CHAPTER IX.

ENGRAVING IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century some of the most celebrated artists of the French school of painting belonged, by the nature of their talent as well as by the date of their chief successes, to the ante-revolutionary period. Greuze, Fragonard, Moreau, Mme. Vigée-Lebrun, Vien even, notwithstanding his intentions of reform, Regnault and Vincent, in spite of their influence as professors on the new generation--all seemed rather to recall the past than to herald the future. One man, Louis David, personified the progress of the epoch. His pictures, "Les Horaces," and the "Brutus," had appeared some years before, and the approaching exhibition of "Les Sabines" was impatiently expected. At this time the younger artists and the public unanimously regarded David as the regenerator of national art and a master justly supreme. Architecture, painting, furniture, even fashion in dress, were all subjected to his absolute sway; everything was done in imitation of the antique, as understood and interpreted by him. Under the pretexts of pure beauty and a chaste style, nothing but a soulless body, a sort of coloured statue, was represented on canvas; while sculpture became no more than an imitation of Greek or Roman statuary. Since Lebrun, indeed, no single influence had so completely tyrannised over French taste.

Engraving, though fated like the other arts to accept the dictatorship of David, was at any rate the first to throw off his yoke. Before the Restoration, whilst the painter of Marat, then painter to the Emperor, was still in the fulness of his power, the great Italians, whose pictures crowded the Louvre, had already been interpreted with more respect for the memory of the old manner than submission to the requirements of the newer style.

The most talented of these new artists, Boucher-Desnoyers, when working at his "Belle Jardinière," after Raphael, or his "Vierge aux Rochers," after Leonardo, probably thought much less of contemporary work than of the French engravers of the seventeenth century; while on their part Bervic and Tardieu, who had long before given proof of their power, faithfully maintained the great traditions: the one in an austerity of execution and a firmness of touch hereditary in his family, the other in his scientific ease of handling. These three were of the race of the older masters, and their work, unjustly forgotten some years later during the rage for the English manner, deserves a better fate than to be confounded with the cold and formal prints published in the France of the First Empire. The engravings after David, by popularising his work, obtained some success in their day, but have failed to secure a lasting reputation. The fault, however, is not altogether with the engravers: in spite of the apparent conscientiousness of the painter, his real indecision of method must count for something in the mediocre achievements of his interpreters.

Free to impose his own system on all other artists, David might have enforced his artistic authority on his contemporaries; and even if it were beyond his power to restore the French school of engraving, he might at least have regenerated its principles, and, combining separate efforts under the synthesis of his own personal conception, have breathed into it a fresh spirit of unity. This he never attempted; and it is even hard to guess at what he expected from his engravers. It might be supposed that his own fondness for precision of form would have led him to require from them insistence as to the drawing, and not much attention to colour and effect; yet most of the prints after his pictures--amongst others those by Morel and Massard--are heavy in tone and feeble in drawing. There is in them no trace either of the precise manner of David, or of the large method of the old school; it is therefore not in these commonplace works, and still less in the barren engravings composing the great "Commission d'Égypte," that we must look for signs of such talent as then existed in France.

The few painters who, like Regnault, were more or less independent of David's influence, or, like Prud'hon, had ventured to create an entirely original method, were admired by so small a public that their pictures were not generally reproduced in engraving, and thus could do little for the progress of the art. Some, however, of Prud'hon's drawings and pictures met, under the Directory and the Empire, with excellent interpreters in Copia and in Barthélemy Roger; while in the last years of the eighteenth century Bervic's engraving of Regnault's "Éducation d'Achille" had obtained at least as much success as the original had won in the Salon of 1783. To give a companion to this justly celebrated piece, Bervic soon after published his "Enlèvement de Déjanire," after Guido. This work, to which the judges of the Decennial Competition awarded the prize in preference to any engraving published in France from 1800 to 1810, by confirming the engraver's reputation, caused his fellow-craftsmen to return once more to the old path of progress.

It must not, however, be supposed that Bervic did not himself diverge somewhat from the way of the masters: it may even be said that he was always more inclined to skirt it than to follow it resolutely. At the outset he was not sufficiently alive to the perils of facility; and later on he was apt to attach too much importance to certain quite material qualities. Yet it must be added that he never went so far as to entirely sacrifice essentials to accessories, and that more than once--in his fine full-length of Louis XVI. for instance--he displayed an ability all the more laudable as the original was by no means inspiring.

From the engraving it is hard to suspect the mediocrity of Callet's picture. This, now at Versailles, is insipidly coloured and loosely and clumsily drawn; the print, on the contrary, is to be admired for its solid appearance, and its easy yet unostentatious handling. Lace, satin, velvet, all accessories, indeed, are treated with a largeness of touch by no means at variance with delicacy, and the general tone is harmoniously luminous. Here and there, however, is already visible a certain artifice of manner which threatens to degenerate into an unwise cultivation of fine line, and end in an abuse of skill. This, indeed, is what happened. Bervic, henceforth, thought of little else but dexterity, and ended in his "Laocoon," perhaps the best known of all his works, by a display of common technical fireworks, to a certain extent surprising, but by no means to be unreservedly admired. The care with which he set himself to imitate the grain of marble by minute workmanship is only trifling with his subject; and though a group of statues cannot be treated in the same way as figures painted on canvas, it was more important, and more desirable in every respect, to reproduce the character and style of the original than to imitate the substance in which it was wrought.

Moreover, in the attempt so to interpret his model, Bervic has defeated his own purpose. By a multitude of details, and an abuse of half-lights intended to bring out the slightest accidents of form and modelling, he has only succeeded in depriving the general aspect of brilliancy and unity.

Far removed, indeed, was such a method from that of the Old Masters, and Bervic lived long enough to change his mind. "I have missed the truth," he declared in his old age, "and if I could begin life again, I should do nothing I have done." There he wronged himself. As happens often in tardy repentances, he remembered past errors only to exaggerate them; but we must be juster to the engraver of the "Louis XVI." and "L'Éducation d'Achille" than he was to himself, and not forget that much of his work should be excluded from the sweeping condemnation which he launched upon the whole.

Whilst Bervic was counted the greatest French engraver, Italy boasted of a man, his inferior in reality, but whom, in the existing dearth of talent, his countrymen agreed to thrust into the glorious eminence of a master. Like Canova, his senior by a few years only, Raphael Morghen had the good fortune to be born at the right time. Both second-rate artists, they would have passed almost unnoticed in a more favoured century; as it was, in the absence of contemporary rivals, their compatriots accepted their accidental superiority as a proof of absolute merit. Moreover, by merely submitting in some sort to the dictates of opinion and of public taste, their popularity and success were easily assured. The writings of Winckelmann and Raphael Mengs had brought antique statues and Italian pictures of the sixteenth century once more into favour; so that Canova, by imitating the former more or less cleverly, and Morghen by engraving the latter, could neither of them fail to please, and it is especially to their choice of subjects that we must attribute the great reputation they both enjoyed.

Morghen, the pupil and son-in-law of Volpato, whose weak engravings from the "Stanze," in the Vatican, are known to every one, shared with that feeble artist, and with Longhi, the privilege of reproducing admirable paintings, which had either never been engraved, or not since the time of the masters. This alone gives a certain value to his plates, faulty as they are. Assuredly, for instance, the engraving of Leonardo's "Last Supper" reproduces no more than the general lines of the composition and the attitude of the figures. We look at it as we might listen to an inferior actor reading verses from "Polyeucte" or "Athalie," because the inspiration of the master is still to be felt, in spite of the intermediary of expression; only the sort of beauty inherent in the conception and arrangement of the original remains in this piece of Morghen's. What can be said of the head of the Saviour, like those of the Apostles, _restored_ by the engraver, and unillumined by the faintest glimmer of sentiment? How is it possible, examining the work in detail, not to be offended by the arrogance of the technique and the display of mere mechanical facility, when one remembers the incomparable accuracy of Leonardo and his perfection of style?

But in thus substituting his own manner, and the caprices of his individual taste, for the manner and the taste of the painter of "The Last Supper," Morghen only treated this great master as he was in the habit of treating others. Whether it was his lot to interpret Raphael or Poussin, Andrea del Sarto or Correggio, he had but one uniform method for the most conflicting types; and to his tricks of hand he subjected, without remorse, the inspired grace or the noble energy of whatever he copied. Once, however, it was given him to entertain higher aspirations, and to study more conscientiously the particular characteristics of the work he was to reproduce. It would be impossible without deliberate injustice to avoid recognising merit in his plate from Van Dyck's "Francesco de Moncada," as much on the score of intelligent fidelity as of skilful execution. But, for his other works, could one, without equal injustice, condone the inadequacy of expression and drawing, the systematic contempt of all effort, the many evidences of vain and self-confident ease which refuses to be humbled even in the presence of genius?

Morghen preserved till the end the brilliant reputation which his extreme fertility and the complacent patriotism of the Italians had won for him at the outset. Born in Naples, he settled in Florence, whither he had been allured by the Grand Duke Ferdinand III., and where he remained during the French occupation, and, much less resentful than Alfieri, repulsed neither the homage nor the favour of the foreigner. On the return of the Grand Duke, his old protector, he was still less ready to yield to the Neapolitans, who coveted the honour of recalling the renowned artist to his native country. When at length he died in 1833, all Italy was stirred at the news, and innumerable sonnets, the usual expression of public regret or enthusiasm, celebrated "the undying glory of the illustrious engraver of 'The Last Supper.'"

Johann Godard Müller, who early in life had had nearly as widespread a recognition in Germany as Morghen in Italy, departed this world in lonely misery three years before the Neapolitan. Beyond the walls of Stuttgart, scarce any one remembered the existence or the brief renown of the engraver of the "Madonna della Sedia" and the "Battle of Bunker's Hill." For he had long ceased to trouble about his work or his reputation, and lived only to mourn a son, who in 1816 died at the very time when, in his turn, he was about to become one of the most distinguished engravers of his country.

From childhood this son, Christian Frederick Müller, had been devoted to his father's art. His first attempts were successful enough to warrant his early admittance to the school of engraving recently founded at Stuttgart by Duke Charles of Wurtemberg. We have seen that during the second half of the eighteenth century many German engravers came to Paris for training, and that many remained there. Expelled from France, their adopted country, by the Revolution, they returned to Germany, and the institution of a school of engraving in Stuttgart was one result of their expulsion. But by 1802 many of the fugitives were already back in Paris, and the studios, closed for ten years, once more opened their doors to numerous pupils. Frederick Müller, then barely twenty, followed his father's example, and in his turn went to perfect himself under French masters.

Commended to the good offices of Wille, then past eighty, who felt it an honour to have taught Johann Godard Müller, and introduced by him, the young man was soon in relation with Bervic, Tardieu, and Desnoyers; and without constituting himself a thorough-going imitator of these fine craftsmen, he yet borrowed enough from them to be considered, if not their rival, at least one of their most faithful disciples. The plates he engraved for the "Musée Français," published by Laurent and Robillard,[50] show laudable submission to the principles of the masters and an already sound experience of art; but it is in the "Madonna di San Sisto," in which he seems to have arrived at maturity, that his talent may be fully measured. Before undertaking this plate, the young engraver went to Italy to study other work by the "Divine Painter," and to prepare himself for the interpretation of the picture in the Dresden Gallery by drawing from the Vatican frescoes. On his return to Germany, he at once applied himself to the task, and pursued it with such ardour that, towards the end of 1815, that is in three years, he had brought it to an end. The "Madonna di San Sisto" deserves to rank with the finest line engravings of the beginning of the century. It has long been popular; but renown came too slowly for the engraver, and unhappily he lacked the patience to await its coming.

When Müller had finished his work, he determined to publish it himself, hoping to gain not only honour but legitimate profit. He was exhausted by hard work, but he trusted to meet with the reward which he felt to be due to such continual effort, and to meet with it at once. Time passed, however, and the young engraver, a prey to feverish anxiety, began to rail at the indifference of his contemporaries. He had soon to make arrangements with a publisher, that the fruit of his labours might not be altogether lost. Several amateurs then bought proofs, but there was as yet no general popularity for a print the appearance of which, in the expectation of its author, should have had all the importance of a public event. So many disappointments completed the ruin of his health, and at last affected his reason. In a paroxysm of excitement, Müller stabbed himself with a burnisher. Shortly after his "Sistine Madonna" obtained that great success which the poor artist had fondly anticipated. The publisher grew rich upon the proofs; and the name of the young engraver who had made too great haste to sell them was with justice acclaimed throughout Europe.

The works of Bervic, of Desnoyers, of Morghen and of Müller, may be said to represent the state of engraving in France, in Italy, and in Germany during the early years of the nineteenth century. They show that at that time the three schools professed the same doctrines, or, at least, followed the same masters; but this seeming conformity was not destined to be of long duration. The principles of art were soon modified by the influence of new ideas, and the German engravers (taking the lead in this change of aim) entered the path which they are still following.

At the time of Müller's death, the influence of Goethe and Schiller on German literature had begun to extend to the pictorial arts. Passionate study of the Middle Ages took the place of the worship of antiquity, and whilst the classical dictionary was still the only gospel for French painters, those beyond the Rhine were already drinking inspiration from Christian tradition and national legend. This was a happy reaction in so far as it reinvested art with that ethereal character which is indispensable to its higher developments; but, on the other hand, rapidly degenerating into mere archæology, the movement ended by oppressing and imprisoning talent under invariable formulas. A few years sufficed to reduce German art to such a condition that asceticism became the established rule. Since then Overbeck, Cornelius, and Kaulbach have added the weight of their authority and example, and continued and perfected the tradition of their forerunners; and this reformation has been as thorough in Germany as the far different revolution accomplished by David in France.

The German painters having thus laid aside a part of their material resources, the German engravers have been obliged to confine themselves to a translation of the ideal sentiment of their originals. In this task it must be allowed they have perfectly succeeded. They reproduce with singular completeness that generative thought, and religious, philosophical, or literary imagination, which, far more than any pictorial idea, inspires the German painter.

Strictly speaking, they do not produce engravings: that is, they do not produce works in which the burin has sought to render the value of tone, colour, chiaroscuro, or any constituent of a picture save composition and drawing; they are satisfied to cut in the copper, with a precision frequently approaching dryness, the outlines of simple forms; while, by way of concession to the true pictorial spirit, they think it enough to throw in here and there a few suggestions of modelling and light masses of shadow. Among the numerous specimens of this extreme reticence of execution, it is sufficient to mention the "Apostolical Scenes" engraved, after Overbeck, by Franz Keller, Ludy, and Steinfensand; the plates after Cornelius, published at Carlsruhe and Munich, by Schäffer, Merz, and others; and lastly, Thaeter's big "Battle of the Huns," after Kaulbach.

Although subdivided into smaller classes, the modern German school is composed--at least, in so far as historical painting and engraving are concerned--of a group of kindred talents, inspired by abstract reflection rather than the study of reality. Nevertheless this main idea has not everywhere been carried out with the same logical rigour. The Düsseldorf engravers, for instance, have not always confined themselves, like those of Munich, to the representation of figures and their accessories, as mere silhouettes, strengthened, if at all, by the palest of shadows. Even more elastic principles have prevailed elsewhere. Felsing of Darmstadt, Mendel of Berlin, and Steinla of Dresden, have proved by their engravings after Fra Bartolommeo, Raphael, and Holbein, that they have no notion of denying themselves any of the methods used by the masters of engraving for imitating in the highest perfection the relief and life of objects figured on canvas. But these and other efforts must be considered exceptional. As we have said, the dominant tendency of German art since the reform is rather towards deliberate, even systematic, conception than spontaneous expression of sentiment: it is, in fact, the mortification of the eye for the intelligence. In a word, German engravers trust too much to logic and analysis, and too little to their senses. It is only natural that they should. The qualities lacking in their works are also lacking in the pictures and drawings from which these are engraved. Still, their main principle once admitted, we must allow that it could not well be pushed to a more logical conclusion. In Germany, separate and independent talents do not exist, as in Belgium, Austria, Switzerland, and Russia. The end is the same for all, and is obtained by all in nearly the same degree. In England, also, engraving, considered as a whole, presents an incontestable unity; nevertheless, the difference between the schools is great. A trifle hypochondriacal by dint of privations and penance, German art is sustained by a feverish faith which lends to it the animation of life; while in spite of its flourishing looks, English art is really decayed in constitution. Its health is only apparent, and the least study of its vital sources compels the recognition of its frailty.

It has frequently been said that the arts are the expression of the moral tendency of a people. This is doubtless true; at all events, it is true of those people for whom the arts have always been a necessity--of Greece and Italy, for example, where they have been as it were endemic. Where, however, art has been diffused by contagion--as an epidemic--it may remain quite distinct from national tendencies, or only represent a part of them, or even suggest the presence of quite antagonistic influences. Strictly speaking, a school of painting has only existed in England since the eighteenth century; surely its characteristics, past and present, are in nowise a spontaneous expression of national feeling? Are all its most important achievements--the portraits of Reynolds, Gainsborough, Lawrence, and the landscapes of Turner--inspired by that practical wisdom, that spirit of order and love of exactness in everything, which characterise the English equally in private and in public life? On the contrary, the quest of spurious brilliancy and effect, exaggerated at the expense of accurate form and precision of style, is the one tradition of the English school of painting; and in spite of the inventive and tasteful work produced in the first half of the century by artists like Wilkie, Smirke, and Mulready, as of the more recent efforts of the Pre-Raphaelites, it would seem as if the school were neither able nor willing to change.

The æsthetic formula accepted and used, from one generation to another, by the English painters has influenced--and, perhaps naturally, with still more authority--their compatriots the engravers. Just now English engraving seems careless of further effort. It is as though its innumerable products had nothing whatever to reveal to those who buy them, and were bought from habit, and not from taste.

It has been seen that George III. did his utmost to encourage line engraving, and that the exportation of prints soon became a source of revenue. How could the country neglect those wares which abroad were made so heartily welcome? The aristocracy set the example. Men of high social position thought it their duty to subscribe to important publications. In imitation, or from patriotism, the middle class in their turn sought to favour the growth of engraving; and when, some years later, it became the fashion to illustrate "Keepsakes" and "Books of Beauty" with steel engravings, their cheapness put them within everybody's reach. People gradually took to having prints in their houses, just as they harboured superfluities of other kinds; and, the custom becoming more and more general, engravers could be almost certain of the sale of any sort of work. This is still the case. In London, every new print may reckon on a certain number of subscribers. Hence the facility of production, and the constant mechanical improvements tending to shorten the work; hence, too, unfortunately, the family likeness and purely conventional charm of the English prints of the last half-century.

