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), cuts, with verses, &c., by Oliver Goldsmith. The following is undoubtedly by the Poet’s hand:—“The Lilliputian Magazine; or, the Young Gentleman and Lady’s Golden Library, being an attempt to mend the World, to render the Society of Man more amiable, and to establish the Plainness, Simplicity, Virtue, and Wisdom of the Golden Age, so much celebrated by the Poets and Historians—
‘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.