The first book of real importance that was illustrated by Thomas Bewick was the 'Select Fables' published by Saint of Newcastle in 1784; this is now very rare; there is, however, a copy in the British Museum (press-mark 12305 g 16) which can at all times be consulted. Most of the designs are derived from 'Croxall's Fables,' and many of these were copied from the copper-plates by Francis Barlow in his edition of Æsop, published 'at his house, The Golden Eagle, in New Street, near Shoo Lane, 1665.' Though Bewick improved the drawings, there was little originality in them, but the engravings were far in advance of any other work of the kind done at that period. The success of this book induced him to carry out an idea he had long entertained of producing a series of illustrations for a 'General History of Quadrupeds,' on which he was engaged for six years, making the drawings and engraving them mostly in the evening. He tells us he had much difficulty in finding models, and was delighted when a travelling menagerie visited Newcastle and enabled him to depict many wild animals from nature. It was while he was employed on this work that he received a commission to make an engraving of a 'Chillingham Bull,' one of those famous wild cattle to which Sir Walter Scott refers in his ballad, 'Cadyow Castle':
'Mightiest of all the beasts of chase
That roam in woody Caledon.'
He made the drawing on a block 7¾ inches by 5½ inches, and used his highest powers in rendering it as true to nature as he could; it is said that he always considered it to be his best work. After a few impressions had been taken off on paper and parchment, the block, which had been carelessly left by the printers in the direct rays of the sun, was split by the heat; and, though it was in after years clamped in gun-metal, no impressions could be taken which did not show
a trace of the accident. Happily, one of the original impressions on parchment may be seen in the Townsend Collection in the South Kensington Museum. Meanwhile the 'Quadrupeds' were going on bravely: Ralph Beilby compiled the necessary text, which Bewick revised where he could, and in 1790 the book was published. It sold so well that a second edition was issued in 1791, and a third in 1792. Since then it has been frequently reprinted. [The first edition consisted of 1,500 copies in demy octavo at 8s., and 100 in royal octavo at 12s. The price of the eighth edition, with additional cuts, published in 1825, was one guinea.]
Besides the engravings of quadrupeds, the best that had appeared up to that time, the numerous tail-pieces which Bewick drew from nature charmed the public immensely. We give an example, one of them in which a small boy, said to be a young brother of the artist, is pulling a colt's tail, while the mother is rushing to his rescue. This little cut gives an admirable idea of their style. Many of them are humorous, many very pathetic, many grimly sarcastic, and all perfectly original.