A glance at any recent aquatints and mezzotints or into a new book of etchings, discovers nothing one does not seem to have seen a hundred times before. There are the eternal conflicts of light and darkness, the eternal contrasts between velvety and pearly textures. In its needless formality, this trickery resembles that of uninspired and styleless singers. A brief _piano_ passage is followed by a crashing _forte_; the whole thing consists in abruptness of contrast, and depends for success entirely upon surprise. In both cases this element is soon exhausted by too frequent use. The novelty of their appearance might at first impart a certain charm to English engravings; but the unending repetition of the same effect has destroyed their principal merit, and it is difficult to regard them with attention or interest.

It would be unjust, however, to confine ourselves to the consideration of the abuse of general methods, and to say nothing of individual talents. England has produced some remarkable engravers since those in mezzotint formed by Reynolds and the landscape artists who were Woollett's pupils. Abraham Raimbach, for instance, was a fine workman, and a better draughtsman than most of his compatriots; his plates after Wilkie's "Blind Man's Buff," "The Rent-Day," and "The Village Politicians," deserve to be classed amongst the most agreeable works of modern engraving. Samuel William Reynolds, in his portraits after many English painters, and his plates from Géricault, Horace Vernet, and Paul Delaroche, and Samuel Cousins, in his engravings of Lawrence's "Master Lambton," "Pius VII.," and "Lady Gower and her Son," have succeeded in getting a good deal more from mezzotint than the eighteenth century masters.

In spite of the dissimilarity of their talents, Raimbach and Cousins may yet be compared as the last English engravers who attempted to invest their work with a character in conformity with the strict conditions of the art. Since them the London craftsmen have practised more or less skilfully an almost mechanical profession. They have only produced either the thousands of engravings, which every year proceed from the same source, or the prints that deal with still less ambitious subjects--animals, attributes of the chase, and so forth--on an absurdly large scale. They have, indeed, gone so far as to represent life-size dogs, cats, and game. There is even a certain plate, after Landseer, whose sole interest is a parrot on its perch, and which is much larger than the plates that used to be engraved from the largest compositions of the masters. To say the least, here are errors of taste not to be redeemed by improvements in the manufacture of tools, nor even by ingenious combinations of the different processes of engraving. However skilful contemporary English engravers may be in some respects, they cannot properly be said to produce works of art; because they insist on technique to an inordinate degree, and in like measure reduce almost to nothing the proportions of true art and sentiment.

One might, with still greater reason, thus explain the mediocrity of American prints in the present day. Few as they are, they do not rivet attention as the manifestations of an art which, young and inexperienced, is yet vital in its artlessness; on the contrary, they are depressing as the products of an art fallen into the sluggishness of old age. It is as though engraving in the United States had begun in decay--or rather, it may be, negatively, with no tendency to change, and no impulse to progress. Mostly mezzotints or aquatints, the prints sold in New York and New Orleans suggest that their authors only wished to appropriate as best they could the present fashions and methods of English engraving. As for work in line, it is almost entirely confined to the embellishment of bank notes and tradesmen's cards. Some of its professors are not without technical knowledge and a sort of skill; and if it were absolutely necessary to find a characteristic specimen of American art it should, perhaps, be sought amongst works of this sort. In any case, it is best to reserve a definitive opinion, and simply to state what American engraving is, and must be, till a master arise by whose influence and example it may be animated and renewed.

If, after considering the condition of engraving at the beginning of the present century, one should wish to become acquainted with its subsequent phases, assuredly one has to admit the pre-eminence of French talent. It may even be advanced that French engravers have maintained, and do still maintain, almost unaided the art of engraving within those limits from which it cannot deviate without the risk of becoming, as in Germany, a language of pure conventionality, or, as in England, the hackneyed expression of mere technical dexterity.

Without doubt, evidences of broader and more serious talent were not lacking even in that school which some years earlier seemed to have gone to decay. After Volpato and Morghen, and in opposition to their example, there were Italian engravers who worked to such purpose as to redeem the honour of the school. The plates by Toschi and his pupils, from pictures and frescoes by Correggio at Parma; Calamatta's "Vœu de Louis Treize," after Ingres; Mercuri's "Moissonneurs," after Léopold Robert, and many prints besides, either by the same artists or others of their race, assuredly deserve to rank with the most important achievements of French engraving in the first half of the nineteenth century. But the years that have lapsed since their publication, while barren for Italy, have brought a continued harvest to France. After the engravers who made their appearance in the last years of the Restoration their pupils became masters in turn; and, in spite of adverse circumstances, the indifference of a section of the public, and the increasing popularity of photography, their zeal seems no more likely to diminish than the value of their work.

Once, it is true, at the most brilliant period of English engraving, the French school was not without a moment of hesitation on the part of some, of disloyalty on that of others. During the First Empire, the existence of the art movement in London in the last years of the active rule of George III. and the beginning of the Regency was unsuspected in France. The cessation of commercial relations between the two countries left the French in such complete ignorance that, until 1816, the only English prints they knew were those by Strange, Ryland, and Woollett: those, in fact, published before the end of the eighteenth century. And when, after the Restoration, English work first came under the eyes of French engravers, the fascination of its novelty dazzled them more than the splendour of its merit.

Those who, like Tardieu and Desnoyers, were especially concerned with loftiness of style and masculine vigour of execution, were but little moved by such innovations, if we may judge by the nature of their subsequent publications. The "Ruth and Boaz," engraved by the former after Hersent, the divers "Madonnas" and the "Transfiguration," engraved by the latter after Raphael, do not testify that their belief in the excellence of the old French method was at all shaken. But others, either younger or less stable of conviction, were soon seduced. Like the English engravers, they attempted to unite all the different processes of engraving in their plates; and they sought, to the exclusion of all besides, the easiest way of work, piquancy of result, and prettiness everywhere, even in history. These imitations became more numerous by reason of their first success, till they threatened the independence of French engraving, which had not been encroached upon since the seventeenth century.

The fever, however, soon cooled. A happy reaction set in soon after 1830, and continued during the following years; and infatuation having everywhere been succeeded by reflection, the misleading qualities of the English manner were finally recognised. The French school takes counsel with none save itself, its past, and its traditions. To this just confidence in its own resources are owing its present superiority to, and independence of, other schools, and, what is more important still, its place apart from that mechanical industry which, with its spurious successes, its raids upon a territory not its own, and its pretentious efforts to occupy the place of art, would seize upon those privileges, which, do all it may, it can never hope to confiscate.

Of all the engravers who have honoured our epoch not in France alone, but also in other countries, the first in genius, as in the general influence he has exerted for nearly half a century, is certainly Henriquel--as he called himself in the early part of his career--Henriquel-Dupont in the second half. But he too, it would seem, had his hours of indecision. Perhaps, in some of his early works, certain traces may be discovered of a leaning towards the English manner, certain tendencies of doubtful orthodoxy; but, at any rate, they have never developed into manifest errors: they have, at the most, resulted in venial sins, which themselves have been abundantly atoned.

Henriquel is a master in the widest acceptation of the word: a master, too, of the stamp of those in the past of whom the French have the greatest right to be proud. The masters of the seventeenth century have scarcely left us plates at once so largely and so delicately treated, as his "Hémicycle du Palais des Beaux-Arts," his "Moïse Exposé sur le Nil," and his "Strafford," after Paul Delaroche; his admirable sketch in etching of the "Pilgrims of Emmaus," after Veronese; and the portrait of M. Bertin, after Ingres; and these are but a few. We have, besides the Van Dyck, "Une Dame et sa Fille," engraved some years before the "Abdication de Gustave Wasa," after Hersent, and the "Marquis de Pastoret," after Paul Delaroche; the "Christ Consolateur," engraved rather later, after Scheffer; and, among less important, though certainly not less meritorious works, the portraits engraved now with the scientific ease of the burin, now with the light and delicate touch of the needle: the "Pasta," the botanist "Desfontaines," "Desenne" the draughtsman, the "Brongniart," the "Tardieu," the "Carle Vernet," the "Sauvageot," the "Scheffer," the "Mansard et Perrault," the "Mirabeau à la Tribune," the "Rathier," and, latest of all, the charming little "Père Petétot."

In these--and in how many besides? for the work of the master does not fall short of ninety pieces, besides lithographs and a great deal in pastel and crayon--Henriquel proves himself not only a trained draughtsman and finished executant, but, as it were, still more a painter than any of his immediate predecessors. Bervic--whose pupil he became, after some years in the studio of Pierre Guérin--was able to teach him to overcome the practical difficulties of the art, but the influence of the engraver of the "Laocoon" and the "Déjanire" went no further than technical initiation. Even the example of Desnoyers, however instructive in some respects, was not so obediently followed by Henriquel as to cause any sacrifice of taste and natural sentiment. By the clearness of his views, as much as by the elevation of his talent, the engraver of the "Hemicycle" is connected with the past French school and the masters who are its chief honour; but by the particular form of expression he employs, by a something extremely unexpected in his manner and extremely personal in his acceptance of tradition, he stands to a certain extent apart from his predecessors, and may be called an innovator, though he by no means advertises any such pretension. As we have just remarked, his use of means is so versatile that he paints with the graver or the needle, where just before him others, even the most skilful--men like Laugier and Richomme--could only engrave; and the influence he has exerted--whether by direct teaching, or by his signed work--has had the effect of rejuvenating engraving in France in more than one particular, and of awakening talents, some of which, though plainly betraying their origin, have none the less a weight and an importance of their own, and deserve an honourable place in the history of contemporary art.

Several of his most distinguished pupils are dead: Aristide Louis, whose "Mignon," after Scheffer, won instant popularity; Jules François, who is to be credited, among other fine plates, with a real masterpiece in the "Militaire Offrant des Pièces d'Or à une Femme," after the Terburg in the Louvre; and Rousseaux, perhaps the most gifted engraver of his generation, whose works, few as they are, are yet enough to immortalise him. Who knows, indeed, if some day the "Portrait d'Homme" from the picture in the Louvre attributed to Francia, and the "Madame de Sévigné" from Nanteuil's pastel, may not be sought for with the eagerness now expended on the search for the old masters of engraving?

The premature death of these accomplished craftsmen has certainly been a loss to the French school. Fortunately, however, there remain many others whose work is of a nature to uphold the ancient renown of French art, and to defy comparison with the achievement of other countries. Where, save in France could equivalents be found, for instance, of the "Coronation of the Virgin," after Giovanni da Fiesole, and the "Marriage of Saint Catherine," after Memling, by Alphonse François; of the "Antiope," by Blanchard, after Correggio; of the "Vierge de la Consolation," after Hébert, by Huot; of Danguin's "Titian's Mistress," or Bertinot's "Portement de Croix," after Lesueur; of several other plates, remarkable in different ways, and bearing the same or other names? What rivalry need Gaillard fear, in the sort of engraving of which he is really the inventor, and which he practises with such extraordinary skill? Whether he produces after Van Eyck, Ingres, or Rembrandt, such plates as the "Homme à l'Œillet," the "Œdipus," and the "Pilgrims of Emmaus," or gives us, from his own drawings or paintings, such portraits as his "Pius IX." and his "Dom Guéranger," he, in every case, arrests the mind as well as surprises the eye, by the inconceivable subtlety of his work. Even when translating the works of others he shows himself boldly original. His methods are entirely his own, and render imitation impossible because they are prompted by the exceptional delicacy of his perceptions; but, with all the goodwill in the world, it would be no less difficult to appropriate his keenness of sentiment or to gain an equal degree of mental insight.

In France, then, line engraving has representatives numerous enough, and above all meritorious enough, to put to rout the apprehensions of those who believe, or affect to believe, the art irretrievably injured by the success of heliography. We have only to glance at the feats accomplished in our own day in engraving of another kind, and to examine those produced in France by contemporary French etchers, to be reassured on this question also. Might we not, even, without exaggeration, apply the term renaissance to the series of advances effected in the branch of engraving formerly distinguished by Callot and by Claude Lorraine? When, since the seventeenth century, has the needle ever been handled in France by so many skilful artists, and with so keen a feeling for effect and colour? But let none mistake the drift of our praise. Of course, we do not allude here to the thousands of careless sketches scrawled on the varnish, with a freedom to be attributed to simple ignorance, far more than to real dash and spirit; nor to those would-be "works of art," for which the skill of the printer and the tricks of printing have done the most. To the dupes of such blatant trickeries they shall be left. Still, it is only just to acknowledge, in the etchings of the day, a singular familiarity with the true conditions of the process, and generally a good knowledge of pictorial effect, solid enough and sufficiently under control to maintain a mean between pedantry and exaggerated ease.

Many names would deserve mention, were we not confined to general indications of the progress and the movement they represent. It is, however, impossible to omit that of Jacquemart, the young master recently deceased, who, in a kind of engraving he was the first to attempt, gave proof of much ingenuity of taste and of original ability. The plates of which his "Gemmes et Joyaux de la Couronne" is composed, and his etchings of similar models--sculpture and goldsmith's work, vases and bindings, enamels and cameos--all deserve to rank with historical pieces of the highest order; even as the still-life painted by Chardin a century ago still excites the same interest, and has a right to the same attention, as the best pictures by contemporary allegorical or portrait painters.

The superiority of the French school, in whatever style, has, moreover, been recently recognised and proclaimed in public. It has not been forgotten that the jury entrusted with the awards at the International Exhibition of 1878 unanimously decreed a principal share to the engravers of France. Without injustice this share might perhaps have been even greater if the jury, chiefly composed of Frenchmen, had not thought right to take full account of the special conditions of the competition, and the readiness with which the artists of other countries had responded.

Since then the position of art in Europe, and the relative importance of talents in different countries of Europe, have not changed. If, to understand the state of contemporary engraving, it be thought desirable to confine our attention to the present moment, there can be no doubt whatever that the most cursory examination of the works representing the different processes of engraving must justify the above observations. These we should wish briefly to recapitulate.

We have said that etching has, within the last few years, returned so much into favour, that probably at no other time have its products been more numerous, or in more general demand. This is but fair; and it is not in France only that the public taste for etched work, large and small, is justified by the talent of the artists who publish it. To quote a few names only among those to be commended, in different degrees, for their many proofs of sentiment and skill, we have Unger in Austria; Redlich and Massaloff in Russia; Gilli in Italy; and Seymour Haden in England. By their talents they assist in the reform which the French engravers began, and which they now pursue with increasing authority and exceptional technical knowledge.

Mezzotint and aquatint have been not nearly so fortunate. The former appears to have fallen, almost everywhere, into disuse. Even in England, where, as soon as Von Siegen's invention was imported, a school was founded to cultivate its resources--in England, where, from Earlom to S. W. Reynolds and Cousins, mezzotint engravers so long excelled--it is a mere chance if a few are still to be found supporting the tradition. In other countries, France, Belgium, Germany, and Italy, mezzotint is, to speak strictly, scarcely practised at all. It has been replaced by aquatint, which itself, as we mentioned in a former chapter, is only used for purely commercial requirements, except by engravers of real talent in combination with the needle and the graver.

Wood engraving has made, in certain respects, considerable progress in the course of the last few years. In France and England it is producing results that not only confirm its advances, but are as the prophecy of still better things. Amongst recent prints, those of Robert, for instance, do more than promise; they realise the hopes which others only hold out. All the same, it is commonly the case with wood engravers that, clever though they be, they are apt to deceive themselves as to the special conditions of their art, and too often to forget that it is not their province to imitate the appearance of line engraving. Instead of attempting to copy the complicated results of the graver, they should rather, in accordance with the nature of the process at their disposal, be satisfied with rapid suggestions of effect and modelling and a summary imitation of form and colour. The illustrations after Holbein, by Lützelburger and other Germans of the sixteenth century, and the portraits and subjects cut on wood by Italian artists, or by Frenchmen of the same epoch, as Geofroy Tory and Salomon Bernard, are models to which the engravers of our own day would do well to conform, instead of entering, under pretext of improvements, upon attempted innovations as foreign to the true nature of the process as to its objects and real resources.

Though the practice of line engraving is more scientific in France than anywhere else, it has nevertheless distinguished representatives in other countries. Besides the French, the German, and the Italian engravers we have mentioned, Weber, in Switzerland; De Kaiser, in Holland; Biot and Franck, in Belgium; Jacobi, Sonnenleiter, and Klaus, in Austria, are working manfully for the cause so well supported by Henriquel and his followers. But everywhere the perseverance of zeal and talent is unfortunately insufficient to overcome the prejudices of the public, and its exaggerated confidence in the benefits of mechanical discovery.

Since the progress accomplished by science in the domain of heliographic reproduction, since the advantages with regard to material exactness that photography and the processes derived from it have offered, or seem to offer, line engraving, of all the different methods, is certainly the one that has suffered most from the supposed rivalry. A mistake, all the more to be regretted as it seems to be general, gave rise to the idea that it was all over with the art of engraving, simply because, as mere copies, its products could not have the infallible fidelity of photographic images, and that, however painstaking and faithful the engraver's hand, it could never produce that exact fac-simile, that ruthless imitation of the thing copied.

Nothing could be truer than this, if the only object of line engraving were to give us a literal copy, a brutal effigy of its original. But is it necessary to mention again that, happily, it has also the task of interpretation? Owing to the very limited field in which he works, as it were in monochrome, the engraver is compelled to choose and to combine the best means of rendering by analogy the various colours of his original, to organise its general effect, and to bring out both the character and the style, now by the simplification of certain details, now by applying the principle of selection to certain others. We have no longer here the stupid impartiality, or, if it be preferred, the unreasoning veracity of a mechanical apparatus, but the deliberate use of feeling, intelligence, and taste--of all those faculties, indeed, which mould and enter into the talent of an artist.

Now as long as there are men in the world capable of preferring idea to matter, and the art which appeals to the mind to the fact which speaks to the eyes, line engraving will retain its influence, however small it may be supposed, however limited it may really be. In any case, those who in these days, in spite of every obstacle, are determined to pursue in their own way the work of such men as Edelinck and Nanteuil, will have deserved recognition from their contemporaries, and will have averted, so far as they could, the complete decay, if it must come, of art properly so called, when sacrificed to the profit of chance manufacture and mere technique.

A CHAPTER ON

ENGLISH ENGRAVING.

BY WILLIAM WALKER.

England appears at first only to have participated in the European movement amongst the fine arts by the trade which it carried on in foreign productions, and the hospitality and the patronage which it gave to many celebrated artists. Thus the country was enriched with foreign works, and examples were obtained, not perhaps worthy of being slavishly followed, but at all events capable of stimulating native talent. At the persuasion of Erasmus, Holbein, in 1526, came to try his fortune in England, and was followed afterwards by Rubens and Van Dyck, as well as De Bry, Vorsterman, and the indefatigable Hollar, the latter an engraver unrivalled in his own style, and perhaps the most unfortunate in worldly circumstances who ever practised the art.

