THOMAS BEWICK. 



235 



In August, 1823, Bewick visited Edinburgh in company with his 

 daughter Jane. They started on the nth, and remained a fortnight, 

 Bewick finding time to make and renew previous acquaintance with many 

 of the notables in the Scottish capital. It was during this visit to Edinburgh 

 that Bewick executed the only lithographic design — the " Cadger's Trot" — 

 he ever produced. He appears to have been anxious to ascertain the 

 capabilities of Senefelder's recent discoveries. It was hurriedly drawn 

 one morning before breakfast, and, as Bewick says in his Memoir, " the 

 proofs were taken from it on the same day. In doing this," he continues, " I 

 could see what that manner of making prints was capable of." Hugo's 

 story that Bewick drew the design to correct a man he saw drawing in 

 Ballantyne and Robertson's printing office is in direct contradiction to 

 Bewick's own statement, and is a very unlikely occurrence. Only a small 

 number of these prints was taken, and the drawing was then washed off 

 the stone. Bell gives the number as 20, Hugo at 25, and others have said 

 19 only. They are printed on paper of various tints ; some are creamy white, 

 others green, and others on a ruddy colour. The accompanying fac-simile 

 is from one on creamy white paper in the possession of Professor Corfield, 

 who kindly lent it for reproduction ; the original has the name " Ballantyne 

 and Robertson " in very minute characters at one side, but this has been 

 purposely left out in the fac-simile. 



On October 1st, 1823, Dovaston and Bowman saw Bewick for the 

 first time, their visit being thus described in the "Magazine of Natural 

 History," vol. ii. page 317, 1829. 



" We had been told that Bewick retired from his workshop on evenings to the 

 Blue Bell in the Side, for the purpose of reading the news. To this place we 

 repaired. . . . Bewick was sitting by the fire in a large elbow chair, smoking. He 

 received us most kindly, and in a very few minutes we felt as old friends. He- 

 appeared a very large athletic man, then in his seventy-first year, with thick, bushy, 

 black hair, retaining his sight so completely as to read aloud rapidly the smallest 

 type of a newspaper. He was dressed in very plain clothes, but of good quality, 



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