d that such capable technicians
as Nesbit, Clennell, Robinson, Hole, the Johnsons, Harvey, and others
all contributed to the Bewick cult.

Linton, who worshipped him as an artist but found him primitive as a
technician, commented:[5] "Widely praised by a crowd of unknowing
connoisseurs and undiscriminating collectors, we have yet, half a
century after his death, to point out how much of what is attributed to
him is really by his hand."

Chatto,[6] who obtained his information from at least one Bewick pupil,
says that many of the best tailpieces in the _History of British birds_
were drawn by Robert Johnson, and that "the greater number of those
contained in the second volume were engraved by Clennell." Granted that
the outlook and the engraving style were Bewick's, and that these were
notable contributions, the fact that the results were so close to his
own points more to an effective method of illustration than to the
outpourings of genius.

[5] _Ibid._

Low Status of the Woodcut

Bewick's training could not have been less promising. Apprenticed to
Ralph Beilby at the age of fourteen, he says of his master:[7]

... The work-place was filled with the coarsest kind of
steel-stamps, pipe moulds, bottle moulds, brass clock faces, door
plates, coffin plates, bookbinders letters and stamps, steel,
silver and gold seals, mourning rings, &c. He also undertook the
engraving of arms, crests and cyphers, on silver, and every kind of
job from the silversmiths; also engraving bills of exchange, bank
notes, invoices, account heads, and cards.... The higher department
of engraving, such as landscapes or historical plates, I dare say,
was hardly thought of by my master....

A little engraving on wood was also done, but Bewick tells us that his
master was uncomfortable in this field and almost always turned it over
to him. His training, obviously, was of a rough and ready sort, based
upon serviceable but routine engraving on metal. There was no study of
drawing, composition, or any of the refinements that could be learned
from a master who had a knowledge of art. Whatever Bewick had of the
finer points of drawing and design he must have picked up by himself.

[6] William Chatto, and John Jackson, _A treatise on wood engraving_,
London, 1861 (1st ed. 1839), pp. 496-498.

[7] Thomas Bewick, _Memoir of Thomas Bewick_, New York, 1925 (1st ed.
London, 1862), pp. 50, 51.

When