As early as 1483 wood-cuts were used for illustration in Caxton's "Golden Legend," and subsequent printers adopted the same practice in issuing their publications. In like manner, copperplate engravings appeared first as illustrations for books, notably in one called "The Birth of Mankind," dedicated to Queen Catherine, and published by Thomas Raynalde in 1540, and in a translation of Vesalius' "Anatomy," published in 1545 by Thomas Geminus, who not only did the literary work, but copied the original wood-cuts on copper. In the middle of the century, the Hogenbergs took advantage of the method for portraiture, Francis engraving in 1555 a portrait of Queen Mary, and his brother Remigius in 1573 one of Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, who seems to have retained the engraver in his service.

About the same period appeared William Rogers, who was born in London in 1545, and may be considered as the earliest English engraver worthy of mention. His series of portraits are of considerable merit, especially a whole length, taken from a drawing by Isaac Oliver, of Queen Elizabeth, standing with orb and sceptre, and clothed in a rich embroidered and puffed dress. This print bears at the bottom the name of the engraver, and was afterwards reduced in size all round, turning the figure of the Queen into a three-quarter length, and cutting away Rogers' name, which was not reinserted in the later publication. Both sizes of the print are scarce, especially the original, and indeed for a considerable time the reduced impression was considered anonymous, until the appearance of the larger engraving and its comparison with the smaller established the identity of the two. The elder Crispin de Passe engraved a plate from the same drawing of smaller size, and with different accessories in the background.

De Passe, a native of Utrecht, and his family, William, Simon, and a daughter Magdalen, came over to England at the beginning of the seventeenth century, and engraved many prints of much interest in a style peculiarly their own. Reginald Elstracke (born 1620) and Francis Delaram flourished about the same period.

But nothing was accomplished by any English engraver of great artistic value, or which could be fairly compared with the work in other countries, until the middle of the century. It was then that William Faithorne, by his series of portraits, full of colour and executed in a clear and brilliant style, freed England from this reproach. He may be said to have inaugurated the era of English engravers, who, though mostly surpassed by other nations in the line manner of engraving, have no rivals in mezzotint. This style, which, when combined with bold etching, may be called the culmination of the art, was taken up in this country as soon as discovered, adopted by the English as their own, and gradually brought by them to the fullest perfection. Faithorne was a pupil of Sir Robert Peake, painter and engraver, and is said also to have studied under Nanteuil, when driven through the troubles of the first revolution to take refuge in France. His portraits of Mary, Princess of Orange, the Countess of Exeter, Sir William Paston, Queen Catherine of Braganza, Charles II., with long flowing black hair, Thomas Killegrew, dramatist and court favourite, and the famous Marquis of Worcester, one of the contributors to the invention of the steam engine, rank high as engravings, and worthily take their place amidst the achievements of other countries.

Before treating of mezzotint and the new field which it opened out to the engraver, it will be well to call attention to the coming of Hollar to England, and his peculiar method of work, which consisted mainly of etching, assisted by the point or fine graver. Wenceslaus Hollar (born 1607) was forced early in life by the exigencies of those warlike times to leave his native land--Bohemia--and to travel through Germany, designing and engraving on his way, until, in 1636, he met at Cologne with the Earl of Arundel, the English Ambassador to Ferdinand II., who immediately took him into his employment, and on his return from his mission brought him to England, where, with the exception of the troubled years of the first revolution, Hollar resided for the remainder of his life.

Misfortune, however, which attended Hollar in youth, seemed relentless throughout his entire career; after the restoration of Charles II., he underwent the terrible experiences of the plague and of the fire of London, and the times, hostile to every pursuit of art, reduced Hollar to a state of indigence and distress from which, in spite of persevering industry, he seems never to have been able to recover. Sent to Africa in 1669 as the king's designer, to make drawings of the fortifications and surroundings of the town of Tangiers, he meets with Algerine corsairs on his way back, from which he escapes with difficulty. On his return, it is only after delay and vexation that he can obtain £100 from the impecunious king for his two years' labours and expenses. He travels through England, making drawings and etchings of abbeys, churches, ruins, and cathedrals, and ultimately dies at Westminster (1677) in a state of extreme poverty and distress, his very death-bed being disturbed by bailiffs, who threaten the seizure of the last article of furniture he possessed, the bed upon which he is lying. His body was laid in the churchyard of St. Margaret's, Westminster; his name and works remain living and immortal. Hollar's prints amount to considerably over two thousand, and embrace all kinds of subjects, portraits, landscapes, architecture, costume, and animal and still-life of varied character and quality. His treatment of the textures of hair, feathers, or the bloom on butterflies and other insects, is simply unrivalled. Besides his portraits, among other well-known and valued prints, there are--after his own designs--the long bird's-eye view of London in four parts, plans of the same city before and after the great fire (1666), exterior and interior views of the old Cathedral of St. Paul,[51] Westminster Hall, with its picturesque surroundings, the Cathedrals of Lincoln, Southwell, Strasbourg, Antwerp, and York, sets of butterflies, insects, costumes, muffs, and richly-wrought jewelled vessels.

In addition to these, he engraved a set of thirteen plates (1671) on the various English ways of hunting, hawking, and fishing, after Francis Barlow, painter and engraver, who flourished during the same period, and excelled in the representation of animals, birds, and fish. The latter artist has left a curious print--of which the only known example is supposed to be that of the British Museum--entitled "The Last Horse Race" (August 24, 1684), run before Charles II., at Dorsett Ferry (? Datchett), near Windsor Castle. Hollar was the master of Robert Gaywood, who in some measure imitates his style, and many of whose plates are justly esteemed, such as the series of heads after Van Dyck, the curious likeness of Cromwell, the large print of the philosophers Democritus and Heraclitus, as opposing professors of gaiety and gravity, and the plates of birds and animals after Barlow.

In the meantime, the art of mezzotint had been invented, in the first place, by Ludwig von Siegen, a lieutenant-colonel in the service of the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, who used the method to execute a large portrait, bearing the date 1642, of the Princess Amelia Elizabeth, the dowager Landgravine of Hesse. The credit for the discovery has also been ascribed to the well-known Prince Rupert,[52] nephew of Charles I.; but the legend of the prince meeting with a soldier cleaning his corroded gun, and thus conceiving the idea of engraving a copper plate, rests on no sufficient foundation. It is, however, enough for this romantic prince's undying renown, that, having acquired the secret of producing the necessary ground by some means or other, most probably from Von Siegen, he not only introduced the process into England, but executed himself several remarkable engravings in the style, one of which, known as "The Great Executioner" (dated 1658), after Spagnoletto,[53] to distinguish it from a smaller plate containing the head only of the same figure, remains to this day as a powerful and wonderful example of the method. It is curious that, with the partial exception of Germany, and a few isolated instances in other countries, mezzotint should have been practically confined to England; the very name is not recognised elsewhere. Germany uses the word "Schabkunst," scraping art; the French, "La manière noire," the black manner; and Italy, "L'incisione a fumo," engraving in smoke or black,[54]

Before the discovery of the new method, all engraving consisted of an arrangement of lines varied occasionally by dots, which had to be cut into the polished copperplate either directly by the graver or indirectly by the use of acid. Untouched by either graver or acid, the polished plate would thus, under the ordinary process of copperplate printing (rubbing in the ink by a suitable dabber and then cleaning off all the ink not held fast by in-dents), print white; mezzotint reverses the process. The plate, instead of being polished when the engraver commences his work, presents a close, fine, file-like surface, which, if inked, wiped, and put under the heavy-pressure roller press, would now print off a deep uniform surface of bloomy black; in place, therefore, of putting in lines or dots to hold the ink, the engraver has to scrape off the close file-like grain at the required parts, bringing up his highest lights by means of a burnisher; the scraper and burnisher, not the graver, are consequently the principal tools used in executing mezzotint. In addition to the greater ease and rapidity with which an engraving could be made by this process, the range of effect or colour was immensely increased. All tones between pure white and the deepest black were now capable of realisation, and it is easy to see how greatly were enlarged the resources of the engraver, whose special gift and claim as an original artist--a fact too often forgotten, or rather not sufficiently recognised--consist in his power of translating into various shades of black and white the numerous colours at the disposal of the painter.

The forming or laying the grained surface, technically called _ground_, is necessarily of the utmost importance, and is effected by a tool known amongst practical workers as "the rocker," called also "cradle," or "berceau"--the French equivalent--from the peculiar rocking motion given to it by the operator. The rocker is made of moderately thin and carefully tempered steel about two inches broad, and might be termed a stumpy, wide chisel were it not that it is curved (like a cheese-cutter) and notched or serrated at the cutting edge, which serration is caused by one side of the steel being indented into small fluted ridges running parallel upwards to the handle by which the tool is held, and somewhat presenting the appearance of a small-tooth-comb. On the plain smooth side the rocker is ground level to the edge, like other cutting tools, and sharpened on a stone or hone of suitable quality. In laying the ground this instrument is held firmly in the hand, the elbow resting on a convenient cushion, the serrated cutting edge placed on the plate with a slight inclination, and a steady rocking motion given to the tool, which slowly advances over the surface of the copper or steel, forming on its way a narrow indented path. Side by side with this path another is made until the whole surface of the plate has been covered. The series of parallel paths is then repeated at a certain angle over the previous ones, and so on in regular progressive angular order until the required closeness of texture has been produced; to do this it is necessary that the series of parallel paths--technically called a _way_--should be repeated in proper angular progression from sixty to a hundred times. As the continual friction of the elbow against the cushion caused the laying of a ground to become a severe and painful operation, particularly when the use of steel instead of copper plates came into practice early in the present century, a modification of this plan was introduced whereby the tool was fixed at the fitting angle into one end of a long pole, the other end being inserted loosely in a ring fixed on the board upon which the plate was placed; the requisite rocking motion could then be easily given by the hand, and much painful labour avoided. The necessity for a good ground being so great, as the process became more and more general in England, a race of professional ground-layers grew up, who were paid at a certain rate per square inch for the surface thus covered. Much controversy has taken place as to the means by which Siegen, Prince Rupert, and the earlier mezzotinters produced their grounds, but there is little doubt that it must have been accomplished by some rude form of the present tool, and the curious appearance of the grain--as seen in very early mezzotints--must have been caused by the irregular crossings of the impressed layers, the necessity of regular angular procedure throughout the plate, in order to obtain an even tone, not having been recognised at first.

Prince Rupert imparted the secret of the process to Wallerant Vaillant, a native of Lisle, a portrait painter (born 1623, died 1677) who practised the method with great success, working chiefly at Amsterdam, and leaving to posterity many prints of considerable artistic merit. Sir Christopher Wren is also credited with the execution of one of the earliest mezzotints, a negro's head with a collar round the throat, but there is no satisfactory authority for the various statements to this effect, the only sound fact being that this early print is an extremely interesting specimen of the process. The first English engraving executed in this style _bearing a date_ is a portrait of Charles II. in an oval frame (Giul. Sherwin, fecitt 1669), by William Sherwin, who, there is some reason to believe, acquired his knowledge of the process directly from Prince Rupert. Sherwin, born about 1650, engraved also in line,[55] and is said to have had the distinction of engraver to the king conferred on him by patent, an exceptional honour.

Among the mezzotinters about this period, Abraham Blootelingh, born at Amsterdam in 1634, and distinguished both as a line engraver and etcher, came over to England in 1673, made use of the method with admirable success, and is said to have effected considerable improvement in the process of laying the ground; his life-size head of the Duke of Monmouth, in an oval border or frame, is a masterpiece of the art. But, with the above exceptions, the works left by the majority of the early mezzotinters, both English and foreign, are more curious to the student than satisfactory to the artistic eye. It was not until the close of the century, when Isaac Beckett and John Smith had already begun to issue their grand series of portraits after Kneller, Lely, and other contemporary painters, that the full capabilities of the invention were realised and the foundation laid for the steady and uninterrupted progress of the art. John Smith's clear, bright, and intelligent face ought to be well known to Englishmen both from his own engraving and also from Kneller's admirable picture, from which it was taken, so long to be seen hanging in the Rubens and Rembrandt room of the National Gallery, and lately fittingly transferred to the National Portrait Gallery. He was a pupil of Beckett and native of Northamptonshire, and died at Northampton in 1742, where there is a tablet to his memory in St. Peter's Church.

When the eighteenth century opened, mezzotint had taken firm root in England; Beckett and John Smith were in the plenitude of their powers; Jean Simon, a Protestant refugee from France (born in Normandy, 1675), had taken refuge in England, and forsaking his original method of line, had adopted that of mezzotint with great success, while G. White was already giving the first indications of the advantages that might be gained by the introduction of etching into the method. John Faber, junior, was also establishing his reputation, not only by his well-known portraits (which include the set of the Kit-cat Club[56] and the Hampton Court beauties), but by many spirited fancy subjects after Mercier, and above all by an admirable print after Frank Hals of a man playing the guitar. Faber, the younger, was born in Holland in 1684, and brought to England when three years old by his father (also an engraver in mezzotint, but completely overshadowed by his son); he studied under Vanderbank, and was patronised by Kneller; his works are peculiarly valuable as forming records of the painters--now so apt to be carelessly passed by[57]--who lived between the time of Kneller and the rise of Sir Joshua Reynolds, and all left work of value to posterity.

The modern sharp division between painters and engravers was unknown in those days; the painter was only too glad to avail himself of the talent of the engraver to make his paintings known, and in many cases keep alive and hand down to after generations a name which otherwise might have died out and been forgotten. Painters of the present age ignore the engraver, and prefer the more tangible money results to be obtained from treating with a publisher for the purchase of their copyrights, adopting in this respect the teaching conveyed in the witty speech of Sir Godfrey Kneller, who, when reproached for his preference, to other branches of painting, of the lucrative one of portraiture, replied: "Painters of history make the dead live and do not begin to live themselves till they are dead; I paint the living and they make me live." Kneller might, however, have defended his practice on higher grounds, for portraiture, though often ignorantly decried, tests the powers of a great artist to the uttermost, and bequeaths to posterity a legacy of as valuable work as it is in the power of man to accomplish. It is interesting to note here that copyright in works of art was first obtained on the behalf of engraving; Hogarth, painter and engraver, finding that so many of his prints--which, numerously distributed, could easily be pirated--were being copied, boldly and successfully asserted his rights in the courts of law, and was the means of obtaining from Parliament a Copyright Act to defend property in art.

To Faber succeeded Thomas Frye and James McArdell, who were both born in the same city, Dublin, the birthplace of several other distinguished engravers. The life of Frye was eventful; he came in early manhood to London in the company of his fellow-townsman Stoppelaer, who by turns became artist, actor, dramatic writer, and singer. Frye commenced by painting and engraving portraits, and then took charge of the china manufactory just established at Bow, from the ruins of which afterwards arose those of Chelsea and Worcester; there he remained fifteen years, and by his taste and skill improved the manufactures in material form and ornamentation until, the business not succeeding and his health being injured by the heat of the furnaces, he had to take a journey to Wales to recruit, the expenses of which he paid by painting portraits, ultimately returning to London with some money in his pocket. Frye now took a house in Hatton Garden, where he painted miniatures, life-size heads in oils and crayons, and in the space of about two years, 1760-2, executed in mezzotint the remarkable and justly esteemed series of life-size heads, which contain, among others, portraits of himself, his wife, and his mother. These were his last productions, as he died of a complication of diseases in 1762 at the age of fifty-two. Frye was industrious, amiable, and generous in character, patient in misfortune, and ingenious in accomplishing his objects; his likenesses of George III. and Queen Charlotte were obtained by frequent visits to the theatre, where it is said that the king and queen, on knowing his purpose, used kindly to turn their heads towards the artist to help him in his task; other portraits were perhaps accomplished more by the exercise of imagination, as the fine ladies he would ask to sit were wont to refuse with the excuse that they did not know in what company they might find themselves placed.

McArdell, the jovial companion of artists, the friend of Quin the actor, of whom Sir Joshua Reynolds observed, that even if the colours of his (Sir Joshua's) pictures faded his fame would be preserved by McArdell's engravings, marks an epoch in the art; for he was the first to use vigorous etching to increase the effect of mezzotint. He died young, in June, 1765, in his thirty-seventh year, and was buried in Hampstead Churchyard, where, according to Lysons, a short inscription to his memory recorded the fact.[58]

McArdell's immediate successors were numerous, and of striking power and originality in the exercise of their art; the more important of them were Richard Houston, John Greenwood, Edward Fisher, John Spilsbury, Valentine Green, William Pether, Richard Brookshaw, John Blackmore, John Dixon, John Jones, Robert Laurie, and the two Watsons, James and Thomas, who were closely followed, in point of time, by William Dickinson, James Walker,[59] John Dean, John Young, the popular J. R. Smith (John Raphael), and perhaps the greatest of them all as an engraver, Richard Earlom. Many of these also practised in stipple, but their finer works in mezzotint completely overshadow these productions. It may be added that even the paintings of Sir Joshua Reynolds would hardly have been appreciated as thoroughly both in England and other countries, were it not for the admirable renderings of his pictures by the famous band of engravers practising during his lifetime. Gainsborough has undoubtedly suffered in this respect, for, unlike Wright of Derby, Hoppner, Opie, Morland, and Lawrence, few important mezzotints have been executed after his pictures; and were the art to revive and the engravers to be found, a mine of wealth would be waiting to reward with its treasures well-directed labour.

Earlom was born in 1743, and at his death in 1822 had reached his eightieth year; when fourteen years old he gained a premium from the Society of Arts, and attracted attention by making copies of Cipriani's pictures on the Lord Mayor's state carriage; this led to his becoming the painter's pupil and to his acquiring a thorough knowledge of drawing. The Boydells employed him to make drawings and engravings from the Houghton collection, and throughout his long life he continued to exercise unremittingly his laborious profession; his plates are numerous and of great excellence, while his skilful use of etching gives effect and variety to the many textures represented. Earlom engraved after various masters ancient and modern, and perhaps first showed the world the wide range of subjects which the style was capable of effectively representing, such as--to mention only a few of the more important plates--Correggio's "Repose in Egypt," Rubens' "Son and Nurse," Van Dyck's "Duke of Arembergh on Horseback," Vanderwerff's "Bathsheba bringing Abishag to David," the "Fish, Game, Vegetable, and Fruit Markets," after Snyders and Long John,[60] Van Huysum's fruit and flower pieces, Zoffany's terribly realistic representation of a "Scene in the French Revolution on the 10th of May, 1793," and his "Life School at the Royal Academy," Wright of Derby's "Blacksmith's Shop" and "Iron Forge," and the six plates after Hogarth, "Marriage à la Mode."

The renown acquired by the works of English mezzotinters gradually attracted the notice of other nations--particularly Germany--where the style had almost died out, and many foreign engravers came to this country, amongst others, J. G. Haid and the Viennese Jacobe, who not only executed valuable works in England, but were the cause of a partial renewal of the method in their own countries. The Austrian Pichler (born 1765, died 1806) finished in pure mezzotint many plates of exceptional merit, while his fruit and flower pieces after Van Huysum rival the masterpieces of Earlom after the same painter.

