In the various periods of the world’s history men have appeared who were gifted with greater powers of mind and intelligence than the majority of the people in whose age they lived, who, by becoming the preceptors or teachers of the masses, evidently fulfilled the designs of the Creator, by promoting civilisation and happiness, by unity of thought and knowledge. Such men were Æsop, William Shakespeare, Fielding, Scott, and many others, and later, in our own time, Thackeray and Charles Dickens. One of the most ancient and interesting methods of conveying instruction was by the art of Fable, Allegory, or Parable. Fable is an ingenious method of conveying advice and instruction, without seeming so to do, by a diverting little narrative, which, attracting attention, “He (Bewick) evidently improved as his talents were exercised; for the cuts in the “Select Fables,” 1784, are generally much superior to those in “Gay’s Fables,” 1779. The animals are better drawn and engraved; the sketches of landscape in the backgrounds are more natural; and the engraving of the foliage of the trees and bushes is not unfrequently scarce inferior to that of his later productions.” Jackson gives three examples of these Fable cuts in his work, at pp. 480, 503 (“Wood-Engravings,” 1861). Thomas Bewick was apprenticed to R. Beilby, October 1, 1767. It is probable that the cuts given in next page are among the very first engraved by Thomas Bewick during his apprenticeship, and were used in “A New Invented Horn Book,” also in “Battledores,” “Primers,” and “Reading Easies.” He then executed the diagrams for Hutton on Mensuration, 4to, 1770. One of the cuts is given in “Jackson” (p. 475), a representation of St Nicholas’ celebrated steeple. This is the first known pictorial attempt of Bewick’s. “Horn Book” Cuts. Facsimile of Bewick’s cut, St. Nicholas’ Steeple, Newcastle, 1770. No doubt coarse cuts were done by Bewick about this time for local Ballads, Broadsides, Garlands, and Histories. The next recognised work I discovered myself, the “New Lottery-Book of Birds and Beasts, for Children to learn their Letters by, as soon as they can speak” (Saint, 1771, 32mo, bds. and gilt). Two of the cuts follow. The “Child’s Tutor” (Saint, 1772-73, square 24mo), ‘Man in that age no rule but Reason knew, And with a native bent did Good pursue; Unforc’d by Punishment, unaw’d by Fear, His Words were Simple and his Soul Sincere.’” (T. Saint, circa 1772, early Bewick woodcuts, 144 pp. 24mo.) The verse and title bear the undoubted impress of his genius and style. Oliver Goldsmith wrote it for J. Newbery, of London, but, as I shall show in my larger work on this subject, there was an arrangement between them by which Saint reprinted many of his (Newbery’s) little books for the North-Country trade. We then have “Moral Instructions of a Father to his Son,” comprehending the whole system of Morality, &c., &c.; and “Select Fables,” extracted from Dodsley, and others, adorned with emblematical cuts, 12mo, T. Saint, Newcastle, 1772 and 1775. This, then, is one of the first works of Saint’s we have seen containing cuts of Fables. Having a doubt respecting the cuts of this rare book, I took my copy to Miss Bewick (Jan. 1867), and inquired of her if they were engraved by her father. She kindly gave me the following authentic “Moral Instructions,” 1772, and “Select Fables,” 1776. “Select Fables,” Æsop, &c. (Saint, 1776). The next is the first edition of the present volume, “Select Fables” (T. Saint, Newcastle, 1776). In three Parts. Part I. After the Manner of Dodsley’s. Part II. Fables with Reflections. Part III. Fables in Verse. To which are prefixed the Life of Æsop; and An Essay upon Fable—(same Verse and Vignette, as in the 2d Edition, of 1784). Containing one hundred and fourteen cuts, including those mentioned in the “Moral Instructions,” described above, and fourteen larger and much superior cuts, with borders, afterwards used with others in “Gay’s Fables,” printed by T. Saint, in 1779. The same vignette appears on the title as in the Second Edition of this Book in 1784. It also has a copperplate frontispiece, “R. Beilby delint. et sculpt.” 