The low condition of the art of wood-engraving in this country was chiefly owing to the want of good designers, and it was not until a man arose who possessed the power to _draw_ as well as to _engrave_ that an English school of wood-engraving was created. Bewick possessed the artistic faculty as a direct gift from nature; and though it was from accidental circumstances that he was led to exercise this innate power in drawing and engraving on wood, he soon discovered of what the art was capable, and devoted his chief attention to it. He drew such things as he understood and had studied from nature, and thoroughly comprehending the scope and power of wood-engraving, he was able, with little labour, to produce the best results. At the time of Bewick's death, in 1828, England had scarcely recovered from the exhausting wars of Napoleon, trade was stagnant, and taxation was heavy. The mass of the people had no money to spend on such luxuries as illustrated books, and the enterprise of publishers was confined to the production of the well-known 'Annuals' of that day; but they were illustrated with steel engravings, and were only purchased by the wealthier classes. Such works as _Robinson Crusoe_ and the _Pilgrim's Progress_, for which there is always a demand, were illustrated by Cruikshank and Harvey. There was _Northcote's Fables_, on which all the best engravers of the day were employed; but it was not until the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge began its operations, and Charles Knight took the lead in illustrated literature, that wood-engraving began to be extensively used. The art was so little known that when the woodcuts of the _Penny Magazine_ began to attract attention a nobleman of that day spoke of them as the productions of a new art. Illustrations were so seldom used that the preparation of even a small woodcut was of much moment to all concerned. I have heard the late William Harvey relate that when Whittingham, the well-known printer, wanted a new cut for his 'Chiswick Press' series, he would write to Harvey and John Thompson, the engraver, appointing a meeting at Chiswick, when printer, designer, and engraver talked over the matter with as much deliberation as if they were about to produce a costly national monument, and after they had settled all points over a snug supper, the result of their labours was the production, months afterwards, of a small woodcut measuring perhaps two inches by three. At this time only about a dozen persons, besides Bewick's pupils, were practising the art of wood-engraving in England, and in France the art was so low that a few years later the blocks for the _Magazin Pittoresque_ were sent from Paris to London to be engraved. In Germany, the cradle of the art, it languished as in other countries, while in America, a country which is now taking a leading part in the cultivation of wood-engraving, the art was almost unknown as a native production. It