During the same period the English school had been making rapid strides in the other branches of copperplate engraving, line, stipple, and etching. Line, which to this day is considered by many as the highest style of the art, and which most certainly is well fitted to render the human form with grace and purity of outline and detail, has notwithstanding to overcome the difficulty of adequately expressing the various shades of colour and texture, and above all of realising the due effects of atmosphere and distance, a serious matter where the accessories are of importance or where landscape enters largely into the composition of the picture. It is, therefore, not surprising that, with mezzotint at hand with its wide range of capabilities, there should be comparatively few English engravers of eminence devoting themselves to line.

Hogarth, who was born in 1697, and began life as an engraver of arms and cyphers, naturally employed the method of line to give expression to his bold and vigorous designs, and in this was assisted by Luke Sullivan, who had been a pupil of Thomas Major. Major (born 1720) had spent some years in Paris engraving after Berghem, Wouvermans, and others; he was an artist of skill, and lived to a considerable age, holding for forty years the office of seal engraver to the king, and being the first _associate_[61] engraver elected by the Royal Academy.

In the year 1730, Vivares, who was a Frenchman by birth, and who, in spite of natural artistic talents, had been apprenticed to a tailor, came to England at the age of eighteen and studied under Chatelain, an artist of French Protestant parentage, but born in London. Vivares soon surpassed his master, acquired great renown for his many fine plates of landscape and sea-scenes, and became a member of the Society of Artists; he lived for thirty years in Great Newport Street, and was buried in Paddington Churchyard in the year 1780.

It is, however, from the pre-eminent excellence of the line engravings of Strange, Woollett, and Sharp that the right of England to a place in the hierarchy of the art has been conceded by other nations. Sir Robert Strange, descended from an ancient Scottish family, was born at Orkney in 1721, and served an apprenticeship of six years to Richard Cooper of Edinburgh. In this city Strange started as an engraver on his own account; when the civil war broke out he joined the side of the Pretender, engraved a half-length portrait of him, and was appointed engraver to this prince; after the battle of Culloden, in which he is said to have taken part, Strange escaped to Paris, and had there the advantage of studying under Le Bas. In 1751 he returned to England, and established himself in London, where his talents were readily recognised and appreciated. On the accession of George III., Strange refused the commission to engrave whole-length portraits of the king and his Prime Minister, Lord Bute, thereby giving great offence, which, together with the remembrance of his former adventures, made Strange think it prudent to leave the country for a time; therefore, to turn to good account even such untoward circumstances, he determined to increase the knowledge of his art by travelling through the continent. In Italy he produced some of his finest engravings after Titian, Raphael, Correggio, Domenichino, Guido, and Van Dyck; his talent was everywhere acknowledged; he was elected member of the Academies of Rome, Florence, Bologna, Parma, and Paris; and, on his return to London, by his engraving after West of the apotheosis of the king's three children, who had died in infancy, he regained the royal favour and received the distinction of knighthood. Sir Robert Strange was a member of the Incorporated Society of Artists, but was very hostile to the Royal Academy, deeply and justly resenting their exclusion of engravers from full membership. During the later part of his life he lived in Great Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, where he died in 1792. He was buried in St. Paul's Churchyard, Covent Garden.

Strange had chiefly devoted himself to classical subjects and the delineation of the human form, Woollett, on the other hand, took up the branches of landscape and history, and by his skill of touch and persistently intelligent labour produced such results as were sufficient to call forth ungrudging praise from all competent judges, not only in his own country, but abroad. Among Woollett's most celebrated plates are the "Fishery," the "Battle of La Hogue," and the "Death of General Wolfe." In the printing of the last plate an accident occurred after a few proofs had been taken; a printer in careless fun taking up a hammer, cried out, "General Wolfe seems dying, I'll finish him;" saying this, he suited action to word, and unintentionally brought the hammer down on the face of the general, thus destroying by the freak of a moment the work of days of patient labour. It is said that Woollett cried on hearing the news; the painter, his art once learnt, fired by imagination, can by rapid strokes of his brush give effect to his will, while the engraver only attains his end by months of unremitting and trustful toil.

Woollett was born at Maidstone in 1735, and was apprenticed to John Tinney, who is now best known as having been the master of three distinguished pupils, Anthony Walker, John Browne, and Woollett himself. Anthony Walker engraved the well-known "Law and Physic" after Ostade, and the figures in the print of "Niobe," Woollett's first work of importance. He was the brother of the William Walker who greatly increased the effect of etching by re-biting, and it is said that Woollett, when making use of the process, was wont to exclaim, "Thank you, William Walker."[62] Woollett lived in London all his life in the neighbourhood of Rathbone Place, where, when he had finished a plate, he used to celebrate the event by firing a cannon from the roof of his house; he died in 1785, and a tablet[63] was placed to his memory in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey.

William Sharp was the son of a gunmaker in the Minories, where he was born in 1749, and afterwards apprenticed to Barak Longmate, a notable heraldic engraver, with whom Sharp's first essay as an apprentice was engraving pewter pots. Sharp completed the plate of West's "Landing of Charles II.," left unfinished by Woollett at his death, while many will know one of his finest works, the "Doctors of the Church," after Guido. Although he never left England, his prints were celebrated throughout Europe; he was elected honorary member of the Imperial Academy at Vienna and of the Royal Academy at Munich, but like Woollett, Strange, and Hall, was not recognised by the English Royal Academy. His religious and political views were peculiar, and being considered a dangerous character, he was summoned before the Privy Council, where at length, annoyed by repeated and, as he considered, irrelevant questions, Sharp is said to have deliberately pulled out of his pocket a prospectus of his engraving of the celebrated Polish general and patriot Kosciusko, and handing it to the council, requested their names as subscribers; this and his frank manner relieved him from the unpleasant predicament in which he found himself placed. Sharp also engraved a portrait of Richard Brothers--a fanatic whose prophecies and writings excited attention at the time--with the title of "Prince of the Hebrews," and wrote underneath: "Fully believing this to be the man whom God has appointed, I engrave his likeness." Though successful and industrious in his art, Sharp died in comparative poverty in the year 1824 at Chiswick.

Among other distinguished men who worked in line during this period must be mentioned James Heath, Anker Smith, John Keyse Sherwin, Francis Legat, Thomas Morris--a pupil of Woollett's--who engraved the fine views of the Monument, seen from Fish Street Hill, and St. Paul's Cathedral from Ludgate Hill, and lastly the unfortunate William Wynne Ryland, who engraved the portraits of George III. and Lord Bute, which Strange had refused to undertake, and who, though of greater eminence in line, is credited with bringing into notice in England the stipple manner of engraving. Ryland finally ended an adventurous career by being hanged for forging two bills on the East India Company, and by his death--notwithstanding all efforts to obtain a reprieve--justified words used in relation to the event: "Popes and monarchs have pardoned men who had committed crimes of the deepest dye--even murder--in consideration of their talents as artists; but Ryland lived in England, the land of trade and commerce, and had committed an offence against the laws of money, the god of its idolatry." Nor during the history of this period ought the names of Thomas Worlidge, David Deuchar, and the ingenious Captain Baillie to be omitted; Worlidge in the early part, and Deuchar at the close of the century, etched each in his own style with precision and effect, while William Baillie, an Irishman and retired cavalry officer (born 1723, died 1810), etched and worked in mezzotint with equal happiness and success.

William Blake (born 1757), poet, engraver, and painter, stands alone. In engraving--the laborious art by which he was content to live--he has executed admirable works, apart from his own peculiar methods, both in line, as shown in the portrait of Lavater, and in stipple, as in the "Industrious Cottager," after Morland; as poet and painter he has left songs and designs which, if soaring higher than men can follow, or even his own powers of hand and mind sufficiently express, remain for ever to arouse the wonder and excite the imagination of posterity. Though he lived in poverty, and oppressed with cares, he was always cheerful and beloved by all who knew him intimately; he was ever at work while life lasted, and died in 1827, as he had lived, a righteous and happy man. He was laid in Bunhill Fields burying-ground, but the spot where he was buried is marked by no tombstone, nor can it now be actually identified; but who that has looked at the portrait engraved by Jeens from Linnell's wondrous miniature can ever forget the face of the poet, engraver, and painter, William Blake?

Before speaking of the branch of engraving known by the name of stipple, it would be well to say a few words as to the mode of printing in colour, so prevalent at one time, and of the connection which the works of Kirkall had in relation to the method. Edward Kirkall, born at Sheffield in the year 1722, published a set of plates, in the printing of which he made use both of mezzotint and etching on copperplate combined with wood blocks (that is to say, one printing was from a copperplate, the remainder from wood blocks), in order to give variety of colour to a set of chiaroscuros and other engravings which he executed at that time. His plan differed from that of Leblond in that he used only one copperplate printing, the other tints being given by wood blocks; the results were interesting and effective, partaking more of the character of chiaroscuros, the name he himself gave to them. Apart from the failure of Leblond to realise his ingenious idea that, by the consecutive and proper superposition of three layers of primitive colours, every shade of colour might be produced in the print, there still remained another fatal defect in the process: all his colours were impressed by copperplate printing, that is, he made use of three plates successively printed one after the other on the same sheet of paper. Now a person who can realise the heavy pressure under which a copperplate has to pass so as to force it into the damp paper, in order that the paper should extract the ink from the grain in which it is held, will be able to see that the second and third printing--no matter how accurate the register--must crush the grain or burr given to the paper by the previous printing and thus destroy the beauty of the engraver's work. Notwithstanding the really remarkable results produced by Leblond, this fatal imperfection mars all the engravings he has left executed in this manner. The copperplates which were printed in colour and carried to such perfection, particularly in England, about the close of the eighteenth century, were printed from one plate, generally executed in stipple, and the various tints or colours carefully rubbed in by the printer, who used for this purpose a sort of stump instead of the ordinary dabber. Whatever artistic harmony in colour might be produced was therefore partially the work, and to the credit of the printer; the printed impressions were in addition generally touched up afterwards, and in some cases almost entirely coloured by hand. Every impression printed in colours necessarily varies; some are really exquisite in their delicacy of tone and assemblage of shades, while others are contemptible in their staring vulgarity. Kirkall engraved an elaborate ornamental form on which to give a receipt to his subscribers for these engravings; one of which, running thus, "Receipt from Sir Hans Sloane of one guinea as part payment for twelve prints in chiaroscuro which he (Kirkall) promises to deliver when finished on payment of one guinea more," can be seen at the British Museum, and will give some idea of the moderate remuneration artists of those days were content to receive for their valuable labour.

The rise of stipple as a separate style took place in the middle of the eighteenth century, and although the coming of Bartolozzi to England gave it so great an impetus, it is necessary to point out that the works of the school which goes by his name by no means show the capabilities of the method. The aim of Bartolozzi and his followers was essentially prettiness; to this all their efforts tended, and for this stipple was a convenient medium. The very printing in red, recently so popular, is barbarous in its ineffectiveness, plates so printed being deprived of a great part of their proper ranges of light and shade. The more serious work in this method was accomplished by other engravers, of whom may be specially mentioned Thomas Gaugain, Anthony Cardon, Caroline Watson, and, later on in the present century, William Walker, who carried the style to the highest point ever reached or likely to be reached. Engraving in stipple--that is, putting dots into the plate in place of lines--was, however, no new invention; from early times line engravers had placed dots in the interstices of their crossed lines to give solidity and greater effect. Ottavio Leoni, a Roman painter, had used the method freely in a set of plates of distinguished artists, which he engraved in the years 1621-5, executing the heads, with the exception of the hair, entirely in stipple; and early in the century French engravers made use of the same means to give effect to many of their flesh textures. The crayon style of engraving introduced by Demarteau, and the feeble English manner known as chalk, which had only a limited reign, are but modifications of the style.

Francesco Bartolozzi, the life-long friend of Cipriani (born in 1725 at Florence), was educated in engraving at Venice by Joseph Wagner, and like Cipriani, who had preceded him, came over to England in 1764. His reputation was already established there; he was appointed engraver to the king with a salary of £300 a year, became one of the first forty full members of the Royal Academy (1768), and was the only engraver admitted to the honour down to the year 1855. Bartolozzi remained in England for thirty-eight years, continuously producing his innumerable and well-known plates; at length, in 1802, seduced by the offer of a house, pension, and a knighthood, he went, at the age of seventy-seven, to Lisbon, where he died in 1815, having reached his ninety-first year, and working at his profession to the last. John Ogborn, Cheesman, Thomas Ryder, Chapman, Agar, T. Burke, and the delightful P. W. Tomkins--who, with the late C. H. Jeens, may be called the miniaturist of engravers--were all followers more or less of his school. An admirable draughtsman and perfect master of the graver, Bartolozzi was in addition able to infuse a certain grace and beauty into the trivial work by which he is best known; but he has done work of a higher stamp, and some of his line engravings, such as "Clytie," the "Death of Dido," the portraits of Lord Thurlow and Martin van Juchen in full armour (worthy of the graver of Pontius or De Jode), make all who care for the art regret that so talented an artist gave the greater part of his time and attention to producing prints which, though graceful and pleasing, charm but for the moment and leave no permanent impression.

This, the Augustan era of English engraving, saw also the rise of the talented and genial Thomas Bewick (born 1753, died 1828), who made the domain of natural history his own, and in addition to executing some interesting copper plates, has by his exquisite wood-cuts after his own drawings entitled England to claim her place amongst the greatest artists in that form of engraving. The Boydells, too, had established their celebrated firm; both were engravers, John in line, and Josiah, his nephew (a pupil of Earlom), in mezzotint. John Boydell was born in 1719, and established himself first (in 1752) at the sign of the "Unicorn," corner of Queen Street, Cheapside, afterwards at 90 Cheapside, and finally took additional premises in Pall Mall for the Shakespeare Gallery. Josiah was born in 1752, succeeded on his uncle's death (1804) to the business, and died in 1817. A great proportion of the best prints of this period will be found to bear the addresses of these famous publishers and engravers.

The last years of the eighteenth and the commencement of the present century witnessed the death of many of the famous engravers already mentioned. It was now that the Birmingham school of line arose, and, urged by the influence of J. M. W. Turner, executed their delicate line engravings after that famous painter. William Radelyffe was the founder of this school, and was followed by his son Edward, Robert Brandard, J. T. Willmore, E. Goodall, R. Wallis, William Miller, and others. Sharp, Anker Smith, James Heath, Earlom, Dickinson, Young, and J. R. Smith still remained for a time, but much of their best work was already done. William Ward, apprenticed to J. R. Smith, his brother James, the noted animal painter, Charles Turner and Samuel William Reynolds had also appeared to carry on and bring to its fullest development the great British school of mezzotint. William Ward, born in 1766, by his series of engravings after George Morland--whose sister he married--has made the names of the painter and engraver almost indissoluble, each having contributed to the immortality of the other. James, the painter and Royal Academician, born in 1769, studied under his brother, with whom he served an apprenticeship of nearly nine years; his plates of "Cornelius the Centurion" after Rembrandt, Sir Joshua's "Mrs. Billington as St. Cecilia," and the studies after nature of heads and feet of ducks, ducklings, geese, and calves, are among the finest works executed in the method. James lived to a great age, dying in 1859 in his ninety-first year, having survived his brother and also a nephew, William James Ward. The last-named was likewise a good mezzotint engraver, but unfortunately died in the prime of life in the year 1840.

Charles Turner was born in the same year as S. W. Reynolds (1773), and survived the latter by more than twenty years; his prints are very numerous, and comprise a great variety of subjects. The large upright mezzotint of Sir Joshua's group of the Marlborough family, with the two younger children in front, one holding a mask, the other shrinking back in fright, is deservedly well known, as is also his fine rendering of "The Shipwreck" after J. M. W. Turner, published in 1807. Other characteristic prints which may be mentioned are "Black and Red Game," after Elmer; "Pheasants," after Barenger; the portraits of "Alexandra, Empress of Russia," after Monier; "Lord Newton," after Raeburn; and a marvellous life-size head of Salvator Rosa's "St. Francis," engraved in 1805. Turner lived till the year 1857, when he died at his house in Warren Street, Fitzroy Square, at the age of eighty-three.

Samuel William Reynolds, one of the most gifted men who ever applied themselves to the engraver's art, studied mezzotint under C. H. Hodges; he commenced his comparatively short career both as painter and engraver, and exhibited for several years at the British Institution. Endowed with singular powers of fascination, Reynolds seems to have attracted and kept fast the friendship of all with whom he became acquainted, irrespective of their particular social surroundings. Samuel Whitbread, the distinguished Member of Parliament, of old Drury Lane Theatre renown, was his intimate and kindest friend; Sheridan and Edmund Kean played at Pope Joan with his daughters, and the very printer of his plates fifty years after Reynolds' death would grow bright when recalling his memory, saying, "He was the prince of engravers." He gave lessons in drawing to the daughters of George III., who wished to make him their equerry, and afterwards an important post with a salary of £900 a year was offered him, but both these offers were refused.

It is from the technical skill and firm daring which Reynolds displayed in his prints, and the intelligent use he made of the means at his command, that his name as an engraver remains pre-eminent; the "Falconer," "Vulture and Snake," "Heron and Spaniel," and "Leopards" after Northcote; the "Duchess of Bedford" after Hoppner; the "regal" whole-length of the unfortunate Princess Charlotte; the large and exquisitely finished etching from Rembrandt's famous picture of "The Mill;" and the "Land Storm"--known also as the "Mail Coach in a Storm"--after George Morland, are but a few of the many prints which show the power and versatility of the engraver. In the last-named print (published 1798), where the resources of mezzotint and etching combined have been used to fullest purpose, the familiar identity of the painter has been almost hidden under the massive effects of light and shade shown in the landscape, where amidst lightning flash and rushing wind the terror-stricken horses are seen dashing madly onward.

When Reynolds went to Paris in 1826, artists there were astonished at his paintings and the effects that he produced. Sixdeniers and Maile studied with him, and several plates bear their combined names; unfortunately both these engravers, excellent as they were as mezzotinters, chiefly engraved after painters whose productions partook of a frivolous and somewhat free character. Reynolds, however, left more permanent marks of his stay in the French capital by executing there the large plates of Géricault's "Wreck of the Medusa," Horace Vernet's "Mazeppa," and the masterly representations of Charlet's characteristic types, the "Village Barber" and the "Rag Picker." In the last two the technical handling is so free that it would almost seem as if the scraper had been used with the same facility as chalk on paper. In reference to this there is a story extant that Reynolds once scraped a large whole-length portrait in a day and a night; the story is true, but it is also true that it is one of his worst plates.

