Bewick's Select Fables of Aesop and Others

In the various periods of the world’s history men have appeared who were gifted with greater powers of mind and intelligence than the majority of the people in whose age they lived, who, by becoming the preceptors or teachers of the masses, evidently fulfilled the designs of the Creator, by promoting civilisation and happiness, by unity of thought and knowledge. Such men were Æsop, William Shakespeare, Fielding, Scott, and many others, and later, in our own time, Thackeray and Charles Dickens. One of the most ancient and interesting methods of conveying instruction was by the art of Fable, Allegory, or Parable.

Fable is an ingenious method of conveying advice and instruction, without seeming so to do, by a diverting little narrative, which, attracting attention, irresistibly chains it till the moral is imperceptibly rooted in the mind, there to influence, for the better it may be, all future actions of importance. Æsop was, and is, the most favourite of Fabulists, of whom a fair and goodly succession have since appeared; but still he maintains, and will continue to maintain the foremost place in literature as a writer of instructive and entertaining Fables. We here reprint an edition comparatively unknown in the present generation, illustrated by the graver of Bewick, and arranged by the pen of Goldsmith. Bewick and Goldsmith’s early works are comparatively unknown to the literary and reading world. We all know that Bewickdesigned and engraved the inimitable “British Quadrupeds,” “Birds,” “Fables,” &c., and that Goldsmith wrote the “Vicar of Wakefield,” “Traveller,” “Deserted Village,” &c., but what do we know of their early works—the progressive stepsby which they attained their wondrous and well-earned celebrity? It has been the pleasing pursuit of the writer (for some years) to search for, and rescue from destruction and oblivion, all possible early works of Bewick and Goldsmith. The result has exceeded his most sanguine expectations. He has discovered at least twenty little works written by Goldsmith during his weary hours of adversity, all bearing strong internal evidence of the author’s mind and style. (A work on this subject is preparing for the press, profusely illustrated with original woodcuts, &c.) The early editions of the presentwork were printed by T. Saint, of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. We will here give a very brief resumé of Bewick’s earliestworks (published by Saint), with a few woodcuts from the original blocks, thus illustrating the progressive stages of pictorial fine art by which Thomas Bewick succeeded in producing the wood-engravings which embellish the present volume, of which (edit. 1784) Jackson, in his work on wood-engraving (1861, p. 480), says:—

“He (Bewick) evidently improved as his talents were exercised; for the cuts in the “Select Fables,” 1784, are generally much superior to those in “Gay’s Fables,” 1779. The animals are better drawn and engraved; the sketches of landscape in the backgrounds are more natural; and the engraving of the foliage of the trees and bushes is not unfrequently scarce inferior to that of his later productions.”