12mo, 211 pages, 2 pages of Index, &c. (notice the variations in the title, &c., to the 1784 edition). The only copy of this edition (1776) I ever had, or saw, is now in the unique collection of E. B. Jupp, Esq., who has kindly lent the block for the Frontispiece to the present About this time, 1773 to 1776, many works issued from Saint’s press—“Robinson Crusoe,” “Watt’s Songs,” Oliver Goldsmith’s “Tommy Trip” (see my reprint, of 1867), “Goody Two Shoes,” “Golden Toy or Fairing,” “Tom Telescope’s Newtonian Philosophy,” “Tommy Tagg’s Poems,” and numerous others. Examples of cuts follow. Similar to “Tommy Trip” series of Cuts. “Tommy Two Shoes.” “Adventures of a Kitten.” “Holy Bible in Miniature.” “Memoirs of a Peg-Top.” “Poetical Fabulator.” A New Edition of “Tommy Tagg,” with sixty cuts, will shortly be printed. (Specimen of the Woodcuts.) “The Concert of Birds,” from “Tommy Tagg.” “Story-Teller.” We now reach a period to which Bewick himself thus refers at pages 59, 60 of his “Memoirs” (Longman, 1862):—“We were occasionally applied to by (local) printers to execute woodcuts for them.... The following are among those referred to by Bewick:—“Youth’s Instructive and Entertaining Story-Teller, being a Choice Collection of Moral Tales, Chiefly deduced from real Life, calculated to enforce the Practice of Virtue, and expand every social Idea in the Human heart. Adorned with emblematical cuts from the most interesting part of each Tale, and methodised after the Plan recommended by the late ingenious Dr Goldsmith. To which is added, by way of Preface, Thoughts on the Present Mode of Education.” (Newcastle, T. Saint.) Three Editions, circa 1774-7-8, 12mo, thirty-seven woodcuts. The cuts in this book are larger than any in the preceding books. We give the cut at page 48 of a Shipwrecked Sailor kneeling on a rock saying “Bob Easy.” “The Huntsman and Old Hound.” “Jackson” refers to this and the following two works:—“Gay’s Fables.” Fables by the late Mr Gay, in One Volume complete, Newcastle, printed by and for T. Saint, 1779, 12mo, 77 cuts of Fables, with borders and 33 Vignettes; for the tasteful and clever engraving of five of the cuts (one, the Huntsman and Old Hound “The Chillingham Wild Bull.”—Bewick’s large engraving of this subject, with border, has realised twenty guineas. See “Jackson on Wood-Engraving.” British Quadrupeds. Vignette to “Quadrupeds.” “Select Fables,” 1820, Charnley’s Edition, 8vo, and in early Children’s Books (Saint, Newcastle). Intended for “Bewick’s British Birds”—“Chimney Swallow,” injured and rejected. Facsimile of Bewick’s Skylark. Vignette to “Birds.”—Angler and Sportsman. Engraved for “Bewick’s Æsop,” 1818, unfinished and rejected. Vignette to “Æsop.” These remarks are rapidly written, but they are the result of years of research and study: so that the reader of this Preface has a brief resumÉ of Bewick’s talents from his earliest efforts to his most finished productions; a result which no one living is able to give from the original woodcuts but myself; thus forming a most useful manual or pictorial aid to connoisseurs in selecting early works illustrated by “Bewick,” the more valuable, as scarcely any of the works mentioned as published by Saint are in the British Museum. Now, as to the “Goldsmith” interest as connected with this work, the 1776 Newcastle edition was evidently copied from “Dodsley’s” and other editions of “Select Fables of Æsop” published in London prior to this period. In the meantime, J. Newbery and others, for whom Goldsmith wrote prefaces and arranged and edited books, had published new editions, so that when Saint went to press with “A New Edition Improved” (with a new set of cuts The lessons intended to be conveyed through the medium of Fable are certainly plainer and easier to be understood in this edition than in the once popular “Croxall;” and the publishers believe, therefore, that the book in its present form will be found a powerful auxiliary in the important practical feeling for the education of the rising generation, illustrated as it is by the early but forcible and natural rendering of these Fables by the inimitable Bewick, through the medium of which is imparted the profound good sense, wisdom, and experience of the ancient philosophers. I have already exceeded the limits of an ordinary Preface. On a future occasion I will EDWIN PEARSON. “Say, should the philosophic mind disdain That good, which makes each humble bosom vain? Let school-taught pride dissemble all it can, These little things are great to little man.” |