Shortly before his death Reynolds was greatly struck with Constable's picture of "The Lock," and resolved to engrave it at his own cost; writing to Constable on the arrival of the picture, he says:--"I have been before your picture for the last hour. It is no doubt the best of your works true to nature, seen and arranged with a professor's taste and judgment. The execution shows in every part a hand of experience; masterly without rudeness, and complete without littleness; the colouring is sweet, fresh, and healthy; bright not gaudy, but deep and clear. Take it for all in all, since the days of Gainsborough and Wilson no landscape has been painted with so much truth and originality, so much art, so little artifice." But he did not live to fulfil his intention, for while still full of hope and high purpose for the future, Reynolds was suddenly stricken with paralysis, and died at his house in Bayswater in the year 1835. This sudden ending was the cause of his son--likewise named Samuel William--forsaking painting to finish some of his father's plates, and ultimately continuing with success the practice of mezzotint on his own account. Reynolds' daughter Elizabeth, who married the stipple engraver William Walker--though chiefly known by her miniatures and other paintings--also engraved in early life.[64] Although there are no authentic records of the pedigree, S. W. Reynolds always asserted his collateral relationship to Sir Joshua Reynolds, and his son often mentioned that his father, when quite a youth, called on Sir Joshua, who, during the conversation that ensued, remarked to Reynolds, "Then you are my cousin."

Other engravers of eminence that flourished during this period are, in line, the Bromleys, John Landseer and his sons, Charles Heath, William B. Cooke and his brother George,[65] John Burnet (celebrated as painter, engraver, and author), Richard Golding, and John Scott; in stipple, William Bond, Thomas Woolnoth, and James Hopwood; in mezzotint, Henry Dawe, William Say, Henry Meyer, George Clint, and his pupil Thomas Lupton, who, for his introduction of soft steel instead of copper as the medium for mezzotint engraving, received in 1822 the gold Isis medal from the Society of Arts.

The method of stipple was meanwhile slowly dying out, but, as often happens when some particular art seems about to expire, this was the very time when the capabilities of the style were shown in the highest perfection. William Walker, born in Musselburgh in the year 1791, served an apprenticeship to three engravers, Mitchell, Stewart, and Thomas Woolnoth, and choosing stipple as his method of interpretation, in his portraits of Sir Walter Scott, Raeburn, and the Earl of Hopetoun, justified his choice by executing the finest works that were ever accomplished in the style. He astonished the mezzotinters of the period--who told him that, do what he could, he would never make stipple equal mezzotint in colour[66]--by the amount of force, colour, and effect which he was able to give to these plates. It is needless to say that such work as this could only be accomplished at the expense of intense energy and persevering labour, qualities which were the essential characteristics of the Scotch engraver. Later on, when settled in London, and more particularly after the introduction of steel in place of copper, Walker chiefly practised mezzotint, in which, however, he made use of his previous experience, etching his subject first in stipple before laying the mezzotint ground. His plate of Burns, engraved in mezzotint by himself and Mr. Cousins, owes a great part of its renown to Walker's power of rendering likeness; in regard to this, the painter Alexander Nasmyth remarked, on seeing the finished print, "that all he could say was that it seemed to him a better likeness of the poet than his own picture." This particular quality of fidelity in likeness Walker carried out in all his after historical works; for this purpose no trouble was too much, no labour too severe; the engraving of the "Distinguished Men of Science assembled at the Royal Institution in 1807-8," which occupied a period of six years of unceasing research and labour, is a striking instance. This was practically his last plate. He died at the age of seventy-six, in the year 1867, at his house in Margaret Street, Cavendish Square, and was buried at Brompton Cemetery.

The death of Reynolds in 1835 seems to mark roughly the closing period of English engraving as a great art; two of his most renowned pupils were, however, still in the fulness of power, David Lucas and the present Mr. Samuel Cousins, R.A.[67] Of Mr. Cousins, it is sufficient to relate that Reynolds, happening one day to be in the town of Exeter, saw some drawings in a shop window which caught his eye, and on going inside he learnt that they were by a lad of the name of Cousins, which incident led to Reynolds taking the youth to London and keeping him as his apprentice. Mr. Cousins' artistic genius, steady perseverance, and sterling integrity in all that he undertook, brought their full results, as shown in the fine series of mezzotint engravings so widely known and highly appreciated, and his name may indeed be said to close worthily the long line of great British mezzotinters.

David Lucas was born in the year 1802, and had the good fortune to meet in early life with Constable, between whom and Lucas was formed that intimate connection of painter and engraver which in earlier times had led to such great results. Failing Reynolds, Constable had applied to Lucas to be his engraver, and between them was completed the beautiful mezzotint series of English landscape; Constable bore the expense and was ever in counsel with the engraver, going into the minutest details, thinking no trouble too much to produce a good result, down to the printing of the plates, which they often did themselves, Lucas having had a press erected at his house for the purpose. The execution of this series led to Lucas undertaking the large plate of "The Cornfield" at his own risk, and afterwards the companion picture of "The Lock"--referred to before--finally culminating in his production of the superb engraving of Salisbury Cathedral as seen from the meadows, to which Constable himself gave the name of "The Rainbow."[68] During all this period constant intercourse and correspondence took place between the painter and engraver. At one time, Constable writes, "Although much admired, Salisbury is still too heavy; the sentiment of the picture is that of solemnity not gaiety, yet it must be bright, clear, alive, fresh, and all the front seen." At another, "The bow is a grand whole, provided it is clear and tender; how I wish I could scratch and tear away with your tools on the steel, but I can't do it, and your quiet way is I know the best and only way." At length comes, "Dear Lucas, the print is a noble and beautiful thing entirely improved and entirely made perfect; the bow is noble, it is startling, unique." So hand-in-hand they worked on, the painter upbearing his helpmate the engraver, each aiding the other, little noticed by the public at the time, but slowly building up an imperishable fame. David Lucas died in 1881 in his eightieth year.

In the middle of the century, inartistic mixture of styles, mechanical means replacing true work, exigencies of copyright, and above all the complete severance of the engraver not only from the painter but also from his only rightful patron the public, had worked its sure result. Some good men survived, such as Lewis, Atkinson, Doo, Robinson, J. H. Watt, R. Graves, J. Posselwhite, Lumb Stocks, Henry Cousins,[69] W. Giller, J. R. Jackson, and a few others; but no young school had been forming to replace those dying out, and everything presaged the gradual extinction of engraving as one of the great arts. Has this lowest point been reached? Perhaps, as with the beautiful art of miniature painting, which for a time on the advent of photography seemed gone for ever, yet still like some stream was only running on in hidden course underground to appear again and reach daylight, so may it happen with engraving.

Within the last few years two engravers have produced prints worthy of any period of the art, the late C. H. Jeens and the present Mr. W. H. Sherborne. Some of the stipple miniature book illustrations which Jeens executed for Messrs. Macmillan and others, such as the gem medallions of Plato and Socrates, "Love and Death," Woolner's "Beautiful Lady," the portraits of Allan Ramsay, Charles Young, Mr. Ruskin's two Aunts, and above all William Blake, are engraved with the tender feeling and fine touch of the true artist. Mr. Sherborne, born in 1832, probably little known except by the few, originally a chaser and designer for jewellers and pupil of Pietro Gerometti, the Roman cameo engraver and medallist, in 1872, fired by hope and love of the art, forsook his own branch to follow that of engraving. Like all true artists, his mode of execution is his own. Apollo, exhibited at the Royal Academy, 1881, the head of Mr. Seymour Haden, the portraits of Phelps the Chelsea Waterman or Mrs. James Builth, and the interiors of Westminster Abbey, seen at the Painter-Etchers' Exhibition in the summer of 1885, are works that will last, and are good examples of the engraver's powers, causing regret that Mr. Sherborne had not earlier turned his attention to an art the beauty of which he so truly feels. While engraving as a whole was decaying, one branch, that of etching, has been undergoing a revival, and the names of Mr. Seymour Haden, Mr. Philip Hamerton, and Mr. Whistler are world-known. They and their school have confined themselves to producing their own designs, while others, like Mr. David Law, Mr. Macbeth, and the Messrs. Slocombe, also translate the works of painters. But, whether as a vehicle for conveying an original design or translating that of another artist, etching is strictly limited in its powers; it bears the same relation to the full art of engraving as sketching or drawing does to that of perfect painting; suggestive, capable of exhibiting broad effects of light and shade, or indicative of the idiosyncrasy of the etcher, it is, of its very nature, incomplete, and acts but as herald to proclaim the greater results to be obtained by following out the art to its proper goal.

The great impetus which Bewick's genius gave to the art of wood engraving at the commencement of the present century was carried onwards by his distinguished pupils Luke Clennell, Charlton Nesbitt, and William Harvey, the latter of whom, in 1821, cut the large block of the death of Dentatus (15 in. × 11-1/4 in.) from the picture of the erratic genius B. R. Haydon, under whom he was at that time studying drawing. Robert Branston, John Thompson and his brother Charles,[70] Jackson, and W. J. Linton, are names of equal renown; in fact, during the first half of the century, England may be said to have been supreme in the art. Gradually, however, the various mechanical processes for facilitating the commercial extension of the art such as electrotyping,[71] photography, &c., brought here, too, their deteriorating effects, causing the engraver to become less of an artist and more of a mechanic. In delicacy of work and elaboration of detail, American artists now stand first among wood engravers; but they attempt too much with the means at their command, and try to produce upon the comparatively soft material, wood, the delicate fineness of line which can only be realised in perfection on metal. The extreme closeness of the lines, combined with the exigencies of rapid surface printing, dull more or less the minute interstices which ought to show pure white; effect is lost, and, notwithstanding the excellence of the workmanship, the result becomes monotonous and wearying rather than pleasurable to the satiated eye. In etching also America takes high rank; in addition to Mr. Whistler, the names of Messrs. J. Gadsby Chapman, Gifford, Duveneck, F. S. Church, Pennell, Stephen Parrish, and Mr. and Mrs. Moran, are well known in Europe.

In the complete styles of engraving, stipple, line, and mezzotint, although American engravers are little known out of their own country--a large enough field, however, in which to exercise their talents--some good work has also been done; in stipple, by David Edwin, Ion. B. Forrest, Gimbrede, and C. Tiebout; in mezzotint, by Charles Wilson Peale, A. H. Ritchie, and John Sartain, who, after having worked under the direction of William Young Ottley, went from London to America in 1830 at the age of twenty-two; and in line, by Asher Brown Durand; Joseph Andrews; the Smillies; and Charles Burt, who is said to have been the actual engraver of the fine plate of Leonardo's "Last Supper," copied from Morghen's print of the same subject, and bearing the name of A. L. Dick as engraver. The lives of these and others not mentioned were often eventful and picturesque, and would repay study. Some leaving England, Scotland, or Ireland in early life to settle in the land of their adoption, had to struggle with difficulties, often teach themselves, make their own tools, like John Cheney, or like Charles Wilson Peale, turn their hands to whatever duty might present itself. Peale was a captain of volunteers, dentist, lecturer on natural history, saddler, watchmaker, silversmith, painter in oil, crayons, or in miniature on ivory, modeller in clay and wax, engraver in mezzotint, and to crown all, as his son was wont to say, a mild, benevolent, and good man. Many also devoted their talents to bank-note engraving, a branch of the art highly cultivated in the United States, in which the skill of the inventor and mechanic has been united with the grace and genius of the artist. As engravers in this particular style may be specially mentioned W. E. Marshall, J. W. Casilear, M. J. Danforth, Gideon Fairman, and Jacob Perkins, the latter of whom, with Fairman and the ingenious Asa Spencer, came over to England in 1818 to compete for the premium of £20,000 offered by the Bank of England for a bank-note which could not be counterfeited. Although not successful, the Bank allowed them the sum of £5,000 in consideration of their ingenuity and the trouble and expense which they had incurred in the matter. While Asa Spencer is to be credited with inventing the method of applying the geometric lathe[72] to engraving the involved patterns on banknotes, Perkins has the honour of introducing the process of transfer by means of steel rollers. The portrait or other design is engraved in the usual manner on a die plate, which is then hardened; a soft steel roller or cylinder is now rolled over the die with great pressure by means of a powerful machine, causing the cylinder to take off in its course the impression of the design in relief; this roller is now hardened in its turn, and by the use of similar means made to impress another soft steel die; by repeating this process, any requisite number of plates can thus be reproduced the exact fac-similes of the original engraved die plate. Owing to the mechanical necessity that only a small surface of the roller should press on the die at a given moment, the diameter of the cylinder requires to be small, so that several of these dies, and consequently of the rollers, will be required to complete the entire plate from which the ultimate printing of the note is effected.

Finally it may be well to conclude this brief account of the British school of engraving by calling attention to the considerations which ought to govern buyers of engravings; buy only that which gives real personal satisfaction, distrust a seller's inducements, in price be ruled by the amount that can be justly afforded, reject alluring thoughts of future money gain (or be prepared to pay the sure penalty--destruction of natural artistic feeling and hope of further cultivation), and ever bear in mind the words of Constable to his engraver: "Tone, tone, my dear Lucas, is the most seductive and inviting quality a picture or print can possess; it is the first thing seen, and like a flower, invites to the examination of the plant itself."[73]

* * * * *

*** The writer of the Chapter on English Engraving desires to acknowledge the facilities kindly placed at his disposal by Mr. Sidney Colvin, Keeper of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum, and to express his recognition of the valuable aid afforded him by Mr. F. M. O'Donoghue, of the same department.

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE

OF THE MORE IMPORTANT ENGRAVERS BELONGING TO THE BRITISH SCHOOL OF ENGRAVING.

_Foreign Engravers practising in England are marked with an asterisk._

b. stands for born; d., died; fl., flourished; c., about.

16th Cent.

RAYNALDE, Thomas. Published in 1540 a book called "The Birth of Mankind," illustrated by copperplate engravings.

GEMINUS, Thomas. Published in 1545 a translation of "Vesalius' Anatomy," written and illustrated with copperplates engraved by himself.

*HOGENBERG, Francis. Engraved in line a portrait of Queen Mary I. of England, bearing date 1555. (There are doubts as to the correctness of this date.)

*HOGENBERG, Remigius. Engraved in line portrait of Matthew (Brother of above.) Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, bearing date 1573.

ROGERS, William. b. London c. 1545. Engraved in line a fine whole-length portrait of Queen Elizabeth, afterwards republished and reduced in size.

17th Cent.

*DE PASSE, Crispin. b. Utrecht c. 1560. Line. Engraved and drew from life.

*DE PASSE, Magdalen. b. Utrecht 1583. Line. (Daughter of above.)

*DE PASSE, William. b. Utrecht c. 1590; fl. 1620-27. Line. (Son of above.)

*DE PASSE, Simon. b. Utrecht 1591; d. c. 1644. Line. His (Son of above.) earliest work in England dated 1613.

DELARAM, Francis. fl. c. 1620. Line.

ELSTRACKE, Reginald. fl. c. 1620. Line.

PEAKE, Sir Robert. b. c. 1592; d. 1645. Line. Also painted portraits in miniature. Master of engraver Faithorne and painter Dobson.

*HOLLAR, Wenceslaus. b. Prague 1607; d. London 1677. Etcher, finishing, when necessary, with fine graver.

*LOMBART, Peter. b. Paris 1612; came to England c. 1653, remaining for considerable number of years; d. Paris. Line. Engraved series of twelve portraits called "The Countesses."

FAITHORNE, William. b. London 1616; d. London 1691. Line. (Pupil of Sir Robert Peake.)

*VANDERBANK, Peter. b. Paris; of Dutch extraction; came to (Pupil of De Poilly.) England c. 1674; d. Bradfield 1697. Line.

BARLOW, Francis. b. Lincolnshire 1626; d. London 1702. Etcher, line engraver, and animal painter.

GAYWOOD, Robert. b. c. 1630; d. c. 1711. Etcher and line (Pupil of Hollar.) engraver, chiefly of animal subjects.

*LOGGAN, David. b. Dantzic c. 1630; d. London 1693. (Pupil of Simon de Line. Portrait and architectural Passe.) engraver and painter.

RUPERT, Prince. b. 1619; d. 1682. Introduced mezzotint into England, and engraved some fine prints in the method, which were probably executed abroad.

SHERWIN, William. b. c. 1650; d. c. 1714. Engraved portrait of Charles II. 1669, the earliest dated print in mezzotint authentically engraved in England.

OLIVER, John. b. 1616; d. 1701. Glass painter; also (Nephew and pupil engraved in mezzotint. of Peter Oliver, miniature painter and etcher.)

PLACE, Francis. b. c. 1640; d. 1728. Mezzotint, line, etching.

{ fl. 1670. A good many early mezzotint { prints bear these two names, but only { as publishers (_excudit_ not TOMPSON, Richard. { _sculpsit_), and there is great doubt BROWNE, Alexander. { if any were actually engraved by them. { Browne wrote the "Ars Pictoria" in { 1669, in which "The Manner or Way of { Mezo Tinto" is described; published by { himself, Tompson, and another.

*BLOOTELINGH, Abraham. b. Amsterdam 1634; d. c. 1695. Line and (Pupil of Cornelius mezzotint. Came to England for a few Visscher.) years 1673.

*VALCK, Gerard. b. Amsterdam c. 1626; d. c. 1720. (Pupil of Mezzotint and line. Accompanied Blootelingh.) Blootelingh to England, not leaving until after 1680.

WHITE, Robert. b. London 1645; d. London 1704. Line. (Pupil of David Portrait draughtsman from life. Loggan.)

*VANDERVAART, John. b. Haarlem 1647; d. London 1721. Mezzotinter and painter. Came to England 1674.

*VAN SOMER, Paul. b. Amsterdam 1649; d. London 1694. (Pupil of John Van Mezzotint. Somer, probably his brother.)

FAITHORNE, William, b. London 1656; d. London 1686. junr. (Son of Mezzotint. William Faithorne.)

LUTTRELL, E. b. Dublin c. 1650; d. c. 1710. (Said to have Mezzotinter and crayon portraitist. learnt method of mezzotint from Blois, ground layer to Blootelingh.)

BECKETT, Isaac. b. Kent 1653; d. 1719. Mezzotint. Prints (Attracted by all dated between 1681-88. Luttrell's works, learnt the method of mezzotint from Lloyd, a printseller, who is said to have obtained the secret from Blois, ground layer to Blootelingh.)

SMITH, John. b. Daventry 1652; d. Northampton 1742. (Pupil of Beckett Mezzotint. and Vandervaart.)

WILLIAMS, R. b. Wales. Mezzotint. Prints dated c. 1680 to 1704.

*DORIGNY, Sir Nicholas. b. Paris 1657; d. Paris 1746. Line. Settled in London 1711-24. Knighted by George I. for his set of Raphael's cartoons.

LENS, Bernard. b. London 1659; d. 1725. Mezzotint.

*GRIBELIN, Simon. b. Blois 1661; d. England 1733. Line. Came to England 1680; engraved first complete set of Raphael's cartoons.

LUMLEY, George. b. York latter part of 17th century. (Friend of Francis Mezzotint. Place.)

WHITE, George. b. 1671; d. 1731-2. Mezzotint. (Son and pupil of Introduced slight etching into the Robert White.) method. Engraved also in line, and painted portraits.

