Sir William Congreve, as a commissioner, had the advantage of seeing the various devices, and of knowing the opinions of the various artists upon these devices, which enabled him to cull and select such as appeared to him best calculated to prevent forgery; and, I think, as he was no artist himself, he should not have taken the credit either of inventor or executor of any of these devices, nor have turned the profit arising from them to his own private account.
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DURING a severe illness with which I was visited in 1812,—the particulars of which I need not detail to you, my dear Jane, as the part you and your mother and sisters took, in nursing me night and day, must be fresh in all your memories, and which I only here mention on account of its association,—I determined, if I recovered, to go on with a publication of “Æsop’s Fables.” While I lay helpless, from weakness, and pined to a skeleton, without any hopes of recovery being entertained either by myself or any one else, I became, as it were, all mind and memory. I had presented to my recollection almost everything that had passed through life, both what I had done and what I had left undone. After much debating in my own mind where I should be buried, I fixed upon Ovingham; and, when this was settled, I became quite resigned to the will of Omnipotence, and felt happy. I could not, however, help regretting that I had not published a book similar to “Croxall’s Æsop’s Fables,” as I had always intended to do. I was extremely fond of that book; and, as it had afforded me much pleasure, I thought, with better executed designs, it would impart the same kind of delight to others that I had experienced from attentively reading it. I was also of opinion, that it had (while admiring the cuts) led hundreds of young men into the paths of wisdom and rectitude, and in that way had materially assisted the pulpit.
As soon as I was so far recovered as to be able to sit at the window at home, I began to draw designs upon the wood of the fables and vignettes; and to me this was a most delightful task. In impatiently pushing forward to get to press with the publication, I availed myself of the help of my pupils—my son, William Harvey, and William Temple—who were eager to do their utmost to forward me in the engraving business, and in my struggles to get the book ushered into the world. Notwithstanding the pleasurable business of bringing out this publication, I felt it an arduous undertaking. The execution of the fine work of the cuts, during day-light, was very trying to the eyes, and the compiling or writing the book by candle-light, in my evenings at home, together injured the optic nerve, and that put all the rest of the nerves “out of tune;” so that I was obliged, for a short time, to leave off such intense application until I somewhat recovered the proper tone of memory and of sight. Indeed I found in this book more difficulties to conquer than I had experienced with either the “Quadrupeds” or the “Birds.” The work was finished at press on the first of October, 1818. It was not so well printed as I expected and wished.