THE DELLA CllUSOA SCHOOL OF ENGRAVING. 377 



the forms whose contour should be gracefully varied. Who can 

 admire all this stuff, that is capable of enjoying a line drawn with a 

 tasteful and powerful hand, alternating the utmost delicacy with the 

 greatest firmness of touch, like some of Paganini's notes ? In the 

 diminutive figures of a small landscape, a spirited line that shall pick 

 out the form with decision is as much wanted as in a large subject, 

 or more so. Daylight in Nature fetches put all objects with precision 

 and clearness. Moonlight is the softener under which subduing 

 spell the artists we have alluded to seem to toil. In some of the 

 novel embellishments, we observe the same repulsive Carlo Dolci 

 smoothness. The vignettes make us desire a wood cut in their 

 places. If the steel vignettes in Rogers' Italy, from STOTHARD'S 

 drawings, are preferable as book illustrations to Clennell's wood cuts 

 in the Pleasures of Memory, why then, our writing is vain and our 

 taste is folly ; the cartoons are no better than the tapestry worked 

 from them ; Michael Angelo swindled the Church of Rome out of 

 her patronage, and the Elgin Marbles are only fit to Macdamize 

 Mount Pleasant. 



Not but that the Italy is a sweet work. It is cloying there is a 

 display of the most consummate finish it is so painfully wrought, 

 that the sense aches at it ; nevertheless, in turning from page to page 

 of the other poem, those little designs drawn on the wood by the 

 veteran STOTHARD himself, affect us by the honest vigour of their 

 execution, which is by no means detrimental to their exquisite grace. 

 The confident art exhibited in these Raffaellesque groups, bears an 

 Al Fresco character, as if fanned by a healthy air it partakes of the 

 nature of the evergreen. We beg here to say a word to the wood 

 engravers, who have in many instances gone out of their way in 

 attempting to rival the colour or toning of copper-plate ; this mad 

 ambition endangers the success of their printing, and supersedes that 

 execution which is so pleasing on wood, viz., the fac-simile style of 

 line after the manner of etching : we would rather that the engraver 

 on steel should endeavour to infuse into his style, some of the bright 

 and sharp effect of the best wood cuts, than that his brother of the 

 block wasted his pains in useless efforts to rival the softness of the 

 Satinic school. 



It is time, however, to do justice to the best examples of our 

 copper and steel-plate embellishments. Some of the Annuals, and 

 other illustrated works, contain engravings of a style the very 

 summit of their peculiar line of art ; highly wrought, yet spirited 

 and faithful to the beautiful designs they multiply rivalling, on a 

 reduced scale, the mellow tone and roundness of relief of STRANGE 

 or BARTOLOZZI. In the Keepsake, there are female heads and half 

 lengths quite extraordinary for execution and exact modelling of the 

 figure. The lines seem to flow over the varying surface of the 

 neck, face, arms, hands, with a blended suavity and decision the 

 contour is clear, yet softened into the adjacent parts, and a quiet tone 

 subdues the whole as in a richly glazed painting ; the hair is glossy 

 the jewels sparkle amidst the satins or encircle with bright lights the 

 delicately rounded arms. These are triumphs of art such plates cannot 

 be manufactured ; the master hand must conduct their lines, which are 

 M.M. No. 88. 2 S 