18th Cent.

*SIMON, John b. Normandy 1675; d. London c. 1755. (or Jean). First engraved in line, then came to England and devoted himself to mezzotint.

VERTUE, George. b. London 1684; d. London 1756. Line; antiquary, wrote notes on the history of arts and artists in England. Manuscripts now in the British Museum.

*VAN BLEECK, Peter. b. Flanders; d. 1764. Came to England 1723 Mezzotint.

*FABER, John, sen. b. Holland; d. Bristol 1721. Mezzotint; also miniature painter. Came to England in 1687 with his son.

*FABER, John, jun. b. Holland 1684; d. London 1746. (Son and pupil of Mezzotint. Amongst others, engraved above.) Kit Cat Club and Hampton Court Beauties.

HOGARTH, William. b. St. Bees, Durham, 1697; d. London (First apprenticed 1764. Line engraver and painter. to silversmith.)

SULLIVAN, Luke. b. co. Louth, Ireland, 1705; d. London 1771. Line. Assistant to Hogarth, and engraved some of his pictures.

*BARON, Bernard. b. Paris c. 1700; d. London 1762. Line. (Pupil of Tardieu, Came to England in 1712. Employed by the French engraver.) Hogarth.

WORLIDGE, Thomas. b. 1700; d. Hammersmith 1766. Etcher and portrait painter. Chiefly resided at Bath.

BICKHAM, George. d. 1769. Line and etching, draughtsman. Published "The Universal Penman;" father of George, also an engraver and draughtsman.

*RAVENET, François Simon, b. Paris 1706; d. Hampstead Road 1774. A.E. Line. Came to England a little before (Pupil of Le Bas.) 1745, and settled in London.

FRYE, Thomas. b. near Dublin 1710; d. London 1760. Mezzotinter and portrait painter, chiefly lifesize.

BROOKS, John. b. Ireland; d. London. Line and mezzotint. Master of McArdell and R. Houston. Left Dublin c. 1747, and set up a china manufactory at Battersea.

McARDELL, James. b. Dublin c. 1729; d. London 1765. (Pupil of John Brooks, Mezzotint. First made use of deep Dublin.) etching to give effect to the method.

*CANOT, Peter b. France 1710; d. London 1777. Line; Charles, A.E. chiefly sea views. Came to England 1740, where he remained for the rest of his life.

CHATELAINE, John Baptiste b. London 1710; d. London 1771. Line and Claude. draughtsman. Of French Protestant parentage. Master of Vivares, for whom also he worked later on.

*VIVARES, Francis. b. France 1709; d. London 1780. Line; (Pupil of Chatelaine.) landscape engraver. Came to London at the age of eighteen.

TINNEY, John. d. 1761. Practised in London 1740-50, in line and mezzotint; chiefly known as master of Woollett, Anthony Walker, and John Browne.

MAJOR, Thomas, A.E. b. 1720; d. London 1799. Line. First Associate engraver of the Royal Academy.

COOPER, Richard. b. Yorkshire; d. Edinburgh 1764. Line and mezzotint. Practised in Edinburgh in 1730, and was the master of Strange.

STRANGE, Sir Robert. b. Pomona, Orkney, 1721; d. London 1792. (Pupil of Richard Line. Cooper, of Edinburgh.)

HOUSTON, Richard. b. Ireland 1721; d. London 1775. (Pupil of John Brooks, Mezzotint. of Dublin.)

BAILLIE, William, b. Ireland 1723; d. 1810. Etching and Captain. mezzotint. Came to London 1741. Some years in the army.

*BARTOLOZZI, Francis, b. Florence 1725; d. Lisbon 1815. R.A. Stipple and line. Came to England (Pupil of Joseph 1764, remaining here till 1802. Wagner, of Venice.)

OGBORNE, John. b. London c. 1725; d. c. 1795. Stipple (Pupil of Bartolozzi.) and line.

WALKER, Anthony. b. Salisbury 1726; d. London 1765. Line (Pupil of Tinney.) and etching.

WALKER, William. b. Thirsk 1729; d. Clerkenwell 1793. (Pupil of his Line; introduced the process of brother Anthony.) rebiting into the practice of etching.

*CUNEGO, Domenico. b. Verona 1727; d. Rome 1794. Line. Came to England and engraved some plates for the Boydells.

GREENWOOD, John. b. Boston, America, 1729; d. Margate 1792. Mezzotint, etching, and painter. Afterwards became an auctioneer.

SPILSBURY, John. b. 1730; d. London 1795. Mezzotint. Portrait painter. Gained premiums for mezzotint 1761 and 1763 from Society of Arts; also printseller.

DAWE, Philip. d. c. 1802. Mezzotint and painter, said to have worked under Hogarth. Was a pupil of the painter Henry Morland.

BASIRE, James. b. 1730; d. London 1802. Line. His (Pupil of Richd. father Isaac, his son James, and his Dalton, a grandson James, were also engravers. draughtsman and engraver of moderate note.)

TAYLOR, Isaac. b. Worcester 1730; d. 1807. Line. His son Isaac was also an engraver.

FISHER, Edward. b. Ireland 1730; d. London c. 1785. Mezzotint.

FINLAYSON, John. b. c. 1730; d. c. 1776. Mezzotint. Resided in London. Gained premiums from Society of Arts 1764 and 1773.

*HAID, Johann Gottfried. b. Wurtemburg 1730; d. 1776. Mezzotint. (Pupil of his father, Came to England when young, and worked J. Jacob Haid.) for Boydell, afterwards returning to Germany. His father, Johann Jacob, and his brother, Johann Elias, were also good mezzotinters.

*JACOBE, Johann. b. Vienna 1733; d. 1797. Came to London to learn mezzotint, engraved some fine plates, 1779-80, and then returned to Vienna.

PETHER, William. b. Carlisle 1731; d. 1821. Mezzotint. (Pupil of Thomas Frye.) Painter in oil and miniature draughtsman.

WOOLLETT, William. b. Maidstone 1735; d. London 1785. Line. (Pupil of Tinney.)

WATTS, John. Mezzotint. Engraved in London 1770-86; also a printseller.

BROOKSHAW, Richard. b. 1736; d. c. 1804. Mezzotint. Went to Paris about 1772, where his works were greatly esteemed.

PURCELL, Richard. b. Dublin c. 1736; d. London c. 1766. (Pupil of John Brooks.) Mezzotint. Came to London c. 1755. Also worked under the names of C. Corbutt and (probably) H. Fowler.

PHILLIPS, Charles. b. 1737. Mezzotint. Worked chiefly after the old masters.

RYLAND, William Wynne. b. London 1738; d. London 1783. Line and (Pupil of Ravenet.) stipple; also a printseller. Visited Paris c. 1760, and is said to have studied under Le Bas. Was hanged for forgery.

GREEN, Valentine, A.E. b. near Birmingham 1739; d. London 1813. Mezzotint. Engraved over twenty plates from Düsseldorf Gallery.

HALL, John. b. near Colchester 1739; d. London 1797. (Pupil of Ravenet.) Line.

BLACKMORE, Thomas. b. London c. 1740; d. c. 1780. Mezzotint. Engravings bear date about 1769-71.

DIXON, John. b. Dublin c. 1740; d. early 19th century. Mezzotint. Practised in London, studied in Dublin under the painter F. West, a draughtsman of great power.

LAURIE, Robert. b. London 1740; d. c. 1804. Mezzotint; also printseller. Gained premium Society of Arts 1771, and one in 1776 for facilitating printing by mezzotint in colours. Spells his name Lowry, Lowery, Lowrie, Lawrie, and finally Laurie.

OKEY, Samuel. fl. 1765-70. Mezzotint. Awarded premiums by Society of Arts in 1765 and 1767. Went to America in 1771, and settled at Rhode Island.

WATSON, James. b. Ireland 1740; d. London 1790. Mezzotint. Father of Caroline Watson.

BROWNE, John, A.E. b. Essex 1741; d. Walworth 1801. Line. (Pupil of Tinney and Landscape engraver. Woollett.)

WATSON, Thomas. b. London 1743; d. Bristol 1781. (Apprenticed to Mezzotint and stipple. Engraved engraver on plate.) "Windsor Beauties" after Lely; has been stated to be the brother of James W., but no relation; partner with Dickinson as printseller.

*TASSAERT, Philip J. b. Antwerp; d. London 1803. Mezzotint, also line. Came to England very young. Assistant to T. Hudson the painter.

BYRNE, William. b. London 1743; d. London 1805. Line. (Pupil of his uncle, a Landscape engraver. His son John and heraldic engraver, daughters Letitia and Elizabeth also then of Aliamet and engraved, and helped him in his plates. of Wille, at Paris.)

EARLOM, Richard. b. London 1743; d. London 1822. Mezzotint and stipple. Used etching with vigorous effect. Engraved a few plates under name of H. Birche; some time a pupil of Cipriani.

DUNKARTON, Robert. b. London 1744; d. early part of 19th (Pupil of Pether.) century. Mezzotint. Engravings bear dates 1770-1811.

COOK, Thomas. b. c. 1744; d. c. 1818. Line. Engraved (Pupil of Ravenet.) amongst others Hogarth's works under title "Hogarth Restored."

DICKINSON, William. b. London 1746; d. Paris 1823. Mezzotint and stipple. Awarded premium Society of Arts 1767. For some time partner with Thomas Watson as printseller.

TOWNLEY, Charles. b. London 1746. Mezzotint and stipple, also miniature painter. Worked at Berlin 1786-92, then returned to London.

RYDER, Thomas. b. 1746; d. 1810. Stipple. His son (Pupil of Basire.) Thomas also engraved.

WALKER, James. b. 1748; d. London 1808. Mezzotint. In (Pupil of Val. Green.) 1784 went to St. Petersburg, became engraver to Empress of Russia, and returned to England in 1802.

MURPHY, John. b. Ireland 1748; d after 1820. Mezzotint and stipple.

*GAUGAIN, Thomas. b. Abbeville 1748; d. beginning 19th (Pupil of Houston.) century. Stipple. Came very young to London.

HOLLOWAY, Thomas. b. London 1748; d. 1727. Line. Known chiefly from his series of Raphael's cartoons.

COLLYER, Joseph, A.E. b. London 1748; d. 1827. Line and (Pupil of Anthony stipple. Walker.)

SHARP, William. b. London 1749; d. Chiswick 1824. Line. (Pupil of Barak Longmate, engraver on plate.)

SHERWIN, John Keyse. b. Sussex 1749; d. London 1790. Line, (Pupil of Bartolozzi.) stipple, and painter.

BURKE, Thomas. b. Dublin; d. London 1815. Stipple and (Pupil of Dixon.) mezzotint.

STRUTT, Joseph. b. Essex 1749; d. London 1802. Stipple. (Pupil of W. Wynne Author of "Dictionary of Engravers," Ryland.) "Sports and Pastimes of the English," &c.

DOUGHTY, William. b. York; d. Lisbon 1782. Mezzotinter, also portrait painter. Engravings mostly dated 1779. Was a pupil of Sir Joshua Reynolds. Sailed for Bengal 1780, but, captured by French and Spanish squadrons, was taken instead to Lisbon.

HUDSON, Henry. b. London; d. abroad; fl. 1782-92. Mezzotint.

DEAN, John. b. c. 1750; d. London 1798. Mezzotint. (Pupil of Valentine Prints dated 1776-89 at three Green.) addresses in Soho, at the last of which a fire destroyed nearly all his plates and stock.

JONES, John. d. 1797. Mezzotint and stipple. Father of George Jones (b. 1786), R.A., the painter.

PARKER, James. b. 1750; d. London 1805. Line. Joined (Pupil of Basire.) Willaim Blake in keeping a print shop in 1784.

SIMON, Peter J. b. c. 1750; d. c. 1810. Stipple.

*FACIUS, George } b. Ratisbon c. 1750. Stipple. Came to Sigmund. } London in 1766 at the request of *FACIUS, John }Brothers. Boydell. Gottlieb. }

MORRIS, Thomas. b. c. 1750; fl. 1795. Line. Engraved (Pupil of Woollett.) Views of St. Paul's and the Monument.

MIDDIMAN, Samuel. b. 1750; d. London 1831. Line. (Pupil of Byrne.) Landscape engraver.

SAUNDERS, J. fl. 1772-74. Mezzotint.

*MARCHI, Giuseppe b. Rome 1752; d. London 1808. Filippo Liberati. Mezzotint. Brought to England 1769 by Sir J. Reynolds, who employed him as an assistant.

SMITH, John Raphael. b. Derby 1752; d. Doncaster 1812. Mezzotint and stipple. Painter in miniature and crayons and printseller. Father of Emma Smith the engraver.

BEWICK, Thomas. b. Northumberland 1753; d. Gateshead (Pupil of Beilby, an 1828. Wood engraver; also copperplate. engraver at His brother John was likewise a wood Newcastle.) engraver.

NUTTER, William. b. 1754; d. London 1802. Stipple. (Pupil of J. R. Smith.)

YOUNG, John. b. 1755; d. London 1825. Mezzotint. (Pupil of J. R. Smith.) Published catalogues with etchings of the Grosvenor (1820), Leigh Court (1822), Angerstein (1823), and Stafford (1826) Galleries.

GROZER, Joseph. fl. 1786-97. Mezzotint.

POLLARD, Robert. b. Newcastle-on-Tyne 1755; d. 1838. (Pupil of a Etching, aquatint, and painter; last silversmith.) surviving member of Incorporated Society of Artists; in 1836 gave over to Royal Academy the papers of the Society.

LEGAT, Francis. b. Scotland 1755; d. London 1869. Line. Studied under Alex. Runciman, the Edinburgh painter.

GILLRAY, James. b. Lanarkshire 1720; d. London 1815. (Pupil of heraldic Etcher and line. Caricaturist. engraver.)

HEATH, James, A.E. b. London 1757; d. London 1834. Line. (Pupil of Collyer.) Father of Charles Heath.

BLAKE, William. b. Broad Street, Golden Square, London, (Pupil of Basire.) 1757; d. Fountain Court, Strand; 2nd of the name. buried Bunhill Fields, 1827. Line, stipple, and etching. Poet and painter.

HAWARD, Francis, A.E. b. 1759; d. London c. 1797. Mezzotint and stipple.

THEW, Robert. b. Yorkshire 1758; d. Herts 1802. Stipple.

SMITH, Anker, A.E. b. London 1759; d. London 1819. Line. (Pupil of James Taylor, who was brother and uncle respectively of the two Isaac Taylors, engravers of some note.)

SHEPPEARD, George. b. c. 1760; fl. 1794. Mezzotint and stipple.

TOMKINS, P. W. b. London 1760; d. 1840. Stipple. (Pupil of Bartolozzi.) Designer.

PARK, Thomas. b. 1760; d. Hampstead 1835. Mezzotint. Author.

CHEESEMAN, Thomas. b. 1760; d. after 1820. Stipple. (Pupil of Bartolozzi.) Draughtsman.

WATSON, Caroline. b. London 1760; d. Pimlico 1814. Stipple. (Daughter of James Watson.)

JUDKINS, Elizabeth. fl. 1772-75. Mezzotint. Engraved "Mrs. (Said to be pupil of Abingdon" and "Careful Shepherdess," James Watson.) amongst others, after Sir J. Reynolds.

KEATING, George. b. Ireland 1762; fl. London 1784-97. (Pupil of William Mezzotint. Stipple. Dickinson.)

*RAMBERG, John Henry. b. Hanover 1763; d. c. 1840. Aquatint, etching, stipple. Painter. Came early in life to England, but is said to have died at Hanover.

*SCHIAVONETTI, Luigi. b. Bassano 1765; d. Brompton 1810. Line, stipple. Draughtsman. Came to England in 1790, and joined Bartolozzi.

KNIGHT, Charles. fl. latter part of 18th century. Stipple.

SUMMERFIELD, John. d. Buckinghamshire 1817. Line. (Pupil of Bartolozzi.)

SKELTON, William. b. London 1763; d. Pimlico 1848. Line. (Pupil of Basire and Sharp.)

NUGENT, Thomas. b. Drogheda; fl. end of 18th century. Stipple.

DUPONT, Gainsborough. b. 1767; d. London 1797. Mezzotint. Painter. Nephew and pupil of Thomas Gainsborough.

BROMLEY, William, A.E. b. Isle of Wight 1769; d. 1842. Line. (Pupil of Wooding, a Father of John Charles, and James line engraver in Bromley, the mezzotint engravers. London.)

WARREN, Charles. b. London 1767; d. Wandsworth 1823. Line. Perfected a process of engraving on steel plates tried by Raimbach. Awarded gold medal Society of Arts.

WARD, William, A.E. b. London 1766; d. London 1826. (Pupil of J. R. Smith.) Mezzotint. Married sister of George Morland, father of William Ward, junior.

19th Cent.

WARD, James, R.A. b. London 1769; d. 1855. Mezzotint. (Nine years pupil of Animal painter. his brother William, J. R. Smith.)

LANDSEER, John, A.E. b. Lincoln 1769; d. 1852. Line. Father (Pupil of William of the painters Charles and Sir Edwin, Byrne.) R.A.'s, and of the engraver Thomas.

SAY, William. b. near Norwich 1768; d. London 1834. (Pupil of James Ward.) Mezzotint. Engraved first successful mezzotint on steel.

COOPER, Robert. fl. early part of 19th century. Stipple.

HODGES, Charles Howard. b. England; d. Amsterdam 1837. Mezzotint and painter. Went to Holland c. 1794.

*CARDON, Anthony. b. Brussels 1773; d. London 1813. (Pupil of Stipple. Came to England in 1790. Schiavonetti.)

GODBY, James. fl. beginning 19th century. Stipple.

SMITH, Benjamin. d. London 1833. Stipple. (Pupil of Bartolozzi.)

CLINT, George, A.R.A. b. London 1770; d. Kensington 1854. Mezzotint; also portrait and miniature painter.

REYNOLDS, Samuel Wm. b. 1773; d. Bayswater 1835. Mezzotint, (Pupil of Hodges.) portrait, and water-colour painter. Father of Elizabeth, mezzotint engraver and miniature painter, and Samuel William, mezzotint engraver and portrait painter.

TURNER, Charles, A.E. b. Woodstock 1773; d. London 1857. Mezzotint and stipple.

SCOTT, John. b. Newcastle-on-Tyne 1774; d. Chelsea (Pupil of Pollard.) 1828. Line, animal engraver.

SCRIVEN, Edward. b. Alcester 1775; d. London 1841. (Pupil of Thew.) Stipple.

RAIMBACH, Abraham. b. London 1776; d. Greenwich 1843. (Pupil of J. Hall.) Line.

NOBLE, George. fl. beginning of 19th century. Line.

ENGLEHEART, Francis. b. London 1775; d. 1849. Line. (Pupil of Collyer.)

