174 



THE BOX. 



followers can scarcely clo more than hope to 

 equal. His excellence did not consist in the mere 

 mechanical skill which he displayed : that^ great 

 as it was^ resulted from his intense desire to em- 

 body his exquisitely acute perceptions of Nature. 

 His wood-cuts, therefore, are not simply repre- 

 sentations of birds and beasts, just so far like the 

 originals as to enable another person to discover 

 what is meant : — but indexes of his mind, like 

 the solemn sound of Handel's music, the majestic 

 flow of ]Milton's poetry, the comprehensive exact- 

 ness of Linnseus's descriptions. No one can have 

 failed to notice this, who has turned over the 

 pages of The General History of Quadrupeds" 

 or of British Birds:" Nature seems to be alive 

 in all of them ; the very tail-pieces, trifling 

 though the subjects of many of them may be, 

 are replete with interest, owing to the remarka- 

 ble power which the author possessed of catching 

 and pourtraying the peculiar characteristics of 

 Nature, whether animate or inanimate. Much 

 of this taste and skill Bewick imparted to his 

 pupils,* and to the same qualities the modern 

 school of wood-engraving is indebted for its prin- 

 cipal excellence. 



Several mechanical improvements have of late 

 years been made in wood- engraving and printing; 



* I was much interested, some years since, in the north of Devon, 

 by falling in with a rustic well, suimounted by a rude stone cross 

 with a wicket gate by its side. It was just the sort of subject that 

 Bewick would have chosen for a vignette, I afterwards found that 

 the proprietor (who I am sure will forgive me for this mention of 

 him) was formerly a pupil of Bewick, and. before his accession to 

 fortune gave no slight promise of sharing his master's fame. {See 

 vignette attlie e?id of this chapter. ) 



