In 1779, according to Hunter,[19] M.
Didot the famous printer, "having seen the _papier velin_ that
Baskerville used, addressed a letter to M. Johannot of Annonay, a
skilled papermaker, asking him to endeavour to duplicate the smooth and
even surface of this new paper. Johannot was successful in his
experiments, and for his work in this field he was in 1781 awarded a
gold medal by Louis XVI."

[19] Hunter, _op. cit._ (footnote 15), p. 219.

[Illustration: Figure 7.--Wood Engraving by Thomas Bewick, "The Man and
the Flea," for _Fables, by the late Mr. Gay_, 1779. (Actual size.) Note
how the closely worked lines of the sky and water have blurred in
printing on laid paper. The pale vertical streak is caused by the laid
mould.]

Wove paper was so slow to come into use that Jenkins gives the date 1788
for its first appearance in book printing.[20] While he missed a few
examples, notably by Baskerville, it is certain that few books with wove
paper were published before 1790. But after that date its manufacture
increased with such rapidity that by 1805 it had supplanted laid paper
for many printing purposes.

The reasons for this gap between the introduction and the acceptance of
the new paper are not clear; the inertia of tradition as well as the
probable higher cost no doubt played a part, and we may assume that
early wove paper had imperfections and other drawbacks serious enough to
cause printers to prefer the older material.

Bewick's early work was printed on laid paper. Up to 1784 he had worked
in a desultory fashion on wood, much of his time being occupied with
seal cutting because there was still no real demand for wood engraving.
In Gay's _Fables_, published in 1779, the cuts printed so poorly on the
laid paper (see fig. 7) that Dobson[21] was moved to say:

Generally speaking, the printing of all these cuts, even in the
earlier editions (and it is absolutely useless to consult any
others), is weak and unskillful. The fine work of the backgrounds
is seldom made out, and the whole impression is blurred and
unequal.

[Illustration: Figure 8.--"The Spanish Pointer", illustration (actual
size) by Thomas Bewick, from _A general history of quadrupeds_, 1790, in
the collections of the Library of Congress.]

[20] Rhys Jenkins, "Early papermaking in England, 1495-1788," _Library
Association Record_, London, 1900-1902, vol. 2, nos. 9 and 11; vol. 3,
no. 5; vol. 4, nos. 3 and 4.

[21] Dob