NESBITT, Charlton. b. near Durham 1775; d. Brompton 1838. (Pupil of Beilby and Wood engraver. Bewick.)

BRANSTON, Robert. b. Lynn 1778; d. Brompton 1827. Wood (Pupil of his father, a engraver. copperplate engraver.)

CLENNELL, Luke. b. near Morpeth 1781; (Pupil of Bewick.) d. Newcastle-on-Tyne 1840. Wood engraver, water-colour, and miniature painter.

COOKE, William b. 1778; d. 1855. Line. Brother of Bernard. (Pupil of George and uncle of E. W. Cooke, R.A. Angus, an engraver in line of some note.)

COOKE, George. b. London 1781; d. Barnes 1834. Line. (Pupil of Basire.) Brother of Wm. Bernard, and father of E. W. Cooke, R.A.

LEWIS, Frederick b. London 1779; d. Enfield 1856. Stipple Christian. or chalk; water-colour painter. Father of J. F. Lewis, R.A., and C. G. Lewis the engraver.

DAWE, George, R.A. b. London 1781; d. 1829. Mezzotint; (Son and pupil of painter. Brother of Henry. Painted Philip Dawe.) in Russia for the Emperor 1819-28.

DAWE, Henry. b. London 1790; d. Windsor 1845. (Son and pupil of Mezzotint and painter. Philip Dawe.)

PYE, John. b. Birmingham 1782; d. London 1874. (Pupil of James Heath.) Line and stipple. Landscape engraver.

WEDGWOOD, John Taylor. b. 1783; d. London 1856. Line.

MEYER, Henry. b. London c. 1783; d. 1847. Mezzotint; (Pupil of Bartolozzi.) and stipple. Nephew of J. Hoppner, R.A.

LE KEUX, John } b. London 1783; d. 1846. { Line, }Brothers. { architectural, LE KEUX, Henry } b. London 1787; d. 1868. { and landscape (Pupils of Basire.) { engravers.

ARMSTRONG, Cosmo. fl. early part of 19th century. Line.

RADCLYFFE, William. b. Birmingham 1782; d. Birmingham 1855. Line, landscape engraver; practised in Birmingham all his life. Father of Edward, landscape engraver.

BURNET, John, F.R.S. b. Edinburgh 1784; d. Stoke Newington 1868. Line and mezzotint. Painter and author.

HEATH, Charles. b. 1785; d. 1848. Line; excelled in (Son of James Heath.) small plates.

GOLDING, Richard. b. London 1785; d. Lambeth 1865. Line. (Pupil of J. Parker.)

WOOLNOTH, Thomas. b. 1785; d. c. 1854. Stipple and line. Small theatrical portraits and architectural views.

THOMPSON, John. b. London 1785; d. London 1866. Wood (Pupil of Branston.) engraver. Brother of Charles and Charles Thurston.

ROMNEY, John. b. 1786; d. Chester 1863. Line.

THOMPSON, Charles. b. London 1791; d. near Paris 1843. Wood (Pupil of Bewick engraver; better known in Paris, where and Branston.) he went in 1816, and introduced the practice of cutting out the end of the wood, then unknown abroad.

BOND, William. fl. beginning of 19th century. Stipple.

CHAPMAN, J. fl. beginning of 19th century. Stipple. (Pupil of Bartolozzi.)

WEBB, J. b. c. 1790; d. 1832. Line. Engraver of animals.

FINDEN, Wm. } Brothers. b. 1788; d. 1852. { Stipple and line. FINDEN, E. F. } b. 1792; d. 1857. { Landscape and (Pupils of J. Mitan, an { book illustrators. engraver of some note.)

WALKER, William. b. Midlothian 1791; d. London 1867. (Pupil of Thomas Stipple and mezzotint. Married Woolnoth, and Elizabeth, daughter of S. W. Mitchell and Reynolds. Stewart, two engravers of moderate note.)

LUPTON, Thomas Goff. b. Clerkenwell 1791; d. 1873. Mezzotint. (Pupil of Clint.) Established the use of steel in place of copper in mezzo engraving. Received for this gold Isis medal from Society of Arts in 1822.

LINNELL, John. b. 1792; d. c. 1880. Mezzotint; painter.

CRUIKSHANK, George. b. London 1792; d. London 1878. Etcher (Son of Isaac, also and caricaturist. caricaturist and engraver.)

WORTHINGTON, Wm. H. b. c. 1795; d. 1826. Line. Worked in London.

GOODALL, Edward. b. Leeds 1795; d. London 1870. Line. Engraved after J. M. W. Turner, through whose influence he became an engraver. Was self-taught.

LANDSEER, Thomas, A.E. b. c. 1795; d. 1880. Line. Brother of (Son and pupil of Sir Edwin. John Landseer, A.E.)

HOPWOOD, James. b. 1795. Stipple. (Son of James; also an engraver, self-taught, but helped by Heath.)

ROLLS, Charles. fl. early part of 19th century. Line.

BROMLEY, John b. Chelsea 1795; d. 1839. Mezzzotint. Charles. (Son of His son Frederick was also an engraver. Wm. Bromley, A.E.)

HARVEY, William. b. Newcastle-on-Tyne 1796; d. Richmond (Pupil of Thomas 1866. Wood engraver and designer. Cut Bewick and B. R. one of the largest English wood-cuts. Haydon.)

ROBINSON, John. b. Bolton 1796; d. Petworth 1871. Line. Henry, R.A. (Pupil of James Heath.)

GRAVES, Robert, A.E. b. London 1798; d. Highgate 1873. Line. (Pupil of John Romney.)

WATT, James Henry. b. London 1799; d. 1867. Line. (Pupil of Charles Heath.)

BROMLEY, James. b. 1800; d. 1838. Mezzotint. (Son of William Bromley, A.E.)

WARD, William, junior. b. c. 1800; d. 1840. Mezzotint. (Son of William Ward, A.E.)

WILLMORE, James b. Erdington, Staffordshire, 1800; Tibbetts, A.E. d. London 1863. Line. Engraved after (Seven years pupil J. M. W. Turner. of W. Radclyffe, and three years of C. Heath.)

RADDON, W. fl. 1830. Line.

HODGETTS, J. fl. 1830. Mezzotint.

JACKSON, John. b. Ovingham 1801; d. 1848. Wood (Pupil of Bewick engraver. Published with Chatto "A and Harvey.) Treatise on Wood Engraving," 1838.

GIBBON, Benjamin b. 1802; d. London 1851. Line. Phelps. (Pupil of J. H. Robinson and Scriven).

SHENTON, Henry b. Winchester 1803; d. London 1866. Chawner. (Pupil of Line. Charles Warren.)

GILLER, W. fl. 1835. Mezzotint.

BRANDARD, Robert. b. Birmingham 1805; d. 1852. Line, (Pupil of E. Goodall.) landscape engraver. Came to London 1824. Engraved after J. M. W. Turner.

LEWIS, Charles George. b. 1807; d. 1880. Line, etching.

LUCAS, John. b. London 1807; d. London 1874. (Pupil of S. W. Mezzotint; portrait painter. Reynolds.)

RADCLYFFE, Edward. b. Birmingham 1809; d. London 1863. (Son and pupil of Line. William Radclyffe.)

JOUBERT, Jean b. 1810; d. 1884. Line. Ferdinand.

ZOBEL, George. b. c. 1815; d. London 1881. Mezzotint.

JEENS, Charles Henry. b. 1817; d. 1879. Stipple. Miniature book illustrations.

JACKSON, John b. Portsmouth 1819; d. Southsea 1877. Richardson. (Pupil of Mezzotint and line. R. Graves, A.E.)

COUSINS, Henry. fl. 1840. Mezzotint. (Brother of Saml. Cousins, R.A.)

WARD, George fl. 1840. Mezzotint. Raphael. (Son of James Ward.)

There are still living three engravers eminently representative of the old schools:--

DOO, George, R.A., F.R.S. b. c. 1800. Line.

POSSELWHITE, J. Stipple.

COUSINS, Samuel, R.A. b. 1801. Mezzotint. The present T. L. Atkinson was a pupil of Cousins.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] At the present day line engravers sometimes work on steel plates, as they are capable of supplying without damage a much greater number of proofs than can be printed from copper plates. It more frequently happens that a copper plate is coated with steel before being submitted to the action of the press, in order to preserve it, and to increase the number of copies without taking off the edge of the workmanship. That is to say, that by means of "electrotyping" a thin coat of metal is superimposed, which, since it considerably increases the power of endurance, increases the productiveness of the plate and the number of proofs that can be taken.

[2] Papillon, "Traité de la Gravure en Bois," 1766, vol. i., ch. 1.

[3] Pliny, "Hist. Nat.," xxxv., c. 2.

[4] "Materiali per servire alla Storia dell' Incisione," &c., p. 83 and following.

[5] That is the "Treatises on Latin Syntax" by Ælius Donatus, a grammarian of the fourth century. In the Middle Ages these treatises were much used in schools.

[6] Published by John Koelhoff under the name of "Cronica van der hilliger Stat van Coellen," p. 31 and after.

[7] "Essai historique et critique sur l'Invention de l'Imprimerie." Lille, 1859.

[8] This, at any rate, is what we feel tempted to do as regards the "Biblia Pauperum," a book containing xylographic illustrations, whose date has been variously estimated, and which we are disposed to believe even older than the first edition of the "Speculum." Heinecken, as usual, claims for Germany the production of this precious collection, which Ottley, with more appearance of reason, regards as the work of an artist of the Low Countries, who worked about 1420. In this way Germany would only have the right to claim the plates added in the German editions published forty years later, and which are far less perfect in point of style and arrangement than those of the original edition.

[9] The Dutch word _coster_ means churchwarden, or beadle.

[10] "Ideé générale d'une Collection d'Estampes, 1771," p. 305.

[11] "Discours Historique sur la Gravure." Paris, 1808.

[12] See in "L'Artiste," 1839, an article entitled "La plus ancienne Gravure du Cabinet des Estampes de la Bibliothèque royale est-elle ancienne?"

[13] "Notice sur deux Estampes de 1406, et sur les Commencements de la Gravure en Criblé." "Gazette des Beaux-arts," t. I^{er}, 2^e période, 1869.

[14] "Le Peintre-Graveur," Leipzig, 1860, vol. i., p. 84.

[15] "Une Passion de 1446. Suite de Gravures au Burin, les premières avec Date." Montpellier, 1857.

[16] "Archiv für die Zeichnenden Künste," 1858.

[17] The "Pax" is a metal plate which, at high mass and during the singing of the "Agnus Dei," the officiating priest gives to be kissed by the clergy and the devout, addressing to each of them these words: "Pax tecum." The "Pax" made by Finiguerra for the Baptistery of St. John has been removed from thence to the Uffizi, where it still is.

[18] It is useless to adduce the fine "Profile of a Woman," discovered a few years ago at Bologna, and now the property of the Berlin Museum, as an argument against the poverty we are trying to prove. This very important document is not only of uncertain date, but, as we have remarked elsewhere, the nature of its execution and style forbid one to look upon it as the work of any Florentine artist.

[19] Martin Schongauer was born at Colmar, in which town his father had settled as a goldsmith; there he passed the greatest part of his life, and there he died in 1488. Vasari sometimes speaks of him as "Antwerp Martin," or "Martin the Fleming." This is easily explained: a German or Flemish artist would be all one in the eyes of a Tuscan of the fifteenth century, as strangers were all barbarians to the ancient Romans.

[20] This is by no means universally admitted to be a genuine work by Martin Schongauer.

[21] He had no fewer than eighteen children; Albert was the third.

[22] Herr Moriz Thausing has treated this question exhaustively in his important work on Albert Dürer.

[23] The oldest known dated engraving by Marc Antonio, the "Pyramus and Thisbe," bears the date of 1505. If Marc Antonio, as we have reason to think, was born about 1480, he must have been already over twenty when he published this extremely commonplace print.

[24] Michael Huber ("Manuel des Curieux et des Amateurs de l'Art," t. iii.) says, word for word: "All that is wanted in these prints is a richer handling and that general aspect which we admire in the subjects engraved from Rubens." One might as well say that Petrarch's style would be improved by being Ariosto's.

[25] Agostino Caracci, who deserves to be numbered amongst the cleverest engravers of the end of the sixteenth century, did not blush to devote his talents to a similar publication, serious in style, but of most obscene intention. The Bolognese artist, like his celebrated countryman, seems to have wished to display at once his science and his shamelessness. The one only serves to make the other more inexcusable, and it is even still more difficult to tolerate this austere immodesty than the licentiousness, without æsthetic pretension, which characterises the little French prints sold under the rose in the eighteenth century.

[26] Passavant: "Le Peintre-Graveur," iii. 5.

[27] "Les Maîtres d'Autrefois," p. 165.

[28] In the National Library at Paris a collection of over a hundred trial proofs, retouched by Rubens himself, exists to bear witness to the careful attention with which he overlooked the work of his engravers.

[29] At the time of Callot's birth Lorraine was not yet French territory; but as it was during his life that Nancy was taken by the king's army, we have a right to include him among French artists.

[30] He was in all twelve years in Italy: three in Rome, and nine in Florence.

[31] William Faithorne, the first line engraver worth mentioning in the history of English art, did not even begin to be known till after Charles I. After the king's fall, Faithorne, who was a Royalist, went to France, where, under Nanteuil, he perfected himself in his art, and did not finally settle in England till near the end of 1650.

[32] Hollar is not merely one of the most distinguished of German engravers. There are few artists in any country who have handled the needle with so much skill and intelligence; there is probably none who has so greatly excelled in rendering the details of apparel and of the daintiest objects. His achievement numbers more than 2,000 prints, which, in spite of their small size, and the generally trifling nature of the subjects, deserve to be classed amongst the most remarkable etched work of the seventeenth century.

[33] His first plates are sometimes signed "De Leeuw," sometimes "Tomaes de Leu," which has led many writers--M. Robert-Dumesnil among them--to suppose that he migrated to Paris from a town in Flanders.

[34] It represents a "Holy Family," with this inscription on a stone, to the right: "R. Nanteuil Philosophiæ Auditor Sculpebat Rhemis An^o dni 1645."

[35] These flights were not Nanteuil's last. There is extant a sort of petition in verse, which he one day presented to Louis XIV. to excuse himself for not having finished in time a portrait ordered by the king. These rhymes, quoted by the Abbé Lambert in his "Histoire Littéraire du Règne de Louis XIV.," and some others composed by Nanteuil in praise of Mlle. de Scudéry, are not such to make us regret that he did not more frequently lay aside the graver for the pen.

[36] The greater part of Nanteuil's drawings are in three crayons, made out in places with light tints in pastel. The colour is sober and delicate, and offers a good deal of resemblance to the charming French crayons of the sixteenth century. Nanteuil doubtless produced many portraits which he never engraved, but he engraved very few that he had not previously produced. It must also be remarked, that in his achievement, which is composed of more than two hundred and thirty pieces, there are not more than eighteen subject pictures or illustrations. It is worthy, too, of special note that there are only eight portraits in which the hands are seen, and in six of these only one hand is shown.

[37] "Édit de Saint Jean-de-Luz," 1660.

[38] Claude, it is true, was still alive in 1667; but after his second installation in Rome (1627), he never saw France again.

[39] Vitet: "Eustache Lesueur."

[40] It is said that Lebrun one day proclaimed that Audran had "improved his pictures." It is possible he may have said, "that he had not spoilt them." Such an expression in the mouth of such a man is quite modest enough; but it is difficult to imagine Lebrun so far humbling himself in public.

[41] We said that Edelinck was born at Antwerp; but as he was very young when he took up his abode in France, and as he never returned to his native country, we may be allowed to include him in the French school with as much right as his countryman, Philippe de Champaigne.

[42] Amongst Audran's most distinguished scholars, we need only mention the following names: Gaspard Duchange; Dorigny, summoned to London by Queen Anne; Louis Desplaces; and Nicolas Henri Tardieu, founder of a family of clever engravers, the last of whom died in 1844, worthy of the name he bore.

[43] Engraver of the "Assumption" of Philippe de Champaigne. He must not be confused with another Bartholomew Kilian, his ancestor, and the head of a family in which there are no less than twenty engravers.

[44] Some of these little unpretentious amateur prints are not without charm; some even show a certain amount of talent in the execution, and the portraits drawn and engraved by Carmontelle, the author of the "Proverbes," deserve, amongst others, to be mentioned on that account.

[45] In his landscapes, Woollett makes use of etching, line, and the dry-point, all three. Philippe Le Bas was the first to make use of dry-point to render the misty tones of distances and the clearness of skies. This mode of engraving, improved by Vivarès, was carried to its highest perfection by Woollett. Certain English artists of the same period tried to apply the process of mezzotint to landscape engraving; but the landscapes engraved in this way by Watson and Brookshaw, after the German Kobell, will not bear comparison with Woollett's.

[46] In a work dedicated to Pitt, "On the Origin of Trade and its History to the Present Times" (London, 1790), we read that the prints exported from England at that time were, as compared with those imported from France, in the proportion of "five hundred to one by the most exact computation," and that the trade in English engravings, far from being restricted to one or two countries, extended all over Europe.

[47] The credit of the invention is really due to Jean Charles François, born at Nancy in 1717. But the application that François made of his discovery was--if we consider the improvements introduced soon afterwards by Demarteau--still so incomplete that it seems only fair to attribute to the latter a principal share in the original success.

[48] "Lettre de Cochin, Secrétaire perpétuel de l'Académie, au Sieur François," 26th November, 1757.

[49] Before giving himself up almost exclusively to the practice of aquatint, Debucourt produced a large number of engravings in colour: "Le Jardin" and "La Galerie de Bois au Palais Royal," the "Promenade aux Tuileries," "L'Escalade," and so forth. We know the ardour, verging on mania, with which these prints, albeit of little value from an artistic point of view, are now collected.

[50] This important publication contains, in four sections, the most remarkable pictures and sculptures of the Louvre, as it existed after Napoleon had enriched it with masterpieces from every school. Begun in 1802, it was continued till 1811.

[51] This fine cathedral, burnt with so many other churches in the great fire, was 690 feet in length, 130 feet broad, and 520 feet high at the top of the spire.

[52] The tear-shaped pieces of glass (Lachrimæ Vitreæ), which resist hard blows applied at the thick end, yet fly to pieces the moment a fragment is broken off the fine end, were first brought to England by Prince Rupert, and are called popularly "Prince Rupert's drops."

[53] This print represents a tall, powerful-looking man, standing with naked sword in one hand, and holding up in the other the head of St. John the Baptist.

[54] Other names given to mezzotint out of England are: Schwarzkunst, black art; La manière anglaise, L'incisione a foggia nera, engraving in black fashion or manner.

[55] This engraver must not be confused with John Keyse Sherwin, whose line engravings produced a century later are well known.

