of place or time. Happy old man! The delight of
childhood, manhood, decaying age!--A moral in every tail-piece--a
sermon in every vignette.

This acclaim came to Bewick not only because his subjects had a homely
honesty, but also, although not generally taken into account, because of
the brilliance and clarity with which they were printed. Compared with
the wood engravings of his predecessors, his were more detailed and
resonant in black and white, and accordingly seemed miraculous and
unprecedented. He could engrave finer lines and achieve better
impressions in the press because of improvements in technology which
will be discussed later, but for a century the convincing qualities of
this new technique in combination with his subject matter led admirers
to believe that he was an artist of great stature.

[1] William Wordsworth, _Lyrical ballads_, London, 1805, vol. 1. p. 199.

[2] John Ruskin, _Ariadne Florentina_, London, 1890, pp. 98, 99.

[3] _Ibid._, p. 246.

Later, more mature judgment has made it plain that his contributions as
a craftsman outrank his worth as an artist. He was no Holbein, no
Botticelli--it is absurd to think of him in such terms--but he did
develop a fresh method of handling wood engraving. Because of this he
represents a turning point in the development of this medium which led
to its rise as the great popular vehicle for illustration in the 19th
century. In his hands wood engraving underwent a special transformation;
it became a means for rendering textures and tonal values. Earlier work
on wood could not do this; it could manage only a rudimentary suggestion
of tones. The refinements that followed, noticeable in the highly
finished products of the later 19th century, came as a direct and
natural consequence of Bewick's contributions to the art.

Linton[4] and a few others object to the general claim that Bewick was
the reviver or founder of modern wood engraving, not only because the
art was practiced earlier, if almost anonymously, and had never really
died out, but also because his bold cuts had little in common with their
technician's concern with infinite manipulation of surface tones, a
feature of later work. But this misses the main point--that Bewick had
taken the first actual steps in the new direction.

[4] William Linton, _The masters of wood engraving_, London, 1889, p.
133.

[Illustration: Figure 1.--Woodcutting Procedure, showing method of
cutting with the knif