In any event, wood engraving did not really flourish until a practical stereotyping process was perfected. By this procedure substitute blocks of type metal could replace the wood engravings in the press, and the danger of splitting the block was eliminated. The first steps of any importance toward a practical process were made by the Earl of Stanhope around 1800, but not until Claude Genoux in France, between 1828 and 1829, developed the papier mâché or wet mat process could acceptable stereotypes of entire pages be produced.[27] By this method, patented on July 24, 1829, and others that followed, a number of duplicate plates of each page could be made as required for rapid printing on a battery of presses. Wood engraving now emerged as a practical method of illustration for popular publications. The _Penny Magazine_ and the _Saturday Magazine_, founded in 1832, immediately made use of Genoux's stereotyping process. Dobson[28] describes the effect of these periodicals: "The art of wood engraving received an astonishing impact from these publications. The engraver, instead of working merely with his own hands, has been obliged to take five or six pupils to get through the work." (Mr. Cowper's evidence before the Select Committee on Arts and Manufactures, 1835). It is difficult nowadays [1884] to understand what a revelation these two periodicals, with their representations of far countries and foreign animals, of masterpieces of painting and sculpture, were to middle-class households fifty years ago. [26] Dobson, _op. cit._ (footnote 8), p. 174. [27] George Kubler, _A history of stereotyping_, New York, 1941, p. 75. [28] Dobson, _op. cit._ (footnote 8), p. 173. [Illustration: Figure 11.--Tailpiece by Thomas Bewick (actual size), engraved after a drawing by John Bewick, from _The Chase_, by William Somervile, 1796. (_Photo courtesy the Library of Congress._)] We will not pursue Bewick's career further. With habits of hard work deeply ingrained, he kept at his bench until his death in 1828, engraving an awesome quantity of cuts. But he never surpassed his work on the _Birds_, although his reputation grew in proportion to the spread of wood engraving throughout the world.