MEMOIR OF THOMAS BEWICK, 57 
in cleaning with, chalk for every impression ; but edi- 
tions of wood-blocks must be very numerous indeed 
before they show any feebleness. In early life he 
had cut a vignette for the Newcastle newspaper; 
and this year it had been calculated that more than 
nine hundred thousand impressions had been worked 
off ; yet is the block still in use, and not perceptibly 
impaired. A faint impression therefore, is by no 
means to be attributed to the wearing out of the 
block but to the feebler pull of the pressman ; and 
this may be proved by observing that when any one 
is remarkably black or light, all that are pulled off 
that same form partake of a similar degree of 
strength or faintness. I have now in my library a 
copy, though, I am sorry to say, spoiled with my 
having written the margins all over with ornitho- 
logical observations, of the very first edition of the 
Birds , in which many of the impressions are far 
feebler than the corresponding ones in the very last 
edition ; and in the same edition the same blocks 
vary in all shades. Let not collectors, therefore, 
yet despair, who have missed becoming purchasers 
in the rapid, and now, since the good man’s death, 
more rapid sale of his valuable works. 
“ At his table we had the pleasure of dining with 
several gentlemen of distinguished literary character, 
whom he had most politely invited on our account. 
After dinner, having largely enjoyed the full flow of 
his friends’ conversation, and launched on its tide 
many a full and sunny sail of his own, our good 
host for a moment fell asleep in his elbow-chair ; 