[56] This Club was instituted in 1703, the year after the accession of Queen Anne, to promote the Protestant succession, the members meeting at the "Cat and Fiddle" in Shire Lane, Fleet Street, kept by Christopher Kat, from whom it took the name. The particular size known amongst artists as Kit-cat, just below the waist and not quite three-quarter length, also acquired its name from this series of portraits, which were painted their particular length to suit the walls of Tonson's villa at Barn Elms.

[57] John Riley, Jonathan Richardson, Michael Dahl, John Closterman, John Vanderbank, and Thomas Hudson.

[58] The date of McArdell's birth is often erroneously given as 1710 instead of 1728-9 according to the above authority.

[59] James Walker must not be confused either with Anthony and his brother William, or with the stipple and mezzotint engraver William Walker of the present century. James Walker's prints are not numerous, a great number of his plates and prints having been lost from the foundering of the vessel which was bringing them back to England from Russia, where Walker had lived for seventeen years, having been appointed in 1784 engraver to the Empress Catherine.

[60] A painter more generally known as Langen Jan, born at Munster in 1610, the correct name being John or Johann van Bockhorst; the name, however, appears as above in the engraving.

[61] On the foundation of the Royal Academy in 1768, Bartolozzi, to the exclusion of Strange and Woollett, was admitted one of the first forty members with full membership; all engravers afterwards up to the year 1855 could only be elected as associate members.

[62] This engraver was in no way related to the better-known stipple and historical engraver of the same name who flourished in the present century.

[63] Woollett was buried in Old St. Pancras Churchyard; on a plain tombstone which marks the spot were found one day written in pencil the two lines--

"Here Woollett rests, expecting to be sav'd, He graved well, but is not well engrav'd."

Shortly afterwards a subscription was raised, to which Benjamin West and John Boydell contributed, for the purpose of erecting the above-mentioned tablet which now stands in the West Cloister.

[64] Opie painted a life-size head of S. W. Reynolds, and of his daughter Elizabeth as "Red Riding Hood" (exhibited at the winter exhibition of the Royal Academy, 1876); this portrait of herself Elizabeth engraved in mezzotint at the age of fourteen.

[65] Father of the late E. W. Cooke, R.A.

[66] Walker engraved the portrait of Raeburn with the special purpose of proving the contrary.

[67] John Lucas, the well-known portrait painter and also engraver in mezzotint, was likewise a pupil of Reynolds.

[68] The plate of Salisbury Cathedral was engraved at Constable's expense and published in 1837 by Messrs. Hodgson, Graves and Co., for the painter. After his sudden death in the same year it was sold at Foster's, Pall Mall, in 1838, and bought in for eighty guineas, hardly the price of two proofs at the present time.

Through the kindness of Mr. Algernon Graves, the writer has had access to many manuscript notes written by David Lucas.

[69] Brother of Samuel Cousins, R.A.

[70] Better known in France, where he settled in 1816, he died in the neighbourhood of Paris in 1843, and introduced there the mode of cutting on the end of the grain instead of with the grain as was before the practice.

[71] First introduced in 1840, although not in general practice until some years later.

[72] On the principle of that which is known as "engine turning," as seen on the back of watch-cases.

[73] It is also necessary to point out that no impression damaged from course of time or printed from a worn-out plate can give any idea of the original engraving as a work of art. Other things being equal, proofs are primâ facie likely to be the best impressions, but a good print (that is a later impression), if in good condition, is far more valuable than a damaged or rubbed proof, however early the state may be.

INDEX.

PAGE

Agesilaus, King of Sparta, 8

Agostino, Veniziano, 106

Aldegrever, 93

Ambling, Gustave, 209

Amman, Jost, 175

Andrea, Zoan, 74

Andreani, Andrea, 111

Andrews, J., 328

Antonio da Brescia, Giovanni, 74

Ardell, 172, 300, 301

Aretino, Pietro, 109, 110, 136

D'Argenville, 224

Atkinson, 324

Aveline, 216

Audran, Gérard, 6, 178, 194-202, 207, 211, 216, 237

Baillie, Will, 310

Baldini, Baccio, 60-65

Balechou, 229-231

Barbari, Jacopo de', 74

Barlow, F., 291, 292

Bartolozzi, 237-239, 305, 313, 314

Battista del Porto, 77

Baudet, Étienne, 189

Beatrizet, Nicolas, 151

Beauvarlet, 226

Beckett, Isaac, 297, 298

Beham, Bartholomew, 93, 94

Beham, Hans Sebald, 93, 94

Bella, Stefano della, 162

Berghem, 139

Bernard, Auguste, 12

Bernhardinus, Milnet, 44

Bernini, 168

Bertinot, 278

Bervic, 249, 252-255, 259, 260, 274

Bewick, 315, 326

Binck, Jacob, 94

Biot, 285

Blackmore, 302

Blake, W., 310, 311

Blanchard, 278

Blootelingh, Abraham, 297

"B M", 85

Bochelt, Franz von, 84

Boldrini, Nicolò, 116

Bolswert, 132, 133, 149, 177

Bonasone, da Bologna, 106

Bonnet, 242

Bonzonnet, Claudine, 189

Borromini, 168

Bosse, Abraham, 164, 166, 169, 207

Both, Jan, 139

Botticelli, 60, 62

Boulanger, 237

Boydell, 315

Boyvin, René, 151

Branston, R., 326

Brauwer, Adrian, 139

Breughels, 134

Bromley, 320

Brookshaw, 234, 302

Browne, John, 307

Bruyn, Nicolas van, 131

Burgkmair, Hans, 113

Burke, 314

Burnet, John, 320

Burt, 328

Calamatta, 269

Callot, Jacques, 138, 156-166, 175-177, 205

Canta-Gallina, 158, 162

Cantarini, 162

Caracci, Agostino, 110, 138, 158

Caracci, Annibale, 168

Caraglio, Giovanni, da Verona, 106

Cardon, Anthony, 313

Carmona, 226

Carmontelle, 224

Carpi, Ugo da, 111, 112

Cars, Laurent, 213-216

Casilear, 329

Caylus, Count, 224, 240

Cerceau, du, Adrian, 155

Chapman, 327

Chauveau, 204

Chedel, 217

Cheesman, 314

Cheney, 328

Chevreuse, Duc de, 224

Chodowiecki, 228

Church, 327

Cipriani, 237

Claessens, Alart, 130

Clennell, 326

Clint, George, 320

Cochin, 218, 219, 240

Coigny, Marquis de, 224

Cooke, George William, 320

Copia, 252

Corneille, Claude, 153

Cornelis, 134

Cornelius, 94

Cort, Cornelius, 130

Cortona, da, Pietro, 198

Coster, Laurence, 14, 16, 22, 28

Cousin, 150, 151

Cousins, Henry, 324

Cousins, Samuel, 266, 267, 322

Cranach, Lucas, 113

Cunego, Domenichino, 228

Cunio, Cavaliere Alberico, 9

Dagoty, Gautier, 243

Danforth, 329

Danguin, 278

Daullé, 226

David, Emeric, 10, 31

David, Louis, 248, 250

Dawe, Henry, 320

Dean, John, 302

De Bry, 287

Debucourt, 245

De Kaiser, 285

Delaram, François, 289

Delaune, Étienne, 151, 153, 154

De Leu, Thomas, 156, 157, 179

Demarteau, Gilles, 239-242

De Passe, Crispin, 288

De Passe, Magdalen, 288

De Passe, Simon, 288

Desnoyers, Boucher, 249, 259, 260, 270, 274

Desplaces, Louis, 201

Deuchar, David, 310

Dick, 328

Dickinson, 172, 302

Dienecker, Jost., 111

Dixon, John, 302

Domenichino, 168

Doo, 324

Dorigny, 201

Drevet, Claude, 211

Drevet, Imbert, 211

Drevet, Pierre, 211

Duchange, Gaspard, 201

Duflos, 216

Du Jardin, Karel, 140

Dumonstier, Geofroy, 151

Dupuis, 216, 226

Durand, 328

Dürer, Albert, 17, 87-95, 97-100, 102, 106, 112, 113, 116, 120, 122, 128, 176, 177

Duveneck, 327

Duvet, Jean, 151, 152

Earlom, 172, 302, 303

Edelinck, 184-186, 189, 191-196, 200, 220

Edwin, David, 328

Elstracke, Reginald, 289

Faber, John, senior, 298, 299

Faber, John, junior, 298, 299

Fairman, 329

Faithorne, Will, 170, 289

Felsing, 263

Finiguerra, 35, 38, 47, 52-56, 62, 76

Fiquet, 218, 220, 222, 223

Fisher, Edward, 301

Flipart, 217

Forrest, J. B., 328

Francia, Francesco, 102

Francia, Jacopo, 74

Franck, 285

François, Alphonse, 278

François, Jean Charles, 239-242

François, Jules, 276

Frye, Thomas, 300, 301

Füst, 29

Gaillard, 278

Gantrel, 189

Garnier, Noel, 151

Gaugain, Thomas, 313

Gaultier, Leonard, 156, 179

Gaywood, R., 292

Geminus, Thomas, 288

Gherardo da Modena, 82

Ghisi, Diana, 106

Gifford, 327

Giller, William, 324

Gilli, 282

Gimbrede, 328

Giolito da Ferrari, 115

Giotto, 53

Girard, 246

Glockenton, 85

Golding, Richard, 320

Goltzius, Hendrik, 130, 131

Gomboust, Jacques, 203

Gourmont, Jean de, 153

Goya, 139

Grateloup, 220

Gravelle, de, President, 224

Graves, Robert, 324

Greche, Domenico delle, 116

Green, Valentine, 172, 302

Greenwood, John, 301

Greuze, 216

Grün, Baldung, 93

Gutenburg, 8, 13-15, 17, 18, 28, 35, 47, 49, 51, 53, 54, 60, 76-78, 82, 86, 176

Haden, Seymour, 282, 325, 326

Haid, 304

Hainzelmann, Johann, 208

Hamerton, 326

Hardouin, 82

Harvey, Will, 326

Heath, Charles, 320, 329

Heath, James, 309, 315

Henriquel-Dupont, 271-277

Hogarth, William, 231-233, 300, 304

Hogenberg, François, 288

Hogenberg, Remigius, 288

Hollar, 170, 171, 177, 287, 290-292

Hopwood, James, 320

Houbraken, J., 228

Houston, Richard, 301

Huot, 278

Il Vecchio da Parma, 106

Ingram, 226

Jackson, 324, 326

Jacobe, 304

Jacobi, 285

Jacquemart, 280-283

Jazet, 245, 246

Jeens, C. H., 314

Jeens, J. H., 325

Jones, John, 302

Kauffmann, Angelica, 237

Kaulbach, 94

Keller, Franz, 262

Kilian, Bartholomew, 209

Kirkall, Edw., 311-313

Klaus, 285

Kobell, 234

Laborde, Léon, 12, 36-38

Landseer, John, 320

Larmessin, Nicolas de, 216

Lasne, Michel, 180

Lastman, 243

Laugier, 276

Law, David, 326

Lawrie, Robert, 302

Le Bas, 216, 234

Leblond, J. Christophe, 242, 243, 311, 312

Lebrun, 184, 187, 189, 194, 196, 198, 199

Leclerc, Sebastien, 184, 204

Legat, F., 309

Le Joséphin, 158

Lepautre, 204

Lepicié, 216, 230

Leprince, J. B., 244

Le Roy, Philip, 134

Levasseur, 217

Lewis, 324

Leyden, Lucas van, 118-131, 134, 176

Linton, 326

Longhi, 256

Lorraine, Claude, 138, 160, 162, 165, 167, 177

Louis, Aristide, 276

Loutherbourg, 231

Lucas, David, 322-324

Lucas, John, 322

Ludy, 262

Lupton, Thomas, 320

Lutma, Jan, 238

Lützelburger, 113-115

Luynes, Duchess of, 224

"Maitre à l'Écrevisse", 130

"Maitre à l'Étoile", 130

Major, Thomas, 304

Mantegna, Andrea, 68-74, 85, 124, 176, 177

Mantovani, 106

Marc Antonio, Raimondi, 66, 73, 91, 92, 100-113, 120, 122, 124, 133, 176-178

Marc de Bye, 140

Marco da Ravenna, 106

Marcolini da Forli, 115

Marshall, 329

Massaloff, 282

Massard, 250

Massé, 229

Masson, 189, 194, 211

"Master of the Bird", 77

"Master of the Caduceus", 74

"Master of Colmar", 76

"Master of Nuremberg", 94

"Master of the Streamers", 118

"Master of 1466", 49, 51, 53, 76-78, 82, 86

"Masters, The Little", 93, 162, 169, 177

Mechenen, Israel van, 84

Mellan, Claude, 180

Memling, 22

Mendel, 263

Mercuri, 269

Merian, Matthew, 170

Merz, 262

Meyer, Henry, 320

Mignard, 194, 196

Mocetto, 74, 75

Molés, Pascal, 226

Montenay, Georgette de, 156

Moran, 327

Morel, 250

Morghen, 106, 255-258, 260, 269

Morin, Jean, 6, 179, 181, 211, 237

Morris, Thomas, 309

Moser, 237

Müller, Christian Fred, 258-261

Müller, Jan, 130, 131

Müller, John Godard, 258, 259

Musi, Agostino, 151

Nanteuil, Robert, 180-184, 186, 189-192, 194, 202, 209, 211, 220

Nesbitt, 326

Niccoló della Casa, 152

Niccoló, of Pisa, 53

Nicoletto da Modena, 74, 82

Ogborn, John, 314

Ostade, Adrian van, 139

Ottley, 328

Parrish, Stephen, 327

Peale, Charles Wilson, 328

Pencz, Georg, 93

Pennell, 327

Perkins, 329

Pesne, Jean, 187-189, 193, 194

Pether, William, 302

Petitot, 220, 222

Pichler, 304

Pitau, Nicolas, 191

Poilly, François de, 189, 191, 194, 204, 207, 209

Pollajuolo, Antonio, 55, 62, 85

Pompadour, Mme. de, 224, 225

Pontius, Paul, 132, 133, 149, 177

Porporati, 226, 227

Posselwhite, 324

Potter, Paul, 138, 139

Poussin, 160

Preisler, Martin, 226

Prestel, Katherine, 237

Prévost, 246

Raimbach, Abraham, 266, 267

Raimondi (see Marc Antonio).

Raphael, 101-108

Reboul, Mme., 224

Redlich, 282

Regent, The Prince, of France, 223

Regnesson, 182

Régnier, Mathurin, 160

Rembrandt, 104, 128, 140-148, 177

Reynolds, Sir J., 172, 231, 233

Reynolds, Samuel, 266, 267, 317-322

Ribera, 139, 175

Richomme, 276

Rigaud, 211, 214

Ritchie, 328

Robert, 284

Robetta, 67

Robinson, 324

Roger, Barthélemy, 252

Rogers, William, 288

Romano, Giulio, 102, 108-110

Rosa, Salvator, 159

Roullet, 189, 194

Rousseaux, 276

Rubens, 131-133, 176, 178

Rupert, Prince, 171-173, 292, 296

Ruysdael, J., 139

Ryder, Thomas, 314

Ryland, 226, 228, 238, 239, 270, 309, 310

St. Aubin, Augustin, 218-221

St. Non, Abbé de, 240

Saint-Ygny, 164

Sanson, Adrien, 203

Sanson, Guillaume, 203

Sartain, John, 328

Savart, 220

Say, William, 320

Schäffer, 262

Schaüflein, Hans, 93, 113

Schmidt, 226

Schön, Bartholomew, 84

Schongauer, Martin, 76, 78-86, 91, 117, 176, 177

Scott, John, 320

Scultori, Diana (see Ghisi).

Seghers, 243

Selma, Fernando, 228

Sharp, William, 305, 308, 309, 315

Sherborne, W. H., 325

Sherwin, John Keyse, 297, 309

Sherwin, William, 296, 297

Silvestre, Israel, 138, 164, 177

Simon, Jean, 298

Simoneau, Charles, 229

Slocombe, 326

Smillies, 328

Smith, Anker, 309, 316

Smith, Beckett, 297, 298

Smith, John, 297, 298

Smith, J. R., 172, 302

Snyders, Franz, 134

Sonnenleiter, 285

Soutman, 132, 133

Spencer, Asa, 329

Spierre, François, 204

Spilsbury, John, 302

Star, Dirck (see Van Staren).

Steinfensand, 262

Steinla, 263

Stella, Claudine (see Bonzonnet).

Strange, Robert, 226, 228, 234, 270, 305-307

Sullivan, Luke, 304, 305

Suyderhoef, Jonas, 136, 149

Tardieu, Alexandre, 249, 251, 259, 270

Tardieu, Nicolas Henri, 201, 226

Taylor, 243

Thaeter, 262

Thompson, Charles, 326

Thompson, John, 326

Tiebout, C., 328

Tinney, John, 307

Titian, 116

Tomkins, P. W., 314

Toschi, 269

Tory, Geofroy, 151

Trento, Antonio da, 111

Turner, Charles, 316, 317

Unger, 282

Vaillant, Wallerant, 172, 296

Van Dalen, Cornelius, 136, 177

Van Dyck, 133, 134

Van Eyck, 18, 22, 28

Van Schuppen, 194, 208, 209

Van Staren, Dirck, 130

Velde, Adrian van de, 140

Veldenaer, John, 17

Vermeulen, Cornelius, 209

Vicentino, Nicolò, 111

Vissher, Cornelius, 135-137, 149, 177

Vivarès, 229-231, 305

Volpato, 255, 269

Von Siegen, Ludwig, 171, 172, 292, 296

Vorsterman, 132, 133, 177, 287

Vostre, Simon, 82

Wagner, Joseph, 226

Walker, Anthony, 302, 307

Walker, James, 302

Walker, William, 302, 308, 313, 321, 322

Ward, William, 316

Watelet, 224

Watson, Caroline, 313

Watson, James, 172, 302

Watson, Thomas, 172, 302

Watt, J. H., 324

Watteau, 214

Weber, 285

Wenceslas, of Olmütz, 84

Weirotter, 228

Whistler, 326, 327

White, G., 298

Wierix, 131

Wille, John George, 226, 259

Woeiriot, Pierre, 153

Wolgemut, Michael, 87-89, 113

Woollett, 229, 231, 234, 236, 270, 305, 307, 308

Woolnoth, Thomas, 320, 321

Worlidge, Thomas, 310

Wren, Sir Ch., 296

Young, John, 302

Zell, Ulric, 14-16

PRINTED BY CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED, LA BELLE SAUVAGE, LONDON, E.C.

Transcriber's Notes:

Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.

Simple typographical errors were corrected.

Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained.

When necessary, illustrations were moved so as to not interrupt the flow of text.

Footnotes were moved to the end of the book, just before the Index.

Table of Contents lists "A CHAPTER ON ENGLISH ENGRAVING" as being on page 278, but it is on page 287. Corrected here.

Page 330: Three asterisks represent an inverted asterism.