prowling after water-fowl amid the reedy haunts; watching the flight of birds with greedy eyes; lighting fires under the screening hedge, and collecting sticks for fuel, and blowing them on hands and knees into a flame. Such were his loves, his studies, his perpetual occupations; and to have similar results, we must have persons of a similar passion and pursuit. We must have designers; for we have plenty of manual dexterity, capable of executing any design to the minutest shade,—we must have designers in whom Nature is, at once, an appetite, a perpetual study, and quenchless delight. Landscape painters we have of this character. Turner, with his gorgeous creations; Copley Fielding, with his heaths and downs, in which miles of space are put upon a few feet of canvass, and that soul of solitude poured upon you in a gallery, which you before encountered only in the heart of living nature; Collins, with his exquisite sea-sides and rustic pieces; Hunt, with his really rustic characters; Barrett, with his sunsets; Stanfield, Cattermole, and others. We want a designer of wood-cuts of a similar character. What scenes of peerless beauty and infinite variety might an individual give us, who would devote himself, heart and soul, to this object; who would ramble all through the varied and beautiful scenery of these glorious islands at successive intervals; who would pedestrianize in simple style; who would stroll along our wild shores; amongst our magnificent hills; prowl in fens and forests with fowlers and keepers; and seek refreshment by the fireside of the wayside inn; and take up his temporary abode in obscure and old-fashioned villages. Such a man might send into our metropolis, and thence, through the aid of the engravers, to every part of the kingdom, such snatches of natural loveliness, such portions of rural scenery and rural life, as should make themselves felt to be the genuine product of nature—for nature will be felt, and kindle a purer taste and a stronger affection for the country.
I am not insensible to all the difficulties which lie in the way of such a devotion; nor that such a scheme will be pronounced chimerical by those who, at a far slighter cost, can please a less informed taste: but till we have such a man, we shall not have a second Bewick; and till such a mode of study is, more or less, adopted, we shall never have that love of the genuine country gratified, which assuredly and extensively exists.
Since writing the foregoing remarks, it is with great pleasure that I have seen the arts of designing and wood-engraving beginning to separate themselves, and that of designing for the wood-engravers taking its place as a distinct profession.[15] Harvey, Browne, Sargent, Lambert, Gilbert, and Melville, have for some time been designers of this description. This important step has only to be followed up by designers in the manner pointed out in this chapter, to insure that complete return to nature which is so much to be desired, and where such an exhaustless field of beauty and life awaits the observant artist, as would place the present pre-eminent manual skill of our wood-engravers in its true and well-merited position.
[15] The London and Westminster Review, August, 1838, in an article on wood-engraving, very judiciously suggested that it was an art well calculated for the pursuit of ladies, and one which they might convert not only into a source of profit to themselves, but of public advantage. No doubt of it. It is an art simple and of easy acquisition. But why not ladies who are good sketchers become designers for wood-cuts at once? They have all the requisite qualifications already in their hands; and what fresh and original treasures of taste and fancy are now slumbering, lost to the world, which they might embellish, in the minds and portfolios of ladies. So vastly is the demand for wood-engravings every day growing, that nothing is more difficult than to obtain designs, or when obtained to get them cut. Ladies, therefore, who have a genius for design, would soon find their value amongst the publishers; and while the profession of a designer is both elegant and feminine, how much more independent, and much less laborious, it would be than needlework, or the duties and position of a governess.
PART V.
THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
CHAPTER I.
THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
Amongst the most interesting features of the country are our forests. There is nothing that we come in contact with, which conveys to our minds such vivid impressions of the progression of England in power and population; which presents such startling contrasts between the present and the past. We look back into the England which an old forest brings to our mind, and see a country one wild expanse of woodlands, heaths, and mosses. Here and there a little simple town sending up
Its fleecy smoke amongst the forest boughs.
From age to age no tumult did arouse
Its peaceful dwellers; there they lived and died,
Passing a dreamy life, diversified
By nought of novelty, save, now and then,
A horn, resounding through the neighbouring glen,
Woke them as from a trance, and led them out
To catch a brief glimpse of the hunt’s wild route;
The music of the hounds; the tramp and rush
Of steeds and men;—and then a sudden hush
Left round the eager listeners;—the deep mood
Of awful, dead, and twilight solitude,
Fallen again upon that forest vast.