cleaned off and brought from the press-room to 

 Mr. Bewick, who laid it upon the office window as the safest place ; but on Monday- 

 morning when the office was opened the cut was found split in two from the heat 

 of the sun, the window facing the south-west. Putting the wet cut upon the 

 window was altogether the act of Mr. Bewick." 



The accident of the block splitting was a very annoying, and, as it proved, 

 an irremediable misfortune. Perhaps it was well that Bewick himself did the 

 deed ; if another had been the delinquent no excuse would ever have 

 availed with the artist. But if he were the cause of the mishap, so was it also 

 he who had to bear the loss. In his Memoir Bewick never mentions the 

 Bull further than describing the journey to Wycliffe to sketch the figure — an 

 omission to excite surprise, as it is certain he was very proud of the 

 engraving. Mayhap he felt the misfortune so keenly that he could not trust 

 himself to write on the matter. 



Bewick at once endeavoured to make good the disheartening blunder, but 

 alas ! it could not be properly rectified. Bell, in another letter dated June 

 27th, 1840, says—" He succeeded so far in closing the block that he took it 

 back to the printing-office to have it printed, and was able to print some 

 impressions without any mark of the crack, but it soon, either by bad 

 management or otherwise, got hove up on the edge of one side of the crack, 

 which made a line along the side of the Bull, from below its eye to the tail, 

 blacker on the under side than the part immediately above on the same 

 line." 



Thus it was, after all his hopes of success and fears of failure, his fears 



