THOMAS BEWICK. 



263 



whether all are improvements is another question — notably in the method of 

 fac-simile engraving leaving " the black line," and in cross hatching, styles 

 Bewick never completely mastered ; but one of the finest engravers of the 

 present day, Mr. J. W. Linton, keeps steadily to the legitimate path of 

 wood engraving "with the white line,"* a method which will certainly 

 conquer, and in the end reign supreme for the production of artistic work, 

 although this is yet far off, and the monotonous American style must first 

 succumb. 



Such a change, achieved mainly by one man, stamps Bewick at once as a 

 genius and an extraordinary character, one of the reforming and redirecting 

 minds of the human family. And it is to be observed with profound emphasis, 

 that this reforming tendency was not only in his art, but also most strongly 

 in the sentiment and teaching of the subjects his pencil and graver depicted. 

 As a reviver of wood engraving he claims our attention, but as a reformer 

 and satirical commentator on man's ways of working he demands and retains 

 our fullest consideration. We learn from him how hollow is the fame of the 

 battle-field by the children astride the gravestones, and the old comrades 

 greeting each other after many days' separation. He tells us that " good 

 times, and bad times, and all times get over," and strengthens our belief that 

 " Vanitas Vanitatum omnia Vanitas " by a strongly sketched vignette. It is 

 true Bewick had an almost unaccountable preference to depict people who 

 had fallen into trouble, such as the End of Evil Men, the Children and the 

 Runaway Horse, the Mad Dog, the Nymph at the Well, or the different 

 unfortunate sportsmen. This certainly was a blemish, but only of a minor 

 kind.f It is seldom, indeed, that Bewick appears to have actually rejoiced in 



* See Linton's marvellous wood engraving, a head after Titian, in Hamerton's "Graphic Arts," 1882. 



t Another and more serious defect is the occasional indelicate tail-pieces in the three large works. One 

 subscriber is said ("Bewick Collector," p. 325), on account of these prints, to have returned the Birds, "as an 

 improper book, where it shows nature rather too plainly." This, probably, was affectation, as the value of the books 

 is scarcely impaired by the designs; yet it has often been felt that if they could be cut out (like Mr. Ruskin's 

 Sheffield copy), the work would be improved. At the same time, the humour and artistic merit in many are 

 undeniable, and the temper of the age Bewick lived in quite sanctioned their insertion. 



